Officials at the National Association of Flight Instructors said they recently became aware that the Arizona State Board for Private and Postsecondary Education will have a meeting this week to discuss the “Question of Regulation of Certain Classifications of Airplane Pilot and Instructors under Part 61 of the CFR.”
The meeting will be held Thursday, Aug. 26, in Conference Room B-1, 1400 West Washington St., in Phoenix. NAFI officials said they will monitor what happens in the meeting and provide information to the flight training community upon its completion.
Recently, California held similar discussions, which could result in potentially significant fees for flight-training providers in that state. While the California law may still be amended, that effort is under review by the state legislature.
“We are concerned that Arizona may be considering similar fees,” says NAFI Executive Director Jason Blair. “As a state that has a significant number of flight-training providers, we’re concerned about the chilling effect those fees may have on those businesses. We’re encouraging our members in that state to get involved in this issue, so we don’t have a repeat of the California situation.”
For more information: NAFINet.org or 920-426-6801.
It seems every state that doesn’t have this golden goose of money coming into the state coffers will now be jumping on the bandwagon. We need to put together a federal lawsuit against Colorado, Arizona, California, and so on, so we can get an injunction to stop the laws while the case is argued. Then we need to argue the case on the legality of States infringing on the exercise of Federally granted and controlled Licenses/Certificates. $50,000 is the starting cost.
Colorado considers flight schools as secondary education operations and has such a law, however, it is not generally or rigidly enforced except for Part 141 Flight Schools with government contracts (such as VA training, etc.). For my Part 141 Flight School, initial licensing cost $8,500 plus $50 per instructor. Additional instructor licensing as a teacher is also $50 and each instructor must be renewed each year at $50. The school is also subject to state inspection. The State considers FAA Flight Instructor Certification as meeting the requirements for a Colorado Secondary Teacher’s Certificate and no additional testing is required — just application paperwork and $50 per year. The fact that the law is not universally enforced is a burden, aggravation, significant extra expense and a “bureaucratic paperwork generator” to those who do comply. We consider it primarily a source of funds for the state coffers with no benefit to the complying school.
The more difficult it becomes to create pilots, the greater the negative impact will be on the future of air transportation safety. Whether the pilot population decreases because of potential students deciding not to deal with security hassles or because the number of willing flight instructors decreases due to financial costs and regulatory burdens, the end result is the same…fewer pilots for the future.
Pilot production is an important part of the air transportation system. Having fewer pilots to choose from for future right seaters in Boeing 787s and Airbus 380s, the airlines will be in the position of having to absorb the training costs of bringing an even more widely diverse pool of talent up to the level of safety required for commercial air service.
If federal and state governments make it too difficult to encourage and train U.S. citizens to become pilots, our future flight operations will be done by mostly foreign pilots. Won’t TSA like that!
Janice…Thanks for another great article.