At the June 11 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Bryan Bedford’s nomination to serve as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) mentioned that he is at an airport at least 48 out of 52 weeks every year. “I have a lot of skin in the game,” he said. Since members of Congress fly far more frequently than most Americans, Fetterman was not the only senator who took an avid interest in the nominee’s positions. (Note the hearing was held one day before an Air India crash that killed over 200 people.) 

Bedford’s testimony and responses appeared to reassure a majority of senators about the nominee’s qualifications and priorities. He said, “I can assure all of you that, if confirmed, my top priority will be public safety and in restoring the public’s confidence in flying.” However, Bedford repeatedly declined to give a direct answer about whether he would seek to change the FAA rule requiring pilots to log at least 1,500 hours of flight time before they are eligible to fly for an airline.  

Bedford’s hearing stood in stark contrast to the recent hearings for other transportation nominees. In March, the Senate conducted a hearing on the nomination of Marcus Molinaro to lead the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Flanked by the leader of the nation’s largest transit union and many of Molinaro’s former colleagues in the House of Representatives, Molinaro managed to avoid saying anything that would engender opposition. Likewise, Sean McMaster, nominee for administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), easily fielded senators’ questions. 

Bedford’s priorities 

Bedford told committee members, “Flying is safe, but as you know the system that manages our skies is showing its age. The stresses of this antiquated system truly came into view as we all returned to the skies after COVID. Chronic understaffing, controller fatigue, outdated facilities, and telecommunication technology have placed a strain on the men and women at the FAA. It has frustrated travelers with excessive delays and cancellations; and it has caused the public to question whether it’s truly safe to fly.” 

Bedford, who has served as president and CEO at Republic Airways since 1999, added, “I’ve been in the field of aviation for more than 35 years. I believe we can get the agency back on the right track, but first we must agree that our Air Traffic Control system needs significant investment.” He referred to a meeting he recently had with senior FAA officials where they raised serious concerns about outmoded, analog telecommunications technology, obsolete facilities, and the chronic staffing challenges at air traffic control centers. Bedford was troubled to learn that more than 90% of the FAA’s $6 billion annual modernization budget “is consumed with the maintenance and sustainability of the old system, leaving virtually nothing for real modernization investment.” 

Answers that Pleased the Senators 

Many of the senators seemed pleased with Bedford’s responses. 

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, welcomed Bedford’s promise to serve a full five-year term if confirmed. The two most recent Senate-confirmed administrators left early, leaving acting administrators to serve. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) liked Bedford’s statement about mandatory retirement ages, “We have really experienced pilots that still have a lot of gas in the tank, desire to serve, and a lot of mentoring that they can bring to the table for the younger workforce, that we’re developing for the future. So those that wish to serve, having an arbitrary mandatory retirement age doesn’t seem like the right answer to me.” 

When Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) urged the nominee to commit towards more transparency,” Bedford replied, “There’s lack of trust issues within the FAA and between the FAA and some of the stakeholders…We will have to embrace transparency and accountability.” Hickenlooper expressed his appreciation for the response saying, “I think more transparency increases accountability and actually helps staff do a better job.” 

When Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) asked about workforce issues associated with air traffic control systems, Bedford emphasized the need to better manage the workload of 17,000 controllers and supervisors. He said, we can “improve the tools that the FAA has to manage staffing, manage our productivity, manage our reserve coverage in a way that might close some of these gaps. Clearly that has to be done in concert with growing the staff and making that we’re utilizing all the resources that we have to train controllers of the future.” 

Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) stated, “For decades, the two pilot flight deck has been the cornerstone of commercial aviation safety in the United States. The presence of both a pilot in command and a second in command ensures redundancy, effective workload management, and it’s a critical layer of risk mitigation.” Bedford’s response reassured the senator that he was not looking to change that rule.  

Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) expressed support for the president’s recent executive order regarding drones, electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, and another one ordering the administrator of the FAA to repeal the prohibition on overland supersonic flight. Bedford said, “I can tell you I’m as excited about anybody about the opportunity for the innovation that’s happening right here in this country.” He added, “It’s pretty neat.” 

