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In what looks like a swap of increased capacity for reduced hours of operation, brokered by Representative Adam Schiff, the City of Burbank has offered the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) a 14 gate replacement terminal at Bob Hope Airport (“Airport”) in return for which the FAA is being asked to approve a mandatory nighttime curfew…

In an anticipated, but no less surprising move, the City Council of the City of Los Angeles (“Los Angeles”) agreed to transfer Ontario International Airport (“ONT”), currently owned and operated by Los Angeles, to the Ontario International Airport Authority (“OIAA”) and its members which include the City of Ontario (“Ontario”).  The transfer occurs in settlement of a currently pending lawsuit in the Riverside County Superior Court in which Ontario, the OIAA, and other parties challenged the legal right of Los Angeles to ownership and operation of ONT.  

 
The major provisions of the Settlement Agreement include the following:
 

Continue Reading Los Angeles City Council at Long Last Agrees to Transfer Ontario International Airport to the City of Ontario and Ontario International Airport Authority

On October 1, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) adopted stricter regulation on ozone emissions that will fall heavily on California, and most particularly on the transportation sector, including airlines.  The new standard strengthens limits on ground level ozone to 70 parts per billion (“PPB”), down from 75 PPB adopted in 2008.  The EPA’s action arises from the mandate of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”), from which the EPA derives its regulatory powers, 42 U.S.C. § 7409(a)(1), and which requires that pollution levels be set so as to protect public health with an “adequate margin of safety.  42 U.S.C. § 7409(b).  

The change has inspired significant controversy throughout the country, but most particularly in Southern California which purportedly has the nation’s worst air quality and has already failed to meet previous ozone standards.  The issues arise out of the likelihood that the new standards will require steep emissions cuts falling most heavily on the transportation sector including trains, trucks, ships and, not least, aircraft.  

Continue Reading Airlines Will Be Affected by New Federal Ozone Standards

On September 8 and October 8, 2015, the Cities of Culver City and Inglewood, California, filed original and supplemental comments, respectively, with the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) concerning the adequacy of its Draft Environmental Assessment (“DEA”) for the Southern California Metroplex (“SoCal Metroplex”) Optimization of Airspace and Procedures in the Metroplex (“OAPM”) (“Project”).  The…

In a somewhat ambiguous announcement, Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”), Michael Huerta, announced a “new” safety philosophy for the FAA.  Articulated in a speech last week to the Flight Safety Foundation in Washington, D.C., that “new” philosophy purportedly “challenges the status quo” by focusing on prevention, i.e., “finding problems in the national airspace system before they result in an incident or accident.”  Where problems do occur, the FAA foresees “using tools like training or documented improvements to procedures to ensure compliance.”  

Those would be noble goals if the public were not under the current impression that the FAA’s primary mandate of promoting safety of air transportation were not already being carried out with a primary emphasis on prevention.  What is, perhaps, more surprising is that the “new” philosophy is meant not merely to prevent accidents, but also to “prevent” operators (read “airlines”) from “hiding inadvertent mistakes because they are afraid of punishment.”  
 

Continue Reading FAA Administrator Announces New “Compliance Philosophy” for the Agency

In a strange twist on the normal relationship between federal regulatory agencies, the National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”) has found the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) a primary culprit in the October 31, 2014 disastrous test flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, in which one of the two pilots was killed, and debris was spread over a 33 mile area in San Bernardino County, northeast of Los Angeles.  

 
The issue appears to be the grant of a waiver by FAA from the existing rules governing safety of interplanetary vehicles, despite FAA’s own safety consultant’s warning that Virgin Galactic was violating those rules.  The claim is that, while Congress did not delegate to FAA the authority to implement regulations as stringent as those applicable to commercial aircraft, FAA managers specifically ignored the repeated advice of safety engineers that Virgin Galactic had not fully complied with the regulations that do exist.  Specifically, FAA safety personnel claim that FAA managers based their decision to grant the waiver on the remoteness of the Town of Mojave where the aircraft’s launch company, Scaled, is based, and on the surrounding area where the company planned its test flights.  
 
In the end, the NTSB found that, although the co-pilot had erred by prematurely unlocking the rocketship’s movable tail, the FAA and the launch company bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility.  On the one hand, the launch company had failed to ascertain that a single error by an operator could lead to the ship’s destruction.  On the other hand, the FAA, acceding to pressure to approve the permit quickly, had failed to ensure that the company took this lack of redundancy into account.  Exacerbating the issue is the fact that SpaceShipTwo is one of three commercial rockets to crash in the span of eight months.  
 

