Shuster’s FAA restructuring plan unlikely to pass Congress this year

Airlines for America (A4A) has been a strong supporter of the proposed restructuring of the FAA via Bill Shuster’s (R- Pennsylvania) reauthorization bill which aims to create a nonprofit and independent corporation to manage and operate US air traffic control (ATC). This is the alternative to the Bipartisan Senate FAA reauthorization bill proposed by John Thune (R-South Dakota), Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida), which excludes any ATC overhaul and instead concentrates on new consumer-oriented regulations for airlines.
Now Nicholas Calio, A4A President and CEO has made it clear that the leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee have overreached in an attempt to regulate airlines and are missing out on an “historic opportunity” to back a plan which will see the removal of the ATC from the FAA. One element this bill aims to tackle is what the US Department of Trade (DOT) constitutes a weather delay or a cancelation. It also aims to direct the DOT to develop a standard format whereby all airlines have to clearly display baggage fees, change fees, ticketing fees and seat selection fees, while also demanding “an automatic refund to a passenger if the air carrier has charged the passenger an ancillary fee for checked baggage, but the air carrier fails to deliver the checked baggage to the passenger within a specific timeframe.”
In a statement, A4A made it clear that “Regulations proposed in the Senate bill under the cloak of consumer protection have the potential to drive up the cost of air travel for consumers and potentially harm service to small- and medium-sized communities.” Calio himself has called for “a rational tax and regulatory framework that will benefit all stakeholders of the aviation system, including the two million people who fly on US airlines every day,” adding, “It’s disconcerting at a time when other countries rightly view their airlines as national assets and drivers of the economy and jobs that we are taking steps backward toward reregulation, which will make it more difficult for consumers to afford to fly.”
Because Thune and Senate Republicans have chosen not to back Shuster’s ATC restructuring, which is already opposed by House Democrats and House Appropriations Committee Republicans, the likelihood of his FAA restructuring plan passing Congress in 2016 would appear to be very low.