When President Biden signed the sweeping five-year FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reauthorization package into law on May 16, he put in motion a 1,000-page bill that incorporates more than 1,200 measures and directives, including many that affect the business and general aviation community.
While years in the making, the completion of the bill came less than a year after the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) passed it unanimously and just three months after the Senate Commerce Committee voted out its version. And while it did take four short-term extensions of the FAA’s operating authority before the House and Senate concluded work on it, that was relatively short and painless compared with the process in recent decades, which was often contentious—pitting one aviation sector against another—and required dozens of extensions.
Unique about this bill was a determination to keep it bipartisan, which meant numerous compromises on the front end. The Senate was a bit bumpier on that front than the House, with the Commerce Committee holding off its vote for eight months until it had come into agreement on issues such as raising the airline pilot mandatory retirement age (omitted from the bill) and adding slots to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (kept in the bill).
But on the House side, during the vote in the T&I committee, the ranking Democrat, Rick Larsen (Washington), made it clear that the House bill did not address all he wanted but that the leadership was in lockstep on the reauthorization package to move forward.
T&I chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri) agreed. Pointing to the unanimous vote out of committee and the overwhelming final vote on the House floor (387-26), he noted, “It was bipartisan from the beginning.” He called Larsen “a very good partner in this process” and told AIN they are both old-school. “We believe in compromise…which means that you don’t get everything that you want but you get most of what you want. And so, the whole thing worked out. That’s why we were able to see it to the end.”
The process began even before the current, 118th, Congress convened in January 2023, with hearings already beginning and meetings with stakeholders. “Then we kicked it off pretty hard once we got into this Congress,” Graves explained, sorting through the hundreds of asks and issues. “The best way to do it is just to get everyone in a room and start working through it. What can you accept? What can you not accept?”
Also, this includes setting aside what they couldn’t agree on. “You have to be willing to give some things up. Sometimes that’s hard to swallow, but I was willing to do it,” he said. But once the bill made it through—and there were last-minute compromises made before the House initially voted on it, such as changing the 1,500-hour rule for airline pilots—it was then up to the Senate to iron out its end. Despite hard pushes in the Senate for the 1,500-hour rule and age 65 retirement changes, both were ultimately dropped to get the deal done.
Other contentious items were left out, such as changes to the Part 380 operational model (for per-seat on-demand, large charter, and other such operations), which has become a high-profile issue that has put business and general aviation operators in the crosshairs with the pilots and some airlines. Also left out, an intra-general aviation controversy, was changes to airport requirements to mandate transient aircraft parking and access through FBO facilities, when necessary. The latter has the FBOs, airports, and pilots on opposite sides. Instead, it calls for a study on FBO fee transparency and sets aside $34 million for small airports to construct transient ramps.
Different Approaches
The initial House bill topped 800 pages, while the Senate counterpart was closer to 500. Graves described the differences between the two. “The Senate bill was much more of a consumer-related bill when it came to the flying public and the airlines. The House bill was much more technical in terms of getting down in the weeds on a lot of issues, particularly when it came to the general aviation community and when it came to a lot of safety issues that we worked on,” he said. “The Senate accepted the majority of that right from the start, and that obviously helped out a lot.”
As for the final bill, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (H.R.3935) reauthorizes and establishes funding levels for both the FAA and NTSB through Fiscal Year 2028. The package boosts airport grants to $4 billion each year, the first sustained major funding jump in years, and offers step increases throughout the duration at both agencies, culminating in a budget that approaches $22 billion for the FAA and $154 million for the NTSB in 2028. In all, the bill is a nearly $106 billion measure spanning both agencies.
H.R.3935 incorporates 12 titles, including the first-ever dedicated solely to general aviation—a key priority for Graves. The titles reflect other priorities on Capitol Hill, covering FAA organization, safety, workforce, consumer protections, airport funding, passenger experience, airspace management, research and development, and new entrants such as advanced air mobility.
The GA Title
Graves explained why the general aviation title was such a priority to him: “It doesn't matter where you're in the process—whether you're a commercial pilot or a corporate pilot or a mechanic or a technician—you probably started in general aviation. That's how it begins. Basically, general aviation is the building block, the foundation for the entire aviation sector, and I thought that it deserved its own title rather than having stuff sprinkled throughout the bill.”
Not unexpectedly, the general aviation community embraced that title and the importance behind it. “We share Chairman Graves’ perspective in that most people in the aviation industry got their start in general aviation and for the United States to remain a leader in aviation, we believe that we need to have a healthy general aviation sector for the full industry to thrive,” said Kristie Greco Johnson, senior vice president of government affairs for NBAA.
