Federal Aviation Administration s Policies - 1151 Words

In August of 2015, quickly approaching the September 30th renewal of the Federal Aviation Administration’s policies, many regional airlines questioned the amount of time required for commercial pilots to have under their training belt. As of 2013, it is an FAA standard that pilots training for their commercial license must accumulate 1,500 hours before they are considered to have completed the program. While 1,500 hours of flying time, especially for pilots of a commercial airplane, does not seem like much, the minimum amount of hours that they had to accumulate before the rule change was just a mere 250 hours of fly time. With an increase of 1,250 hours, many of the executives from these regional airlines are upset because of one effect†¦show more content†¦In some cases, an airline has even had to remove themselves from an airport due to the unpopularity or the inability to fund said airline flying out of that airport. While losing routes, and therefore revenue, is a big deal to most of these major airlines, the pilots of these airlines seem to have a different take on the problem. They believe it is the salary they get from the airline themselves that deters pilot from flying commercial planes. Pilots pay $150,000 to $200,000 to obtain their commercial license, while some airlines are only offering $21,000 or less as a starting salary. All in all, potential candidates for a commercial pilot’s license are having a hard time believing that their significant training expenses will be rewarded in the long run. Whatever the case may be to the shortage of pilots, there is one group fighting against any amendment or new legislation that would require, or encourage, pilots getting 1,500 hours before piloting a commercial plane for an airline. These are the families of the 50 people that died in a 2009 Colgan Airlines crash that happened in Buffalo, New York. In this case, the pilots were flying through a snowstorm, and on an improper response to a turboprop maneuver, the plane stalled and crashed, consequently. While the pilots’ lack of training was documented as the ultimate cause to this crash, the pilots of this flight had 3,379 and 2,244 hours of flying. So that begs the question,