The U.S. airline industry is bracing for a record-setting Thanksgiving holiday with over 50,000 flights scheduled for Wednesday, November 22 along with 2023's busiest day slated for Sunday. Anticipating a surge in passengers, newly appointed FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker has appealed to travelers to exercise patience and understanding towards flight…
In a significant move to address staffing shortages and expedite the recruitment of air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that graduates of accredited college and university air traffic control programs will no longer be required to attend the FAA's academy in Oklahoma City. Instead, these graduates…
The civil aviation industry's goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 took another step forward this week at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in San Francisco. Boeing, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched ‘an initiative to catalyze the development and use of…
With concerns raised over whether pilots fear seeking treatment for mental health issues, the FAA announced on Thursday it will establish a Pilot Mental Health Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to address the issue. According to the announcement, the FAA “expects the committee to provide recommendations on breaking down the barriers…
On Tuesday evening, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Mike Whitaker as the next Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Whitaker is a former deputy administrator at the FAA, where he served from 2013 to 2016. He is also an attorney and a private pilot, previously holding various airline…
With more than a year and a half since there was a Senate-confirmed head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), it looks like the streak is about to end. On Wednesday, the uniquely bipartisan U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation unanimously agreed that Michael Whitaker is the right…
Aviation groups breathed a collective sigh of relief late Saturday after Congress passed an interim measure that avoids a government shutdown and also gives the FAA some breathing room. The bill, which was signed by President Biden a few hours before the midnight deadline to avert a shutdown, pushes that…
Merlin Labs announced on July 6 that it completed 25 autonomous test flights in Alaska. The Boston-based company conducted the tests under a $1 million contract with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to demonstrate a highly-automated flight control system with a safety pilot onboard. The company operated these test flights…
After several months of encouraging—if lucky—reliability, stability has given way to wobbliness around the national aviation system. And in a coincidence only Agnes Callard could be rooting for, this sudden destabilization figures to coincide with the busiest air travel day of the summer: the TSA expects to screen 2.82 million…