Paul Feldman, v-p of government affairs for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, added that the provision ensures “that general aviation is recognized as a critical entity as part of the aviation infrastructure in the U.S. That sends a message to policymakers and others that GA has to be considered when you're developing policy or looking for investment.”
The general aviation section covers a gamut of issues affecting the sector, from a review of the Pilot’s Bill of Rights to ensuring the protection of privacy surrounding aircraft registration numbers, providing insurance to a program of critical importance to NBAA and its members seeking to ensure the security of their operations.
Key to the National Air Transportation Association are measures surrounding the reduction of the aircraft certification backlog and for the FAA to establish a Part 135 aircraft conformity working group that recommends improvements in the aircraft conformity processes.
Graves also pointed to a provision to guard pilots from the use of safety enhancement technologies for enforcement against them. “When we started implementing ADS-B in our aircraft, the FAA at the time said they would not use that in enforcement action and then they started doing it,” he said. “It was wrong, and we codified that they can no longer use that when it comes to enforcement action.”
Airport funding is an area where Graves said he was particularly proud. “We make sure that the majority of that money is going to small- and medium-sized airports,” he said. “That’s going to be a huge boost to general aviation and to those smaller airports throughout the country.”
As for the FAA organization, the bill creates a new position at the agency: assistant administrator for rulemaking and regulatory improvement, who would be charged with overseeing the agency’s rulemaking agenda, updating outdated rules, and evaluating existing regulations for their effectiveness and potential redundancy.
An area of emphasis for GAMA and other industry advocates is the ability of the FAA to move on rulemaking, particularly as a wave of new technologies and market entrants is coming. Providing the assistant administrator’s role will help in this effort. This is key not only for rules but policies and guidance. Helping this, also, is clarifying the roles between the FAA and the Department of Transportation. “Overall, there's an emphasis on really improving the rulemaking process,” said Feldman, who added, “The FAA has already been making progress in that area.”
Focus on Safety
One of the most extensive titles covers safety. Graves reiterated, “The United States is a gold standard when it comes to aviation safety, and we want to make sure that that continues.” He further said the bill embraces safety-enhancing technologies, including facilitating their certification. and probes the recent near misses/ground incursions. “We’re going to jump into that head first to try to make sure that we prevent any accidents from happening in the future.”
Other measures seek at least one unannounced annual inspection and minimum standards, a threat assessment, and drug and alcohol testing for technicians at foreign repair stations. Further, the bill calls for recurrent training and sharing of best practices at Organization Designation Authorization entities (ODAs), as well as an examination of the implementation of safety management systems (SMS) and their ability to be scaled.
Greco Johnson noted that while the FAA has already issued the SMS rule for Part 135 and manufacturers, the measure helps make sure that there is a healthy collaboration with operators so that the programs are scalable and operators can implement them. It further calls for data protection surrounding SMS.
Also of note to the business aviation community is a directive to address two recommendations from the Part 135 Pilot Rest and Duty Aviation Rulemaking Committee, including a requirement that the FAA limits the use of ferry flights beyond reasonable duty times, and updated policy and guidance on record-keeping for Part 135 operators.
Further, the FAA must ensure that Part 135 operators are considering the risk of ferry flights and inadequate flight crew record-keeping requirements in their mandated SMS programs. It calls for large air tour operators to meet Part 135 or Part 121 standards and for the FAA to work with the state of Hawaii on consensus operational requirements surrounding noise and air safety.
In addition, the bill directs the FAA to appoint a cybersecurity lead, establishes an Advanced Aviation Technology and Innovation Steering Committee, and ensures its telework policies are enabling the agency to meet its mission. This was another area pushed by GAMA because it feared that the work-from-home policies could make it difficult to access key personnel, as well as for new FAA workers to receive timely training.
Certification is the subject of measures in the various titles, including a directive for a study of the process itself and for new rulemaking surrounding air transport aircraft and engines.
Other new studies and reviews surround the use of the radio spectrum, the weather camera program, use of aviation safety data, weather reporting systems, radiation exposure to crewmembers, helicopter air ambulance safety, tarmac monitoring, the national simulator program, safety data of aircraft without transponders, and airport air safety, among the many others.
Numerous aviation rulemaking committees, advisory committees, and other entities are established to probe into other areas such as crash-resistant fuel systems in helicopters, standards for engine firewalls, helicopter safety, and human factors in aviation safety.
