Aero-politics: May 2008 Archives

When Harry Reid, the Democrat from Nevada who runs the party in the Senate, came out the other week and said he’d block amendments from the FAA reauthorization bill, he took a gamble. 'Filling the tree', as this manuevre is called, is to many objectionable: it limits debate, which is what they love to do in the world’s greatest deliberative body. On the other hand, it may well be the only way a measure gets moved from debate to actual action, which is just what may be needed when it comes to the FAA bill.
But it didn’t work. Republicans objected, and the Democrats responded with a vote on limiting debate called the cloture vote (this is the way to end filibusters). The manuever failed, with only 49 votes on the Democratic side. “We find ourselves in a stalemate,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican. Hutchison, a Texas Republican, added, “We should go back to the drawing boards.”

Off with his head. That is the recommendation of the Business Travel Coalition, where chairman Kevin Mitchell is again gathering his members’ wrath and preparing to call for Bobby Sturgell’s head. The latest impetus in his demand for the resignation of Sturgell (right)from his temporary leadership of the FAA - along with other unspecified FAA leaders - is the revelation that the FAA had failed to perform over 100 safety checks at major US airlines. The inspections, part of ATOS, the Air Transportation Oversight System, are system checks of the way in which the airlines collect data and analyze it; they include engine-monitoring and pilot-training. The ATOS checks in question are five-year checks that became mandatory last year. Mitchell, whose group is composed of corporate travel managers, is also running a member poll on airline consolidation; he recently testified against the Northwest/Delta merger. His group is working with Teamsters on legislation that would compel tightened FAA inspections and oversight of outsourced maintenance, especially overseas airline maintenance.

‘Filling the Tree.’ That’s what they call it in the Senate when a floor manager or member of the leadership invokes a rule (Rule XV) that essentially lets him (or her) block amendments from coming to the floor to modify a bill under consideration. While some people object to this tactic, it may well be the only way a measure gets moved from debate to actual action and that is what may be needed when it comes to the FAA bill. The bill has languished in the Senate for months, even though the House passed its version in September; a move by Sen. Jay Rockefeller to bring it up last week was met with another kind of tree decoration, in which a bill is loaded up with amendments that not only bog it down but break its limbs. A pension amendment that would have forced major airlines into millions of dollars in extra payments was one, and it was finally defeated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, but other amendments, including one that punished any US company that moved offshore to avoid taxes, were also piled on.

You mean all that was for nothing? The last year or year-and-a-half has been a tough one for American Airlines, not least because it’s been in bickering, er, we mean, negotiations, with its pilot union. We thought all the back and forth was important, but it turns out it was all really a mere vorspeis, an appetiser, for the main course. That’s because the Allied Pilots Association’s contract with American didn’t actually become amendable until May 1, and that the last 18 months or so of forth, back, and forth has largely been for naught.
"The early-opener provision was designed to enable the two parties to reach a new agreement by the contract's amendable date," says APA president Lloyd Hill. "Clearly, this provision has not produced the desired result, as evidenced by the lack of progress at the bargaining table." Hill noted that management triggered the early-opener provision in the contact.