What I Didn't Know About FAA

Before becoming editor of Ground Support Worldwide, all I knew about FAA was that it kept the skies safe for everyone’s air travel throughout the United States. The regulators must be doing something right: Fatal accidents in commercial air carriers now happen once in every 10 million flight hours – less than a third the rate just two decades ago. What led to FAA’s recent shutdown, however, didn’t have anything to do with its safety mission. FAA needed new authorization from Congress to fund its operations. The agency has had to go hat in hand to Congress quite often since it’s been without a long-term plan for the past four years. Republicans and Democrats turned a relatively straight-forward request for dollars to run a government agency into a poker tournament with nothing but bluffers on both sides holding pairs of twos. If I didn’t know better, I’d figure the agency is now primarily in the business of union-busting and choosing what carriers get to fly an expanded tally of long-range flights going in and out of Reagan National Airport. I’d also assume FAA was in charge of doling out $200 million in annual federal subsidies under the Essential Air Service program. The EAS subsidizes flights to approximately 150 communities in more than 30 states. Turns out the program, started back in 1978 along with the advent of airline deregulation, was supposed to end in 1988. I can’t think of too many government programs that, once started, ever end. This one’s no exception with its cost increasing some 300 percent in just the past 10 years. From a scan of today’s headlines, I read an AP article about how Great Lakes Aviation often flies empty planes between Ely, NV, and Las Vegas. The AP says just 227 passengers flew out of Ely last year and paid only $70 to $90 per ticket. Meanwhile, the program gave the airline almost $2 million in subsidies – or a little more than $4,100 per ticket for a 225-mile flight. Everyone knows, however, that FAA doesn’t arbitrate labor or determine flights for one airport or flights to a lot of rural airports. FAA can only do what Congress authorizes and appropriates it to do. Congress will be back in D.C. the week of Sept 6, and that only gives the senators and representatives until Sept. 16 to either develop a long-range plan for FAA or craft another extension. The FAA needs what the aviation industry needs, which is what any industry needs in this economy – a sense of stability that can only come with a solid, long-term financial plan that can free managers to focus on what matters.