While most attention in Washington has been focused on the Senate health-care repeal bill, the House Transportation Committee has been busy voting up a slew of changes for air travel, including splitting the air traffic control system from FAA and turning it over to a non-profit corporation.
Some of the changes are long-time consumer favorites, while others appear to favor the airline industry. All are being written into the Federal Aviation Administration appropriations bill, and will need to be approved by the whole House, the Senate and the President before becoming law. Some may not make it.
Here are some to keep an eye on, besides the air traffic control issue:
- The FAA would be mandated to regulate minimum seat width and pitch (distance between seat rows). The airlines have fought this one for years, and will fight to keep it out of the final bill
- The committee voted to require airlines to install secondary barriers, such as steel gates, to keep cockpits secure when a pilot must step out. The airlines say there's no problem, but crew unions want the extra safety.
- Airlines such as Norwegian would have a harder time getting licenses for U.S. flights; permission would only be granted to airlines based in the country of their majority ownership. Norwegian won a long battle to get licenses for its wholly-owned Irish and European subsidiaries.
- Vaping would be made illegal on airplanes. This one has the best chance of staying in the bill, but would change nothing, as the FAA already banned it. But it would take it out of FAA's hands in case they wanted to change in future.
- Most controversial, and most likely to be a big public fight, is the airline-requested reversal of the Department of Transportation rule that requires airlines to tell customers the total price, including taxes, when fares are first listed. For more on that see yesterday's TravelGumbo report
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