It takes Congress to get a change in the industry?

Perusing the August 3 issue of Aviation Week, there's an article "Meeting Hire Standards" by Frances Fiorino regarding the legislative fallout from the February crash of Colgan 3407. The provisions of the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Act of 2009 are expansive, but there are three areas that catch my interest.

First, an increase in flight time hiring requirements- all pilots (be they captains or first officers) must hold an ATP and have a minimum of 1500 flight hours. Current rules according to the article (and what I have heard from many in the industry) are a commercial pilot license and a minimum of 250 hours. Some regional airlines even have programs where the pilot pays the airline to fly and build up hours. Well, if that doesn't make me drop a load in my shorts out of fear.

As the successful ditching of the US Airways flight in the Hudson showed, there's no substitute for an experienced crew in the two seats up front when it hits the fan. There's an old saying in aviation that pilots start out with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience and the goal is to fill the bag of experience before emptying the bag of luck. I don't know about you folks, I'd like the guy with the biggest bag of experience up front. And if that means their pay has to be higher and that gets passed to the consumer, then so be it. Routine flight is easy. I've even got a few hours under my belt in general aviation aircraft. But I found that was tested the most by my instructor during simulated emergencies. That's where skill and experience come into play.

The second area of interest regards a more serious push towards addressing fatigue. It's been a contributing cause in some many accidents and it's been on the NTSB's most wanted list since 1990. That's NINETEEN YEARS AGO. NINETEEN! And now we're just getting around to seeing it as an important issue. I'd love to and fish through the accident databases just for the United States for all accidents since 1990 where fatigue as a factor.

I don't think there's a regional pilot in the United States that doesn't have a story about flying while tired. There are even regional airlines that operate under the name of big carriers that have in the past wanted their crews to stay overnight in the planes and rest there for the next duty day!

I once was talking about the ramifications of Colgan 3407 to a regional jet pilot and he put it plainly- "Now that the majors aren't hiring, many of us are now stuck here in the regionals. Before you put up with it because in a few years you moved up to the mainline and had a good life. Now a lot of us see flying for the regionals as our long term career and we're going to want a better lifestyle if that's the case."

The last item of the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act that got my attention was a provision for a "truth in advertising" mandate that the airline clearly disclose which regional airline is operating each leg of a flight, be it mainline or otherwise. Personally I like this idea. There are regional operations that I absolutely avoid and as it is now, I have to ask around the regional pilots I know who operates a given flight for a given carrier before I'm comfortable booking the flight. If I can't find out and there's a chance I'll get that particular regional airline, I don't care how cheap the flight is, I'm taking my business where I can get that solid answer on who is operating that flight.

We've all heard the story of the 47 passengers stuck on a Continental Express flight that diverted to Rochester, Minnesota. Initially, queries to Continental were referred to the operator of the flight, ExpressJet. Whatever happened to brand integrity? If ExpressJet is flying with your name and logo, then you have some responsibility for what happens on your regional partners.

And don't get me started on code shares.