The Federal Aviation Administration said it would be more costly than it had previously calculated for cargo carriers to adopt requirements announced last year for passenger airlines.
“As a result, the FAA has determined that no revisions to the final rule on either cargo or passenger operations is warranted,” the agency said in a filing to appear tomorrow in the U.S. Federal Register.
The FAA announced in May it had discovered errors in calculations used to justify the rule, after the Independent Pilots Association, which represents UPS’s flight crews, filed suit to force the agency to impose the rules on cargo carriers.
The rule, which takes effect in 2014, will reduce the hours passenger pilots can fly late at night or if they are making numerous landings and takeoffs. Because the projected benefits are based largely on averting potential loss of life, cargo carriers had less to gain and were excluded, the FAA said in the rule.
The union says in its lawsuit that since Congress ordered the FAA to impose new pilot-rest standards, the agency shouldn’t have calculated costs and benefits.
Estimated net costs, after benefits, during the first 12 years of reducing pilot work hours on cargo airlines rose from $306 million to $550 million in FAA’s revised calculations. The FAA projected that cargo airlines would have had benefits of between $20.4 million and $32.6 million.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net
JBirdAV8r From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 4459 posts, RR: 22 Reply 1, posted (6 months 1 week 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1641 times:
Sad to see the "cargo cutout" live on.
Quoting UPS757Pilot (Thread starter):
The rule, which takes effect in 2014, will reduce the hours passenger pilots can fly late at night or if they are making numerous landings and takeoffs. Because the projected benefits are based largely on averting potential loss of life, cargo carriers had less to gain and were excluded, the FAA said in the rule.
If ever you needed evidence of the FAA's "tombstone mentality," here it is.
futureualpilot From United States of America, joined May 2000, 2562 posts, RR: 8 Reply 2, posted (6 months 1 week 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1584 times:
Sponsor Message: 
From United States of America, joined Apr 2007, 102 posts, 
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