Chaos, Crisis Stall FAA’s Work, Aviation Trade Leader Charges

By Jane Roberts, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Apr. 25–James Coyne struck a nerve with a roomful of aviators this week when he said Federal Aviation Administration and “regulatory chaos” in the same breath.

Coyne, president of the National Air Transportation Association — a trade organization for aviation businesses — said the federal agency in charge of aviation safety is crisis.

“The people doing the regulating and the politicians overseeing it have created an environment where no one knows what the rules are,” Coyne said at a town hall meeting Wednesday at Wilson Air Center. “The confusion is going to hold back aviation.”

Coyne, a former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania and aide to former president Reagan, “is very pessimistic” that things will get better, particularly because it is an election year.

Coyne blamed the agency’s confusion on its lack of permanent leadership.

Acting director Robert Sturgell took over the agency when administrator Marion Blakley’s term ended last fall.

While Coyne said Sturgell “deserves to be confirmed,” he doubts he will be, citing “political football” in the Senate.

“The FAA leadership is in limbo,” he said. “That means that things that need to be getting done in the agency aren’t because people say, ‘What’s the point of doing it now when the leadership is going to change?’”

The repercussions, local aviation businesses say, is that they can’t get the FAA to answer their questions or follow through on certification requests.

Every charter business, aircraft repair station and fixed- base operator has to be certified by the FAA.

Mike Silvius owns Tunica Air Group, a maintenance shop that also has offices at Wilson Air.

By the first quarter of this year, he expected to have an FAA-certified repair shop at Tunica, which would allow the business to seek business from commercial carriers.

“Carriers are hesitant to bring work to anything other than an FAA-certified repair station, and I don’t blame them,” Silvius said.

The difference, he said, is the same as taking your car to a mechanic down the street or to a certified BMW dealership.

“We began the process in February,” he said. “What we need is the FAA’s undivided attention for a short amount of time.”

Silvius said the agency seems stretched too thin to cover all the requests.

The FAA did not return calls.

Ken Hammerton at Vectair in Olive Branch has been working for FAA repair shop certification for more than a year.

“It’s not that anything we have in the shop needs to change,” Hammerton said. “We have all the tools and equipment. It’s simply a matter of getting the paperwork approved.”

Meanwhile, Coyne said, insiders are taking their issues to Congress regarding safety at the airlines.

“The job of leadership is to listen to the whistleblowers, but instead they are going straight to Congress and holding hearings.”

“I’m very worried about this year; I’m very worried about what Congress will do,” Coyne said, referring to the first round of hearings this month on safety issues.

Coyne, who will speak with The Wall Street Journal editorial board next week, said the hearings have become “demagoguery for PR reasons.”

“They are trying to frighten Americans into thinking we have an unsafe aviation system,” Coyne said. “Last year, we had 12 million takeoffs and landings, and not one passenger was injured.”

And with Congress slow to pass the FAA reauthorization bill, he said other world powers are outbuilding the U.S. aviation system.

“Without new authorization, the FAA is doing nothing,” he said. “China this year will build 40 airports the size of Nashville. In the U.S., we’ll build one runway — maybe two if we’re lucky — in the whole nation.”

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