The FAA Reauthorization has finally passed and been signed into law by President Biden on May 16, 2024.
The Bill contains provisions in sections 830 and 831 that cover fuel reimbursement and enhanced safety requirements by Volunteer Pilot Organizations.
To start a positive note, Section 830(b) is a provision that ACA advocated for quite a number of years ago. It precludes the FAA from considering a VPO to be an aircraft operator because it imposes higher safety standards on pilots than those established by the FAA.
This will be beneficial to many groups that have, or are considering implementing, safety management systems and other measures to enhance safety. In the past, the concern over being considered an “operator” (and thereby needing a charter certificate) has made VPOs shy away from considering measures to increase safety margins. There are other legal concerns, but lifting this impediment is very important.
Unfortunately, we did not make much progress on the fuel reimbursement front. The remainder of section 830 contains language that could help theoretically, but in practice, may turn out to be counterproductive.
This is because, in our opinion, the language reinforces the FAA’s policy of issuing exemptions, which are currently untenable for almost all Volunteer Pilot Organizations.
In 2012, Section 821 of the FAA Reauthorization was intended to expand the availability of fuel reimbursement to volunteer pilots. The FAA responded that their existing exemptions fulfilled the bill’s requirements. Although the new section 830(c) now requires the FAA to take section 821 into account when reissuing exemptions, one can anticipate the same response from the FAA, even though the FAA has never complied with Section 821, in our opinion. The Bill also requires that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) begin to take a look at the issue within four years.
The Bill also instructs the FAA not to impose any additional requirements on flights where there is no fuel reimbursement involved. Some see the language as opening opportunities for cost sharing under FAR 61.113(c), but in our opinion, the intention is to maintain the status quo and existing FAA guidance does not permit cost sharing by VPOs under this section.
The Air Care Alliance is grateful to Eric Heigis for his efforts in Congress (most recently with Senator Budd) on behalf of volunteer pilots over the years.
Also, our thanks to Jim Coon at AOPA for his invaluable assistance over the past year. Jim and AOPA did an outstanding job of getting many GA friendly provisions into this Reauthorization.
Jeff Kahn, Esq.
ACA Board Chair