PASS Commends House Passage of Aviation Safety Enhancement Act

Details: Published: July 09, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, the union that represents over 11,000 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) including aviation safety inspectors, is calling yesterday’s unanimous passage of the Aviation Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 6493) a long overdue step in instilling real change at the FAA. The bill stems from the recent Inspector General (IG) report, which outlined several recommendations to the FAA in addressing safety issues, some of which the FAA refused to consider.

“We commend House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), Ranking Member John Mica (R-Fla.), Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Thomas Petri (R-Wisc.) for taking the lead on addressing PASS’s concerns regarding serious safety lapses at the FAA,” said PASS President Tom Brantley. “Aviation safety inspectors feel very strongly that these steps will improve FAA oversight of the industry and increase safety for the traveling public. It’s time for the FAA to take its regulatory and enforcement role seriously and abandon its reckless ‘business as usual’ mentality.”

Provisions of the bill include the following:

Creation of an independent Aviation Safety Whistleblower Investigation Office within the FAA to receive and investigate safety
complaints submitted by FAA employees or employees of certificated entities, and recommend appropriate corrective action to the FAA
Modification of the FAA Customer Service Initiative (CSI) policy, which currently views entities regulated by the agency as “customers,” in order to make clear that the flying public is the customer
Establishment of a two-year cooling-off period for FAA inspectors or persons responsible for FAA inspectors before they can act as an agent or representative before the FAA of a certificate holder that they oversaw during their service with the FAA
Requirement to rotate supervisory principal inspectors between FAA airline oversight offices every five years
Implementation of monthly reviews of the Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS) database

For more information or questions, please contact Kori Blalock Keller at (202) 293-7277 x110.

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PASS represents more than 11,000 employees of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense who install, maintain, support and certify air traffic control and national defense equipment, inspect and oversee the commercial and general aviation industries, develop flight procedures, and perform quality analyses of the aviation systems. For more information, visit the PASS website at www.passnational.org.