The bill takes a multi-faceted approach to improving safety in Alaska, including measures to expand weather reporting and camera capabilities, and it also takes a multi-pronged approach under a section entitled: Zero Tolerance for Near Misses, Runway Incursions, and Surface Safety Risks. This would involve studies, tracking, and the implementation of surveillance systems.
Also addressing recent high-profile incidents, the bill issues a call to action on ramp worker safety. In addition, the bill implements a requirement for the installation of cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) that record the most recent 25 hours of data on newly manufactured covered aircraft (those in Part 121 operations or designed for such operations) manufactured later within a year and all covered operators to be equipped with 25-hour CVRs within six years.
Under cybersecurity, the FAA is tasked with establishing a threat management process, a rulemaking committee on standards, and a review and screening of avionics standards. Meanwhile, the workforce section addresses everything from airmen standards and rights to a national development program to foster the next generation of workers. Feldman notes that the workforce section also extends the Aviation Workforce Development program and expands support to manufacturing.
The Next-generation Workforce
In addition, Greco Johnson noted the improvements in the controller workforce plan, the extension of the Women in Aviation Advisory Board (WIAAB), and the implementation of provisions of various recommendations of both the WIAAB and Youth Access to American Jobs in Aviation Task Force recommendations.
“The workforce title is something that's very important,” Graves said. “We're seeing a shortage in all areas of aviation. What we do is try to break down those barriers when it comes to entry. Unfortunately, when it comes to aviation, it can be very expensive. We’re just trying to break down those barriers, get more access to more people, and get them excited about the industry overall.”
On the AAM front, the bill calls on the FAA to complete key rulemakings surrounding beyond visual line of sight and powered lift. Further, it seeks for the agency to remain on the international forefront of standards in this area for a more harmonized approach and address infrastructure.
Now that the bill is done, the focus will shift to the implementation. “With any piece of legislation, the devil's in the details,” Grave said. “We tried to write the majority of our issues as tight as we can. But you still have bureaucratic interpretation, and you want to make sure that the intent of the law is followed by the bureaucrats.” This means the committees in both chambers will conduct “some pretty rigorous oversight” of the FAA and other affected parties. “That will take some time, and we’ll work through the process.”
As far as what didn’t make the bill, Graves said he plans to continue to work on increasing the retirement age for pilots and hours involving the use of full-motion simulators for training. “There's just a couple of things that I would like to continue to work on and find some common ground to see if we can make some advancements.”
When President Biden signed the sweeping five-year FAA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reauthorization package into law on May 16, he put in motion a 1,000-page bill that incorporates more than 1,200 measures and directives, including many that affect the business and general aviation community.
While years in the making, the completion of the bill came less than a year after the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) passed it unanimously and just three months after the Senate Commerce Committee voted out its version. And while it did take four short-term extensions of the FAA’s operating authority before the House and Senate concluded work on it, that was relatively short and painless compared with the process in recent decades, which was often contentious—pitting one aviation sector against another—and required dozens of extensions.
Unique about this bill was a determination to keep it bipartisan, which meant numerous compromises on the front end. The Senate was a bit bumpier on that front than the House, with the Commerce Committee holding off its vote for eight months until it had come into agreement on issues such as raising the airline pilot mandatory retirement age (omitted from the bill) and adding slots to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (kept in the bill).
But on the House side, during the vote in the T&I committee, the ranking Democrat, Rick Larsen (Washington), made it clear that the House bill did not address all he wanted but that the leadership was in lockstep on the reauthorization package to move forward.
T&I chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri) agreed. Pointing to the unanimous vote out of committee and the overwhelming final vote on the House floor (387-26), he noted, “It was bipartisan from the beginning.” He called Larsen “a very good partner in this process” and told AIN they are both old-school. “We believe in compromise…which means that you don’t get everything that you want but you get most of what you want. And so, the whole thing worked out. That’s why we were able to see it to the end.”
The process began even before the current, 118th, Congress convened in January 2023, with hearings already beginning and meetings with stakeholders. “Then we kicked it off pretty hard once we got into this Congress,” Graves explained, sorting through the hundreds of asks and issues. “The best way to do it is just to get everyone in a room and start working through it. What can you accept? What can you not accept?”
Also, this includes setting aside what they couldn’t agree on. “You have to be willing to give some things up. Sometimes that’s hard to swallow, but I was willing to do it,” he said. But once the bill made it through—and there were last-minute compromises made before the House initially voted on it, such as changing the 1,500-hour rule for airline pilots—it was then up to the Senate to iron out its end. Despite hard pushes in the Senate for the 1,500-hour rule and age 65 retirement changes, both were ultimately dropped to get the deal done.
