The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years on Thursday, sending the bill to the Senate with a little over two months until the current authorization expires.
The House’s version of the legislation includes a number of changes that could affect air travel for passengers. It would address an air traffic controller shortage, provide funding to upgrade, invest in the agency’s technology, and more. The bill also reauthorizes the National Transportation Safety Board through fiscal 2028.
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The final tally was 351 to 69.
“Today, the House voted to bolster America’s global aviation leadership,” said Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), the senior Democrat on the Transportation Committee. “This good faith process yielded a bipartisan bill that will create a safer, cleaner, greener and more accessible U.S. aviation system. It will maintain our gold standard in safety and innovation, make a more sustainable and resilient aviation sector a reality and improve accessibility and consumer protections for all passengers.”
Lawmakers overcame a number of obstacles Wednesday evening after rejecting a bipartisan proposal 229 to 205 to add seven new round-trip flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
At issue was the perimeter rule, which limits the number of flights that travel more than 1,250 miles from DCA. Both Reagan and Dulles International Airport are owned by the federal government, which means Congress has the power to decide how they operate.
Delta Air Lines and Western lawmakers argued Reagan National Airport has been underutilized, and United Airlines and Washington, D.C.-area lawmakers claim the airport is already among one of the busiest in the country. An internal FAA memo found that 20 more daily round-trip operations would increase delays by 25.9%, and an increase of 25 daily round-trip operations would increase delays by 33.2% at DCA.
“The defeat of this amendment is a win for our region, for my constituents, and for all passengers who value safe and efficient operations at DCA,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The House also approved a bipartisan amendment that would keep current standards for pilot training the same after blocking a proposed change floated by Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The bill also raises the mandatory pilot retirement age from 65 to 67, which is intended to expand the pilot workforce. However, there are opponents in both parties and the Biden administration who argue the change could affect safety and could cause headaches because pilots older than 65 are unable to fly internationally.
“The Europeans studied it and said you shouldn’t change the retirement age,” said Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, on a recent podcast. “There has been no study here, no data to support raising the retirement age here. So, factually, those that would like to raise the age, there hasn’t been any homework done.”
The FAA reauthorization comes as travel has picked up steadily every year since the pandemic, with a strained and shrinking air traffic controller workforce, and amid thousands of recent flight delays or cancellations due to extreme weather.
“This bill makes important progress that will enable the FAA to hire and train more controllers, to improve air traffic control technology, and to strengthen the pipeline of trained workers, including pilots and aviation maintenance technicians,” said Amy Lawrence, a spokeswoman with American Airlines. “We look forward to working with the U.S. Senate to complete the process as quickly as possible.”
On Wednesday, the House removed a provision from the bill that would have allowing certain pilots to count more hours of simulated flight toward their certification requirements. The FAA reauthorization maintains the current standards.
“This legislation addresses many of the concerns we hear from the flying public every day,” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Aviation.
Some regional airlines have advocated the rule change in an effort to boost the pilot workforce. However, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want to see it maintained after the rule was instituted following a plane crash near Buffalo, New York, in 2009, killing everyone on board.
“Our job as elected leaders is to protect public safety and to help ensure that no other family suffers the heartbreak of losing a loved one to an avoidable air tragedy,” said Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY).
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee intends to consider its version of the reauthorization in the weeks to come, and then the House and Senate must align their proposals by the end of September, when the current authorization expires.
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A battle over the same pilot training rule is also taking place in the upper chamber and is a major reason why the legislation has stalled there.
The Senate’s bill includes several consumer protections that airlines are lobbying against, claiming they will make air travel more expensive and are too difficult to enforce. Those provisions are likely to face opposition from Republicans in the House who have advocated more deregulation of airlines.
