Part 135 Duty, Rest Rules To Come Under Spotlight

Part 135 pilot rest and duty requirements will come under review once again as part of a new congressional mandate. Section 315 of the sweeping five-year FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, signed into law on October 5, calls for the creation of an aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) within 180 days specifically to make recommendations on Part 135 pilot rest and duty rules. 

While aimed at Part 135, the measure stipulates that the ARC include both Part 135 and 91K (fractional) representatives, labor leaders, and safety experts. The ARC will review data gathered from aviation safety reporting programs, scientific data from aviation-related fatigue and sleep research, and prior recommendations made on the topic. Accommodations for small businesses must be considered, as well as the diversity of operations conducted under Part 135. Congress directed the FAA to report on the recommendations within two years and follow with a notice of proposed rulemaking a year after that.

The final measure adopted had been altered from the original proposal, which had called for a tighter time frame for the ARC and mandated implementation of the recommendations. The National Air Transportation Association had pushed for the expanded time frame and praised the focus on small business issues and the need to accommodate diversity.

The ARC is the latest in decades-long efforts to update pilot rest and duty rules, stemming from efforts in the 1990s that would have applied a commercial airline approach to Part 135 to the subsequent efforts of the Part 135 ARC in the early 2000s that developed much more tailored recommendations for on-demand and fractional operators. However, those recommendations remained a lower priority for an agency sifting through numerous mandates from Congress. 

The latest measure resurrects these efforts and puts them back on the front burner.