The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, spearheaded by Senator Ted Cruz alongside Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, is a bipartisan effort, he says, to address the pressing challenges facing the aviation industry. Over the past year, the traveling public has encountered numerous issues that this legislation aims to resolve through a series of targeted provisions to enhance safety, convenience, and growth within the sector.
For Texans, and particularly Houstonians, the Act promises notable improvements. These include major investments in airport infrastructure, aviation technology, and initiatives aimed at strengthening the aviation workforce. Highlights of the Act include $4 billion per year dedicated to airport projects, streamlined processes for drone operations, hypersonic flight testing, and enhanced air traffic control technology to mitigate runway congestion.
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The legislation is intended to improve overall aviation safety and efficiency through measures such as extending cockpit voice recorder durations, defining best practices in aircraft manufacturing, and enhancing protocols for ramp worker safety. The Act also supports family-friendly travel by mandating family seating and encourages the integration of veterans into civil aviation careers.
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To delve deeper into these provisions and their implications, we sat down with Senator Ted Cruz for a comprehensive Q&A. Senator Cruz provides insights into the motivations behind the legislation, the expected impact on Texas’ aviation industry, and the broader benefits intended for travelers nationwide.
Q: Could you explain how the provisions of this bill benefit the aviation sector in the greater Houston area?
A: Well, last week, and this week, Congress has passed a massive bipartisan bill that I authored, along with Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington State that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration and invests over $100 billion into aviation. Making sure number one, the flying public is safe and puts real money into hiring the maximum number of air traffic controllers, investing in technology on runways at Houston airports, airports across Texas and across the country to try to avoid the risk of collisions. We’ve seen multiple near misses, that have been very frightening. This invests real dollars into technology to try to avoid that risk. When you think of aviation, aviation is incredibly important to the state of Texas, my number one priority of the Senate has always been jobs, jobs, jobs. And in Texas aviation, we’ve got multiple major airlines based here. Aviation produces hundreds of thousands of jobs here in Texas, and there are millions of jobs that depend upon a robust aviation system, whether it is people being able to go visit their customers, or visiting family and friends on vacation. All of that depends on aviation being strong and thriving. This legislation was a great victory, it passed the Senate at 88 to 4. It’s going to have a real and immediate impact and benefit for jobs in Texas right now.
Q: The legislation creates a pilot program for entities to train veterans for civil aviation careers. Can you discuss the significance of this program in providing opportunities for veterans in Texas, particularly in areas like Houston where there is a strong aviation presence?
A: That’s one component that’s in it, which is to help facilitate veterans, veterans who’ve gotten experience in aviation to get the training and be prepared to move into the private sector and the civilian sector. That’s something that has a twofer in terms of its benefits. Number one, it is helping transition active duty military, when they’re ready to move into civilian life, helping them make that transition. But number two, it’s helping find and provide well-trained men and women. There’s a pilot shortage right now in civilian aviation and one of the things we look into is finding ways to help meet that pilot shortage so that we have more flights so consumers have more choices, more competition and lower prices.
Q: The legislation includes reforms aimed at integrating commercial space activities into the national airspace system. How might these reforms bolster Houston’s position as a hub for the commercial space industry?
A: This bill takes major steps forward in terms of integrating civilian aviation with space. And when it comes to space, obviously, Houston, the home of Johnson Johnson Space Center, is hugely important. For the past 12 years, just about every major piece of space legislation has been passed into law I’ve authored. I’ve teamed up with Democrats to pass legislation, strengthening Johnson’s growing, growing NASA and increasing our focus on exploration. America has always been the leader in the world when it comes to space. It’s very exciting what’s happening with space exploration now with the Artemis project, to go back to the moon to put the first woman, the first female astronaut on the surface of the moon, and she will be an American astronaut. That is a big, big deal. I gotta say, as the father of two daughters, I’m really excited that America is going to put a woman on the moon. Then after Artemis, the next stage is to go to Mars and going on the red planet is an enormously important threshold for exploration for scientific discovery. And once again, the first boot that steps foot on the surface of the red planet is going to be an American astronaut. That is very exciting. This bill works to help integrate the aviation side with the space side, both of which had enormous positive impacts for the city of Houston.
Q: One aspect of the bill focuses on workforce development, specifically directing the FAA to hire more air traffic controllers. How will this address the understaffing issues at facilities in the Houston area and how might it contribute to fewer flight delays?