Other contentious items were left out, such as changes to the Part 380 operational model (for per-seat on-demand, large charter, and other such operations), which has become a high-profile issue that has put business and general aviation operators in the crosshairs with the pilots and some airlines. Also left out, an intra-general aviation controversy, was changes to airport requirements to mandate transient aircraft parking and access through FBO facilities, when necessary. The latter has the FBOs, airports, and pilots on opposite sides. Instead, it calls for a study on FBO fee transparency and sets aside $34 million for small airports to construct transient ramps.
Different Approaches
The initial House bill topped 800 pages, while the Senate counterpart was closer to 500. Graves described the differences between the two. “The Senate bill was much more of a consumer-related bill when it came to the flying public and the airlines. The House bill was much more technical in terms of getting down in the weeds on a lot of issues, particularly when it came to the general aviation community and when it came to a lot of safety issues that we worked on,” he said. “The Senate accepted the majority of that right from the start, and that obviously helped out a lot.”
As for the final bill, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (H.R.3935) reauthorizes and establishes funding levels for both the FAA and NTSB through Fiscal Year 2028. The package boosts airport grants to $4 billion each year, the first sustained major funding jump in years, and offers step increases throughout the duration at both agencies, culminating in a budget that approaches $22 billion for the FAA and $154 million for the NTSB in 2028. In all, the bill is a nearly $106 billion measure spanning both agencies.
H.R.3935 incorporates 12 titles, including the first-ever dedicated solely to general aviation—a key priority for Graves. The titles reflect other priorities on Capitol Hill, covering FAA organization, safety, workforce, consumer protections, airport funding, passenger experience, airspace management, research and development, and new entrants such as advanced air mobility.
The GA Title
Graves explained why the general aviation title was such a priority to him: “It doesn't matter where you're in the process—whether you're a commercial pilot or a corporate pilot or a mechanic or a technician—you probably started in general aviation. That's how it begins. Basically, general aviation is the building block, the foundation for the entire aviation sector, and I thought that it deserved its own title rather than having stuff sprinkled throughout the bill.”
Not unexpectedly, the general aviation community embraced that title and the importance behind it. “We share Chairman Graves’ perspective in that most people in the aviation industry got their start in general aviation and for the United States to remain a leader in aviation, we believe that we need to have a healthy general aviation sector for the full industry to thrive,” said Kristie Greco Johnson, senior vice president of government affairs for NBAA.
Paul Feldman, v-p of government affairs for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, added that the provision ensures “that general aviation is recognized as a critical entity as part of the aviation infrastructure in the U.S. That sends a message to policymakers and others that GA has to be considered when you're developing policy or looking for investment.”
The general aviation section covers a gamut of issues affecting the sector, from a review of the Pilot’s Bill of Rights to ensuring the protection of privacy surrounding aircraft registration numbers, providing insurance to a program of critical importance to NBAA and its members seeking to ensure the security of their operations.
Key to the National Air Transportation Association are measures surrounding the reduction of the aircraft certification backlog and for the FAA to establish a Part 135 aircraft conformity working group that recommends improvements in the aircraft conformity processes.
Graves also pointed to a provision to guard pilots from the use of safety enhancement technologies for enforcement against them. “When we started implementing ADS-B in our aircraft, the FAA at the time said they would not use that in enforcement action and then they started doing it,” he said. “It was wrong, and we codified that they can no longer use that when it comes to enforcement action.”
Airport funding is an area where Graves said he was particularly proud. “We make sure that the majority of that money is going to small- and medium-sized airports,” he said. “That’s going to be a huge boost to general aviation and to those smaller airports throughout the country.”
As for the FAA organization, the bill creates a new position at the agency: assistant administrator for rulemaking and regulatory improvement, who would be charged with overseeing the agency’s rulemaking agenda, updating outdated rules, and evaluating existing regulations for their effectiveness and potential redundancy.
An area of emphasis for GAMA and other industry advocates is the ability of the FAA to move on rulemaking, particularly as a wave of new technologies and market entrants is coming. Providing the assistant administrator’s role will help in this effort. This is key not only for rules but policies and guidance. Helping this, also, is clarifying the roles between the FAA and the Department of Transportation. “Overall, there's an emphasis on really improving the rulemaking process,” said Feldman, who added, “The FAA has already been making progress in that area.”
Focus on Safety
One of the most extensive titles covers safety. Graves reiterated, “The United States is a gold standard when it comes to aviation safety, and we want to make sure that that continues.” He further said the bill embraces safety-enhancing technologies, including facilitating their certification. and probes the recent near misses/ground incursions. “We’re going to jump into that head first to try to make sure that we prevent any accidents from happening in the future.”