Continue Reading NTSB Faults FAA in Private Spacecraft Investigation

Apparently impatient with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (“FAA”) slow progress in developing rules governing the commercial operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (“UAV” or “drones”), Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and John Hoeven (R-ND) introduced in Congress legislation to expedite implementation of rules governing the commercial operation of drones.  

Supported by a host of interest groups, ranging from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International to the National Association of Broadcasters and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the stated purpose of the “Commercial UAS Modernization Act,” S.1314 (“Act”) is to amend the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (Pub. L. 112-95), to create an interim rule providing basic guidelines for commercial use and testing of small UAS during the period within which FAA finalizes rules governing the operation of commercial UAS.  The Bill allows any person to “operate a small unmanned aircraft for commercial purposes without an airworthiness certificate within the United States, subject to the requirements under subsection (b) and the operating restrictions under subsection (c) during the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on the effective date of a final rule based on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Operation and Certification of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (80 Fed. Reg. 9544, February 23, 2015).” The Bill’s general requirements include: (1) liability insurance; (2) registration/certification under section 3(a) of the Act; and (3) the operator’s passing of an “aeronautical knowledge test,” Act, subsection (b)(3)(A), as prescribed by FAA in its February 2015 notice.  
 
The permission granted under the proposed legislation is not without limits, however.  
 

Continue Reading Congress Seeks to End Run Federal Aviation Administration on Drone Rules

In a marked change in longtime Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) policy regarding analysis of noise and air quality impacts from FAA initiated, directed or funded projects, FAA has substituted a single new model for the long mandated Integrated Noise Model (“INM”) and Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System (“EDMS”).  Beginning May 29, 2015, FAA policy “requires” the use of the Aviation Environmental Design Tool version 2b (“AEDT 2b”), which integrates analysis of aircraft noise, air pollutant emissions, and fuel burn.  These impacts, according to FAA are “interdependent and occur simultaneously throughout all phases of flight.”  80 Fed.Reg. 27853.  

 
The FAA policy provides for differential displacement of existing analytic models.  For air traffic and airspace procedural changes, AEDT 2b replaces AEDT 2a, already in use.  For other, ground based projects, AEDT 2b replaces both the INM, for analyzing aircraft noise, and EDMS for developing emissions inventories and modeling emissions dispersion.  The change was presaged by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta who announced in April that FAA was undertaking an “ambitious project” to revamp its approach to measuring noise.  The “ambitious project” was apparently inspired by the vocal objections to the results of the analysis using current methodologies, voiced by citizens of locals that have experienced the effects of FAA’s current, nationwide reorganization of airspace around major airports to institute procedures based on Performance Based Navigation (“PBN”).  
 

Continue Reading FAA Requires New Integrated Model for Noise and Air Quality Impact Analysis

On February 15, 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration published its highly anticipated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the Operation and Certification of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (applicable to UAS weighing 55 lbs. and less).  The proposed rules would add a new Part 107 to Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations to allow for routine civil operation of small UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS).  Although a lengthy comment and revision period is expected to delay finalization of the regulations for another 18-24 months, Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 will continue to provide a procedure for expedited authorization of commercial small UAS operations in the interim.  The final Part 107 will serve as the foundation for a multi-billion dollar UAS industry in the United States. Continue Reading FAA Releases Proposed Rules for Commercial Drones; White House Launches Drone Privacy Policy

Usually regarded as a local ski area for ski buffs in Northern and Southern California, to which it is readily accessible by car, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area (“MMSA”) is preparing to come into the 21st Century with a new lodge, updated lifts, and, perhaps most important to proponents of the development, an expanded airport.  The expected transformation will be accomplished by the December 12, 2014 passage of the National Defense Authorization Act to which was attached an amendment specifically targeted at the MMSA.  The amendment provides for a land trade of over 1,500 acres of public and private property in proximate counties, for approximately 21 acres of United States Forest Service (“USFS”) land surrounding Mammoth Mountain Inn, which is currently leasing that property as the center of ski operations of the MMSA.  In addition, the Bill allows for a “cash equalization option” to facilitate the exchange, by which MMSA can make up any deficiency in the value of the property conveyed to the USFS with a cash equivalent.  
 
Most important in MMSA’s view is the expansion of the airport.  

Continue Reading Land Trade and Airport Expansion Expected to Put Mammoth Mountain on “Must Ski” Map