The Senate has brought a $105 billion FAA reauthorization bill to the cusp of becoming law. The legislation would fund the FAA through the 2028 fiscal year and includes a wide range of measures geared toward aviation safety, infrastructure and consumers.
In the Thursday evening vote, the bill, which has already been negotiated by a Senate and House conference committee, flew through the Senate by a count of 89-4.
The four nay votes came from the senators who represent Virginia and Maryland, indicating that the stickiest issue on the Senate floor was the five additional daily flights that the bill authorizes to go beyond Washington Reagan National Airport's 1,250-mile perimeter.
Washington Reagan competitors Washington Dulles (in Virginia) and Baltimore/Washington (in Maryland), fiercely opposed the new flight authorizations.
Currently, there are 20 roundtrip flights that exceed and are exempted from the 1,250-mile perimeter. At one time there were none.
With Senate passage, the FAA bill moves back to the House for a final vote. The House will have until May 17 to pass the measure and send it President Biden for a signature. The deadline for passage had been May 10, but both chambers have voted for a weeklong FAA funding extension.
ASTA-backed amendment not included
The Senate passed the reauthorization without inclusion of any of the dozens of amendments that had been proposed over the previous 10 days.
That spelled doom for an ASTA-backed measure put forward by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), which would have prevented air ticket agents from being on the hook for refunds when airlines hold the funds. The measure was designed to counter a new Transportation Department rule requiring ticket agents to pay refunds when they are the merchant of record for a ticket, even when airlines possess the money.
An amendment that was sharply opposed by the U.S. Travel Association also failed. It would have banned the expansion of TSA's facial-recognition technology unless TSA complied with requirements that U.S. Travel considered "costly and unworkable." U.S. Travel had said that the measure could have resulted in travelers waiting an additional 120 million hours in TSA lines each year.
What the FAA reauthorization bill includes
The FAA bill addresses the shortage of air traffic controllers, introduces consumer protections, increases air travel accessibility and provides more airport funding.
One of the bill's notable safety measures is increasing the required retention time for cockpit recordings to 25 hours, up from two hours. The bill would also require the FAA to increase hiring of aircraft manufacturing safety inspectors.
For consumers, the bill would forbid airlines from charging fees for families that that sit together. It would also mandate airlines to accept vouchers and flight credits for at least five years.
Among the accessibility measures in the bill is one requiring training for airline personnel on safely storing wheelchairs.
For airports, the bill would increase annual Airport Improvement Program funding over the next five years, from $3.35 billion to $4 billion.
The bill also includes various measures geared toward improving the technical efficacy of the air traffic control system as well as improving hiring and retention.