Derecho procesal mercantil

Ameriflight questioned why the FAA calculated the cost of the proposed rule post-statute (meaning without the costs associated with the self-executing ATP certificate

requirement), but claimed a $23 million dollar benefit24 from the ATP certificate requirement. Ameriflight recommended the FAA not be allowed to take a benefit from any proposed rule it is not accounting for in its costs.

The FAA’s Office of Accident Investigation and Prevention (AVP) conducted an accident analysis accidents of those accidents where the SIC had less than 1,500 hours

24 _{In the NPRM initial regulatory evaluation, the FAA estimated that the total benefit for accidents involving SICs} with fewer than 1,500 hours of flight time was $23 million. The final rule regulatory evaluation estimates it to be $16 million.

and found no relationship with the ATP certificate requirement. AVP found the probable cause and contributing factors for those accidents to be other issues that are addressed by the ATP CTP and the aircraft type rating requirement. Therefore, the FAA did not

attribute any benefit to the ATP certificate requirement. However, as reflected in the final regulatory evaluation, if one were to attribute all of the benefits claimed for those

accidents to the ATP certificate requirement (meaning there was no other attributable cause for the accident other than the fact that the SIC did not have an ATP certificate and 1,500 hours), it would total $23 million (NPRM).

Ameriflight and RACCA believe that the cost of the final rule will exceed $141 million for the airline industry and should therefore precipitate a review under the

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. The $141 million dollar figure that triggers the Unfunded Mandates assessment relates to costs imposed in any one year on the private sector, which is not the case for this rule. The total costs attributable to the rule over a 20- year period are just $312.7 million and the highest cost in any year is under $20 million (2032). Consequently, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act is not implicated by this final rule.

Ameriflight and RACCA objected to the finding of no economic impact on part 135 operators. RACCA questioned “the thoroughness and validity of the economic impact analyses” and suggested “one reason for the FAA’s inaccuracy is their complete disregard of Part 135 on- demand flying.” Ameriflight and RACCA also object to the FAA’s finding that the (annualized) cost of the rule is less than 0.5% of the operating revenues of all small firms affected by the rule and request that this finding be reevaluated taking into account RACCA members and other similarly-placed part 135 carriers.

In conducting the economic analysis, the FAA did not disregard part 135 on-demand operations as evidenced by the accident analysis conducted by AVP. For part 135 operators, the FAA determined that this rule would have had no economic impact on those operators.

Operating revenue data is not available for most part 135 operators as most are privately held. However, the three part 135 operators for which we do have operating revenue, as measured by number of PICs (4 to 45 PICs), encompass almost the entire size range of part 135 operators (1 to 55 PICs). The finding that there would be an insignificant economic impact therefore applies to RACCA members and other similarly-placed part 135 carriers.

In commenting on the costs of the ATP CTP, AOPA indicated the FAA did not calculate the time required of air carriers to “navigate the cumbersome schedules of part 142 training centers or airline in-house training centers” to schedule simulator training and estimated the cost to be a minimum of two hours per ATP applicant. AOPA also stated the ATP CTP costs did not account for travel expenses because the FAA assumed the ATP CTP training would take place immediately prior to initial training for the air carrier, but “the FAA does not address pilots seeking ATP certification outside of the air carrier environment.” AOPA also questioned the training pay assumption, stating that “It seems highly unlikely a pilot earns only $43 a day—$2 per day less than their daily per diem—while training ….”

The FAA estimates the social cost of the ATP CTP by estimating the impact on the low- cost providers of the training--part 121 air carriers and part 142 training centers. To also include the pecuniary impact on training schools would be double counting. The FAA does not agree with costing two hours per applicant to schedule training. Given the inventory availability of FSTDs discussed previously, the FAA believes the impact to training department administrators will be minimal. With respect to travel costs, the FAA has modified its assumption and believes

that 50% of pilots will be trained directly by air carriers and 50% will be trained by part 142 training centers. We believe it is highly reasonable to assume that ATP certification training by air carriers will take place just prior to initial pilot training so there will be no incremental travel costs. However, we now include travel costs for pilots undergoing ATP certification training at part 142 training centers. We agree that we underestimated training pay in the NPRM and have increased our estimate for the final rule.

In reference to our estimate of the cost of the 1,500-hour requirement, the IFL Group disputed the assertion that a new pilot can easily fly 750 hours in a year outside of part 121 operations. The IFL group noted that kind of flight time has historically been obtained working for an air carrier, which the pilot will no longer be able to do. The commenter added, although flight instructing is another way to build time, as a result of the declining student pilot starts, the ability for pilots to earn that much time annually is not realistic. Upon review, the FAA has reduced its assumption to 500 hours of flight time annually.

With respect to the cost of the ATP CTP, NATA asserted the costs are borne by the individual, not an air carrier. “Should the FAA reject NATA’s comment that costs of the ATP CTP should be computed based upon impact to the regulated individual pilot, NATA asserts that the FAA still must modify its estimates to reflect the higher training costs faced by Part 135 and 91 subpart K operators” due to smaller class sizes and the need to contract with training

providers.

The FAA believes that most pilots will receive the ATP CTP through employment--either at large air carriers, with their own training facilities and simulators, or at part 142 training centers through training agreements. The inefficiencies of small size can be greatly mitigated by contracting out, and, in fact, many small operators already use contract training to meet existing

training requirements. Moreover, the ATP CTP, as a general program, is not specific to any type aircraft, nor to any rule part (121, 135, 91K). Therefore, we believe that competitive part 142 training centers will deliver generic ATP CTP training to individuals, as well as air carriers, at costs no higher than our conservative estimate.