Aviation Safety Public Law

Public Law 111-216 was signed on August 1st, 2010 by President Obama, which makes me imagine what the FAA was thinking with how much work was ahead for them in a very short amount of time.  This public law alters things drastically for the entire airline industry as it changes requirements for airline crew members, self-reporting systems, and Safety Management Systems.  For crew members they must now have at least 1,500 flight hours, function effectively in a multipilot environment, function effectively in adverse weather conditions, including icing conditions, function effectively during high altitude operations, adhere to the highest professional standards and function effectively in an air carrier operational environment.  The self-reporting systems must be implemented for every 121 air carrier operations, and if a company has more than one then they must report how they differ and how each is beneficial to the company.  They must also be able to pull information for the Administrator and share data with them.  For the Safety Management Systems they must include all of the following items: An aviation safety action program, a flight operational quality assurance program, a line operations safety audit, and an advanced qualification program.  A lot of companies already have these implemented into their company however for those that do not, they will have a lot of difficulty in getting these systems set up with the short amount of time they have been provided.

Previous to this Public Law a person, such as myself, could build up hours by becoming a flight instructor, bush piloting, or some sort of other means and then move onto become a first officer for a regional airline approximately at 600-800 hours.  Now with the requirement changing to 1,500 total time the opportunity to get a flight instructor, bush pilot, or any other type of pilot job will be much more difficult.  We will now have to wait until those pilots in their positions can move up to what they want to do in the airline industry, while more and more pilots will have to wait for positions to become available.

This will add a degree of difficulty to the intro aviator as it will potentially cause a wait before you can get a job flying and then put you in a larger bind by not being able to pay back loans that had to be taken out to get through ratings.  This will be a struggle for flight schools to find people who want to go through a lot of training and testing and then not be able to get a job after all of that hard work and effort. 

Although this will give pilots coming into the airline industry more experience doing something like instructing, pipeline work, or something else when they come into the new job, it seems to be a very reactive response by those in Congress.  Flight hours are almost everything in order to simply get a job interview and although it is understandable to want more flight hours once someone starts flying a large jet there is a certain point where it becomes excessive.  If you have a pilot who gets about 1,250 flight hours by instructing, pipeline work, bush pilot work, most of which is done in a smaller aircraft; what is the benefit to have them wait longer to get into a jet?

In addition to what I have already stated, it seems like it will be very difficult for the FAA with the timelines that were given to them in this Public Law.  Rarely in the aviation industry does a law go in place in under a year, and in some instances in this Public Law the Administrator (FAA) is to give a final law notice no later than 12 months after the public law comes into effect.  Although it is possible for this to happen, there seems to be little respect for deliberation and altering rules to better fit the airline industry so that things can be the best for the industry and for airlines in general.  Without time and collaboration to come together with the best solution, something can be put in place that is detrimental to the airline industry.