Other measures seek at least one unannounced annual inspection and minimum standards, a threat assessment, and drug and alcohol testing for technicians at foreign repair stations. Further, the bill calls for recurrent training and sharing of best practices at Organization Designation Authorization entities (ODAs), as well as an examination of the implementation of safety management systems (SMS) and their ability to be scaled.
Greco Johnson noted that while the FAA has already issued the SMS rule for Part 135 and manufacturers, the measure helps make sure that there is a healthy collaboration with operators so that the programs are scalable and operators can implement them. It further calls for data protection surrounding SMS.
Also of note to the business aviation community is a directive to address two recommendations from the Part 135 Pilot Rest and Duty Aviation Rulemaking Committee, including a requirement that the FAA limits the use of ferry flights beyond reasonable duty times, and updated policy and guidance on record-keeping for Part 135 operators.
Further, the FAA must ensure that Part 135 operators are considering the risk of ferry flights and inadequate flight crew record-keeping requirements in their mandated SMS programs. It calls for large air tour operators to meet Part 135 or Part 121 standards and for the FAA to work with the state of Hawaii on consensus operational requirements surrounding noise and air safety.
In addition, the bill directs the FAA to appoint a cybersecurity lead, establishes an Advanced Aviation Technology and Innovation Steering Committee, and ensures its telework policies are enabling the agency to meet its mission. This was another area pushed by GAMA because it feared that the work-from-home policies could make it difficult to access key personnel, as well as for new FAA workers to receive timely training.
Certification is the subject of measures in the various titles, including a directive for a study of the process itself and for new rulemaking surrounding air transport aircraft and engines.
Other new studies and reviews surround the use of the radio spectrum, the weather camera program, use of aviation safety data, weather reporting systems, radiation exposure to crewmembers, helicopter air ambulance safety, tarmac monitoring, the national simulator program, safety data of aircraft without transponders, and airport air safety, among the many others.
Numerous aviation rulemaking committees, advisory committees, and other entities are established to probe into other areas such as crash-resistant fuel systems in helicopters, standards for engine firewalls, helicopter safety, and human factors in aviation safety.
The bill takes a multi-faceted approach to improving safety in Alaska, including measures to expand weather reporting and camera capabilities, and it also takes a multi-pronged approach under a section entitled: Zero Tolerance for Near Misses, Runway Incursions, and Surface Safety Risks. This would involve studies, tracking, and the implementation of surveillance systems.
Also addressing recent high-profile incidents, the bill issues a call to action on ramp worker safety. In addition, the bill implements a requirement for the installation of cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) that record the most recent 25 hours of data on newly manufactured covered aircraft (those in Part 121 operations or designed for such operations) manufactured later within a year and all covered operators to be equipped with 25-hour CVRs within six years.
Under cybersecurity, the FAA is tasked with establishing a threat management process, a rulemaking committee on standards, and a review and screening of avionics standards. Meanwhile, the workforce section addresses everything from airmen standards and rights to a national development program to foster the next generation of workers. Feldman notes that the workforce section also extends the Aviation Workforce Development program and expands support to manufacturing.
The Next-generation Workforce
In addition, Greco Johnson noted the improvements in the controller workforce plan, the extension of the Women in Aviation Advisory Board (WIAAB), and the implementation of provisions of various recommendations of both the WIAAB and Youth Access to American Jobs in Aviation Task Force recommendations.
“The workforce title is something that's very important,” Graves said. “We're seeing a shortage in all areas of aviation. What we do is try to break down those barriers when it comes to entry. Unfortunately, when it comes to aviation, it can be very expensive. We’re just trying to break down those barriers, get more access to more people, and get them excited about the industry overall.”
On the AAM front, the bill calls on the FAA to complete key rulemakings surrounding beyond visual line of sight and powered lift. Further, it seeks for the agency to remain on the international forefront of standards in this area for a more harmonized approach and address infrastructure.
Now that the bill is done, the focus will shift to the implementation. “With any piece of legislation, the devil's in the details,” Grave said. “We tried to write the majority of our issues as tight as we can. But you still have bureaucratic interpretation, and you want to make sure that the intent of the law is followed by the bureaucrats.” This means the committees in both chambers will conduct “some pretty rigorous oversight” of the FAA and other affected parties. “That will take some time, and we’ll work through the process.”
As far as what didn’t make the bill, Graves said he plans to continue to work on increasing the retirement age for pilots and hours involving the use of full-motion simulators for training. “There's just a couple of things that that I would like to continue to work on and find some common ground to see if we can make some advancements.”