WASHINGTON—Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt, in his most detailed comments yet about combating pilot fatigue, vowed to tailor future regulations to better reflect the safety challenges facing commuter pilots.
In a speech to the country's largest commercial-pilot union, the agency's administrator said the current "one size fits all" regulations don't adequately take into account fatigue typically experienced by commuter pilots, some of whom fly five or more segments per day.
"It's absolutely unsafe to think," Mr Babbitt said, that such cockpit crews can fly as many hours or stay on duty for as long as pilots who may fly one long-range and execute a single landing route during the same day.
Mr. Babbitt's comments indicate that the FAA, as part of its proposed sweeping rewrite of crew-scheduling rules, wants to mandate that commuter pilots get more rest, while probably allowing longer workdays on some long-range flights.
Mr. Babbitt blasted the current rules as dating from "the propeller era."
And in a pointed reference to complaints by airline-industry groups that the FAA is moving too fast in this area, the FAA chief vowed to continue pushing for accelerated effort. If labor and carrier representatives fail to reach consensus on scheduling-rule changes, he said, "we will close the gap and we will have a rule."