BEFORE THE

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

------------------------------------------------------

In the matter of: :

:

Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking :

for Qualification, Service, and Use of : Docket No. FAA-2008-0677

Crewmembers and Aircraft Dispatchers :

REQUEST TO EXTEND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

The Air Transport Association of America, Inc., Cargo Airline Association, Air Carrier 

Association of America, Regional Airline Association, and National Air Carrier 

Association on behalf of their members, and Boeing Company and Airbus Americas, Inc. 

have a strong interest in the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) that 

was published in the Federal Register on May 20, 2011. The SNPRM would rewrite the 

qualification and training requirements for pilots, flight engineers, flight attendants, and 

dispatchers.

1 A 60- day comment period, closing July 19, 2011, has been provided. For 

the reasons set forth below, we respectfully request the FAA to grant an additional 180 

days for comment and to take certain other steps so the public has reasonable and sufficient 

time to review the proposed rule and the FAA can clarify this extensive and complex

proposal.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been working on a rewrite of pilot, flight 

engineer, flight attendant, and dispatcher qualification and training requirements for many 

years. An Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) was established in May 2004, with 41 

representatives from across industry, resulting in a set of recommendations to the FAA in 

April 2005. In 2009, the FAA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with an initial 

120-day comment that was subsequently extended by 90 days. FAA also held a public 

meeting on April 7, 2009 at which the agency received many questions concerning the 

NPRM. The FAA responded to those questions through several responses posted in the 

docket in June of 2009. Stakeholders submitted extensive comments in August of 2009, 

suggesting, among other actions, that the agency reconstitute the ARC to assist with 

responding to and addressing public comments. Twenty-one months after the close of the 

NPRM comment period, the FAA issued this SNPRM. 

The proposal is extensive and complex and will require stakeholders to closely examine 

the changes made from the NPRM to the SNPRM. The proposal alone is 671 pages, which 

does not include the 83-page regulatory evaluation, the 286-page FAA Technical 

Document, and three draft Advisory Circulars totaling over 100 pages. It is impossible for 

even the most interested stakeholders to review and provide meaningful comment on these 

six documents totaling over 1,000 pages to the FAA in 60 days. We provide examples 

 

1

76 Fed. Reg. 29336, May 20, 2011.
2

below of complex and time-consuming review tasks that must be completed to provide 

FAA with meaningful comments.

We are, of course, committed to effective training and appreciate the FAA’s effort to 

ensure that safety-critical employees receive that training. Our commitment is seen in the 

extensive FAA-approved training and qualification programs already in place, participation 

in the May 2004 ARC, the April 7, 2009 public meeting, extensive comments in the 

docket, and offers to respond to public comments by reconstituting the ARC. We all will 

bring that same commitment to safety and focus in reviewing the FAA SNPM during this 

comment period. 

One difficultly in providing comments in such a short time-frame is that each carrier will 

have to assess the impact of the new SNPRM standards on current training programs. As 

the FAA clarified in the preamble, it is now clear that this SNPRM will impact AQP 

carriers. The preamble also states that it took the FAA 30 hours per carrier fleet to 

compare an existing AQP program to the SNPRM requirements. Using the FAA 

estimates, it will take carriers with at least 6 different fleets of aircraft 180 hours to assess 

the impact of this rule or a significant portion of the allotted comment period; and this is 

only one aspect of the review.

Another time-consuming necessity will be a review of the FAA Regulatory Evaluation. 

On the benefits side, FAA identifies 178 accidents that must be reviewed and correlated to 

provisions in the SNPRM. While the FAA states that “For each of these accidents, AFS 

developed a regulatory change that could have mitigated each accident,”2 we could not find 

an analysis linking a specific accident to a specific proposed regulatory requirement. As a 

result, stakeholders will have to try to re-create the benefit analysis without knowing which 

accident relates to a new or revised regulatory requirement.

We also note that there are a number of key stakeholder comments to the NPRM that were 

misunderstood or not directly addressed in the SNPRM. For instance, the syllabus and 

simulator hours presented in the FAA Technical Report do not appear to be consistent with 

industry estimates or recent Aviation Rulemaking Committee training hour estimates. 

These discrepancies will also have to be resolved during the comment period.

Having spent enormous resources and time on this project, we should not shortchange the 

rulemaking process at this point. The FAA should allow the public to understand the 

proposal so that interested parties may fully participate and provide the informed comment

necessary to produce a viable final rule. The proposal allows for a five-year 

implementation schedule, so an additional 180 days will not substantially delay the rule. 

Given the extensive coordination this proposal will require and given the importance of 

this rulemaking –in terms of advancing crewmember qualification and training, the 

extensive changes to training programs it may require and the resulting potential cost

burden on industry – the proposed 60 day time period is inadequate under the APA and as 

 

2 Regulatory Evaluation, page 7.
3

a matter of due process. We therefore request that the public comment period for this 

proceeding be extended for an additional 180 days.

Respectfully submitted,

David A. Berg Edward P. Faberman

Vice President & General Counsel Executive Director

Air Transport Association of America, Inc. Air Carrier Association of America

Oakley Brooks Roger Cohen

President President

National Air Carrier Association Regional Airline Association

 

Bill Bozin Steve Alterman

Vice President, Safety and Technical Affairs President

Airbus Americas, Inc. Cargo Airline Association

Capt. Terry L. McVenes

Director, Operational Regulatory Affairs

Boeing Commercial Airplanes

May 25, 2011