Bryan Bedford, the nominee of President Trump to lead the Federal Aviation Administration in Leiden, will be confronted on Wednesday with questions from senators at a critical moment for an agency that confronts staff shortages and the rising concerns about the safety of passengers.
Mr. Bedford has for decades oriented and renewed regional commercial airlines, including Republic Airways, where he currently serves as president, chief executive and director.
He is expected to be members of the Senate Committee for Trade, Science and Transport, who are revised his nomination: “If confirmed, my top priority will be public safety and to recover the trust of the public in Vliegen,” said a copy of his prepared comments with the New York Times. He is expected to work on “to build a new, best-in-class air traffic control system and to correct the chronic understaffing in the air centers of our nation.”
In a recent questionnaire obtained by the New York Times that Mr Bedford has prepared for the committee, he promised to use his management experience in the private sector to tackle long -term technology problems and staff leaves that were emphasized by the deadly January -Midairbott between a commercial airport.
In the months since the crash on Reagan National Airport, a series of almost missers and disruptions at large airports attracted new attention to risks of the outdated follow systems of the FAA and understood air traffic controllers.
The next manager of the agency – which has had five leaders in the last four years – will be under pressure to remedy those problems, even if the FAA supports staffing elsewhere as part of the reduction of the federal government by the Trump government.
In his questionnaire, Mr Bedford explained downright the desk that he hopes to lead for what he called a “lack of strategic vision” and a “in -depth lack of trust with and within the desk”.
But Democrats have expressed their concern that as a manager Mr Bedford could work to reduce or accelerate new exceptions to safety standards that he criticized as a airline, so that the efforts of the agency to further complicate the trust of the public in air travel.
Mr Bedford has been pronounced about his contempt for a rule that requires new first officers to have at least 1500 flying hours, and calls it ‘random’. He’s arguing In the Congress Testimony In 2014, the required ‘the growing pilot deficiency would accelerate’. The rule, assigned by the congress after a deadly regional airline in Buffalo from 2009, came into force in 2013.
Under the leadership of Mr Bedford, Republic Airways submitted a petition in the FAA in 2022 to release graduates from the company’s flight school from the 1500 -hour rule, with the argument that it was a rigorous training of a quality that was proportional to those received by military pilots. For them, the aviation agency only requires 750 hours of extra training for commercial planes.
The FAA denied the petition a few months later.
Senator Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, the top democrat on the subcommittee of the Panel, said on Tuesday evening that she had challenged Mr Bedford in a recent meeting about that record and that he had told her that he considered the 1500 flight hours rule as regular law.
“But I am still worried that he would reduce that required unilateral,” added Mrs. Duckworth, and noted that he would have a freedom as a FAA manager to abandon that rule for pilots in certain circumstances.
A spokeswoman for the transport department said that if confirmed, Mr Bedford would follow the laws set out by the congress, which determine the requirement of 1500 flying hours.
Democrats are also expected to ask Mr Bedford for comments he made in 2019, and show that he would be in favor of having commercial flights flown by a single pilot. He argued that legislators were too skimmed and the lobby of the pilots too powerful to enable the industry to get rid of the requirement of two pilots.
“I don’t think we’ll see the commercial passenger flying in my life with fewer than two pilots,” he said During a speech At Liberty University in 2019 and added: “I don’t think the congress has the courage, even if the data and science suggest that it is logical.”
In a statement last week, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Commerce Committee, said in a statement that he would “look out to thoroughly evaluate the candidacy of Mr Bedford”.
“The next FAA manager will have to offer strong and stable leadership to complete modernization projects in time, but also to identify and implement what the future of the FAA and the airspace of America should be,” he added.
Democrats are also expected to investigate the personal interests of Mr Bedford during the hearing. In ethics disclosurePromised Mr Bedford to resign from his current functions that are oriented or served on the councils of various airlines, and noted that he expected to receive a fixed severance reimbursement and outstanding bonuses from Republic when he put his position down, he should be confirmed as the next FAA manager.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport said that if confirmed, Mr Bedford would meet laws for conflicts of interest.
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