Economic growth, operational freedom and safety are among the top issues on the legislative agenda for the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA), according to a letter to congressional leadership from Daniel Fisher, the association’s vice president of legislative affairs.
As Congress enters another FAA reauthorization cycle, ARSA’s top priority is ensuring lawmakers understand government and aviation maintenance companies share the same safety goals and that Washington must refrain from micromanaging industry with “unnecessary burdensome” mandates.
“The basic nature of the aviation industry demands that safety and security are paramount,” the letter states. “Operators and airlines will not do business with companies that put passengers and valuable business assets [aircraft] at risk. Put simply: good safety is good business.”
“The new Congress has a unique opportunity to start with a clean slate for aviation maintenance,” said Fisher. “Past FAA reauthorizations have been fraught with battles over proposals that would be detrimental to repair stations by imposing duplicative and unnecessary government mandates that would hurt international competitiveness and increase administrative costs for this small business-dominated industry. Lawmakers must focus on addressing real threats to the U.S. aviation sector’s effectiveness and flight safety, not manufactured economic and safety assertions.”
Additionally, the association pressed the 114th Congress to adopt regulatory reform and due process protections for regulated entities, encourage bilateral aviation safety agreements, provide necessary resources for the FAA, restore tax certainty and simplification and address one of the industry’s greatest challenges: the dearth of skilled technical workers.