Refusing to recuse himself regarding the 1,500 hour rule 

Even though Bedford had been expecting the question about the 1,500 hour rule, he failed to give senators a straight answer about his intentions. His evasive answers seemed to both surprise and frustrate some of the senators. 

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) noted that in 2022, Bedford’s airline filed a petition with the FAA for an exemption to its 1,500 hour rule. The FAA denied the request but Markey said Republic Airways may view Bedford’s nomination as an opportunity to refile the petition and obtain the exemption. The senator asked Bedford whether he would recuse himself from deciding whether Republic would be given an exemption. Bedford replied that he went through a rigorous Office of Government Ethics (OGE) process and agreed to sign an ethics agreement to avoid any potential conflict of interest. 

The senator asked again, “So, you will recuse yourself from any participation in any Republic Airways request to exempt from the 1,500 hour rule.” Bedford responded, “Yes. My OGE ethics agreement does provide for recusals.” 

The senator pressed the nominee, “So you will recuse. I just want to make sure.” Bedford replied, “I don’t believe it will go through the entirety of my five-year tenure.” Once more, Senator Markey tried, “It would be cleaner that you wouldn’t go back and participate in that process.” In response, Bedford said, “As you may be aware from my ethics agreement, I will be completely separated from the industry in total. So, there will be no conflict of interest.”  

Senator Duckworth (D-IL) was even more emphatic but also failed to get the answer she sought. Duckworth argued, “I would submit that now is not the time for less actual cockpit time for pilots. This is a perilous moment for aviation safety…Air traffic controllers understaffed overworked and using antiquated equipment that is increasingly likely to fail as we saw in Newark. Well-trained pilots are our last line of defense. In incident after incident, it has been the pilots, the pilots who have made last-second decisions to avert disaster.” 

Duckworth, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot, then asked, “Mr. Bedford, will you commit to not reducing the number of flight hours currently required for pilots?” He responded, “I don’t think we actually have a lot of gap between where we’re at. We both want to have the safest pilots operating our aircraft.” Duckworth then said, “Yes. But you’re not answering me.”  

Bedford responded to Duckworth, “What I’m saying is I don’t believe safety is static and I can tell you we’ve worked closely with our military evaluating how they’re training pilots and the way they’re training pilots today is not the same way they were training pilots in 2020, 2015 or 2010. They’re taking advantage of emerging technologies and utilizing them in ways to create more pilot proficiency.” 

Bedford provided more information in response to a question about the rule from Senator Ted Budd (R-NC). The nominee said, “I am a big supporter of structured training as opposed to pure time building.” He explained, “The FAA promulgated multiple pathways under its authority, a 1,250-hour pathway, a thousand-hour pathway, and a 750-hour pathway because they concluded the data supported that advanced training and structured training produces safer outcomes and more proficient pilots. So, my Northstar will always be safety, not equivalent safety, but better safety.”  

In answer to a question from Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Bedford explained that reducing the number of hours can help lower income individuals. He said when Republic Airways established its commercial pilot training program, it was trying to “open the aperture of economic opportunity for families who otherwise can’t afford to do flight training. And we all know those families that are on the lower end of the wealth scale, who they are,  and what they look like. That shouldn’t keep anybody out of being able to take advantage of these transformational careers.” 

Privatization is not a priority 

Bedford offered a revealing anecdote when answering a question from Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) about privatizing the FAA and the air traffic control system. He said, “When I met with the president in the Oval Office, he asked me if I’d ever been in the White House before, and I said, ‘I actually had.’ And he asked when, I said, ‘Well, in 2017.’ And he kind of gave me a look. ‘What were you here for?’ I said, ‘Well, that was the last time you announced you were going to overhaul the air traffic control system.’ And he kind of chuckled and asked me, ‘How did that work out?’ And it didn’t work out so well. And if we’re honest, it was because industry hijacked the conversation and turned it into a privatization debate, and we spent three years arguing about privatization and we missed an opportunity to fix the system. We can always have a privatization debate, and we should at some point have a debate on whatever the merits are for funding continuity and visibility and contracting. Now is not the time for that debate.”