Congressional negotiators reached an agreement on a $105 billion bill aimed at improving air travel safety after a series of close encounters between aircraft at US airports.
House and Senate lawmakers said the bill will increase the number of air traffic controllers and require the Federal Aviation Administration to use new technology designed to prevent collisions between aircraft on runways. .
Lawmakers agreed to prohibit airlines from charging an additional fee for families to sit together, and also tripled the maximum amount of fines for airlines that violate consumer protection laws. However, they left out other consumer protections proposed by President Joe Biden’s government.
The initiative was negotiated by Republicans and Democrats who chair the committees in both Houses responsible for overseeing the FAA, which has been under scrutiny since it approved Boeing planes that were soon involved in two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019. The proposal law will govern FAA operations for the next five years.
Issue could be put to a vote this week
The Senate could vote on the 1,069-page measure as soon as this week, but the process could be delayed if senators try to attach unrelated bills to it.
The FAA currently operates under a temporary authorization that expires on May 10, and Congress may need to approve a new extension.
The House of Representatives approved its version of the bill last year, but a Senate committee gave the green light to a different version in February after disputes over several clauses, including those related to the training and retirement age of employees. pilots.
In the end, negotiators left aside a Lower House provision that raises the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots to 67, so it will remain at 65.
Both Houses had already avoided a highly controversial issue by narrowly rejecting a proposal that had been supported by smaller airlines and that would allow aspiring pilots to count more hours spent in simulators, and not on flights, to reach standards. minimum experience.
The FAA suffers from a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers nationwide.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and is among the negotiators, said the final proposal shows “that aviation safety and higher standards of consumer protection are a big priority… It’s also the first major update to air traffic controller hiring in decades.”
Source: With information from AFP.
