FAA Chief to Face Lawmakers on Air Traffic Overhaul as JetBlue Delays Mount
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford will testify on a $12.5 billion air traffic control overhaul as JetBlue faces rising cancellations and pilot pressure.
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford is scheduled to appear before a U.S. House appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday to discuss a proposed $12.5 billion overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. His testimony comes a day after a government watchdog flagged concerns about funding shortfalls for the plan.
The hearing unfolds against a backdrop of mounting frustration over air traffic control-related disruptions, which have caused delays and cancellations in the United States, Australia and Britain amid staffing shortages and technology problems.
New York-based JetBlue Airways said last week that its air traffic-related cancellations in the Northeastern United States nearly doubled this summer compared with the average of the previous three summers, after the region was battered by storms and controller shortages. Data from consultancy Cirium showed JetBlue's July cancellation rate stood at 8.3%, well above the under-3% rates recorded by rivals including Frontier, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
In correspondence reviewed by the wire service, the airline's pilots' union, which is in contract negotiations with JetBlue, pressed the carrier to take further steps to keep delays and cancellations from escalating. Wayne Scales, president of the JetBlue arm of the Air Line Pilots Association, said in a September 7 message that the summer had taken a toll through long days, repeated disruptions and what he described as too much seemingly preventable chaos.
Scales wrote that pilots had urged JetBlue to draw up a plan to prevent operational problems that left crew members waiting for reassignments and hotel accommodations in July. He acknowledged that storms and air traffic constraints are unavoidable, but said management can control how prepared the airline is to respond and how effectively it recovers.
JetBlue said in a statement that it had prepared extensively for the summer season based on previous years' weather and air traffic control performance, but that storms and missing controllers could overwhelm even the best planning. The carrier said the unpredictability of weather and air traffic constraints makes planning far harder and can cause disruptions to compound quickly, a problem it said is worsened by its large footprint in the Northeast.
Industry consultant Bob Mann said airlines operating in the Northeast's congested airspace run a persistent risk of delays. He noted that software capable of reducing the domino effect of delayed and cancelled flights exists but is not widely used by carriers.
Bedford met with the chief executives of major U.S. airlines last Thursday to discuss the FAA's plans to deploy advanced software to revamp flight scheduling and improve flight management. The SMART system, which relies on predictive analytics, could more effectively reschedule flights cancelled because of bad weather. JetBlue said it was encouraged by the system, which it said has the potential to give both the FAA and airlines better information and tools to anticipate constraints earlier, make better operational decisions and recover more effectively when disruptions occur.