A: That’s one of the things that’s really important about this bill is it directs the FAA to hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers to train them which will help on multiple fronts. Number one from a safety perspective, having a shortage of air traffic controllers increases the risk of a fatal aviation accident. You want to have a really strong air traffic control system. But number two, hiring additional controllers will reduce delays in travel. Sometimes you have planes that are delayed just simply because you don’t have the capacity on the air traffic control side. Another thing I’ll mention on the safety side that this does, is right now, the black boxes, the cockpit report records every plane they report for only two hours, which, frankly, doesn’t make any sense. We saw just how dangerous that can be just a few months ago, if you remember the Alaska Airlines accident, where the door piece blew out out of the side of the plane. When the plane landed, by the time they got into the cockpit to check the black box, two hours had lapsed. It had erased the entire record, they have no record whatsoever of what happened on that plane when the door blew out. That is completely unacceptable. One of the things this bill does is direct the FAA to change that regulation so that instead of recording for two hours, the black box will now record for 25 hours so that we can ensure that God forbid if and when we have another serious air accident we will have an exact record of what happened and be able to understand if it was a mechanical issue, or pilot error or something else. And so that’s an important step forward. Because the number one priority when it comes to aviation is safety. Every one of us we get on airplanes, we put our families and put our kids on airplanes. And what we want to know what we want to have absolute confidence in is that when we put our kids on a plane, that we’re going to land and our family’s going to be alright, so this bill makes major investments in enhancing safety, and doing so in a way that also increases the competitiveness of the commercial aviation sector.
Q: Regarding the requirement for airlines to seat families together, how did the idea come up to include that in the bill?
A: That was a bipartisan agreement with Republicans and Democrats joined together. Families traveling together should be seated together and they cannot have an extra charge for sitting together. Now that is on a space available basis. So if someone books at the last minute, and there aren’t seats together, the airlines don’t have to forcibly move other passengers. But if there are seats together, the airlines are obligated to give you those seats together and not have an additional charge. I think that is a common-sense consumer provision. We also have in this bill, a provision that as a passenger if the airline cancels your flight for whatever reason, for weather, for mechanical issues, for whatever reason, that you have a legal entitlement to get a full refund to get your money back. That is now going to be written in the law that you have the right, and many consumers will choose to rebook if a flight’s canceled if you still need to get to the city you want to go to. Most consumers will say, ‘Okay, book me on the next flight’, but if you want to get your money back, you will now have a statutory right to that refund. This was a bipartisan agreement on that provision as well.
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Q: The legislation also addresses aircraft manufacturing standards and safety protocols for ramp workers. How will these measures help mitigate quality issues in commercial aviation and improve safety for workers and passengers?
A: When it comes to safety, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned. We’ve seen in recent years, particularly with Boeing, we saw the two crashes of Boeing 737 Maxes that were horrific and killed over 340 people. At the time those crashes happened, I called for the 737 Max to be grounded, the FAA did so and grounded them. There was a long investigation to find the causes of those crashes and they went in and retooled the system and retrained the pilots to hopefully avoid that ever happening again. But there needs to be a very serious focus on safety when it comes to airline manufacturing. When it comes to maintenance. In particular, the locking pins that were meant to hold the door plug in place, those locking pins were not installed. They weren’t put back after the door plug had been removed during maintenance which was an enormous problem. It is a miracle nobody died in that accident. Had somebody been sitting in the seat next to the door, they would have died. It was pure happenstance that seat happened to be empty, and so no one was killed or seriously injured. This bill again puts more onus on the FAA to ensure that safety standards are met. Whether it’s in manufacturing, whether it’s in maintenance, or whether it’s in training the pilots are receiving the highest level of training to keep passengers safe. That is the most important responsibility of the FAA.
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Q: Anything else you would like to add?
A: I will mention one other aspect of the bill that I’m particularly proud of. This bill expands the number of direct flights into and out of Reagan Washington National Airport, and it adds 10 New flights. The reason that is so important to Texas is right now the city of San Antonio does not have a direct flight to Reagan. This is an issue that is a big, big deal for the city of San Antonio. I told this story on the Senate floor, but several years ago, a delegation from San Antonio came and met with me and included the mayor and elected officials of the business community in the local community. They were all very focused on a critical priority for San Antonio, getting a direct flight to Reagan for a number of reasons. One, San Antonio has a huge military population, both active duty military and a lot of veterans. There’s a reason San Antonio’s nickname is Military City, USA, and Reagan Airport is right next to the Pentagon and it’s just about a mile away from Arlington Memorial Cemetery. San Antonio is the seventh biggest city in America. Obviously, Houston has direct flights to Reagan. Dallas has direct flights to Reagan, Austin has direct flights to Reagan, but San Antonio does not and that was completely unacceptable as far as I was concerned. I told the leadership in San Antonio, that I would lead the fight to get these flights. Well, we had a battle that ultimately played out on the Senate floor. It was a very hotly contested fight. But at the end of the day, Texas prevailed with that provision that I authored, it is in the bill, and ultimately it passed on the Senate floor, the full bill 88 to 4. Then just today the House of Representatives passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. It’s on its way to President Biden’s desk. He’ll sign it and that means San Antonio in about 60 days, is finally going to have a direct flight to and from Reagan. That’s a big victory for Texas.