NATA Maintenance Perspective NATA: Working for You and Regulatory Consistency F or ABJ’s regular readers, the subject of “consistent application of FAA regulation” is nothing new. Certificate holders often get one answer from one Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) office and a different answer from another office. This can create regional advantages in cer- tain markets where the FAA can be seen as “more cooperative” or “less obstructionist.” What may be news to readers, or at least not as well known, is how long NATA’s Aircraft Maintenance and Systems Technology Committee has been working with the FAA on this and how deeply concerned the committee is about regulatory consistency. In 2003, when the FAA began its Customer Service Initiative (CSI), NATA’s Maintenance Committee met with Jim Ballough, then Director of Flight Standards. The objective: work with the FAA to establish a method for tracking submitted CSI com- plaints with a focus on identifying the FAA region and office where each CSI complaint originated. The tracking helped the FAA understand where inconsistencies existed and enabled both NATA and the FAA to address the root cause of the CSI complaint. NATA was the only industry group that approached the FAA with a plan and followed through with regular meetings to address issues as they 48 arose. Later, the FAA established its own system to track CSI com- plaints. It also renamed the program “Consistency and Standardization Initiative.” NATA’s Maintenance Committee was the impetus for a 2009 survey NATA conducted to gather data on significant and predominantly inconsistent FAA regulatory interpre- tation. The survey was in response to numerous member reports of varying interpretations of FAA regulations by the agency’s regional offices, Aircraft Certification Offices (ACO), and Flight Standards District Offices (FSDO). The survey results clearly showed the high and unnecessary costs, as well as the delays and obstacles, that aviation businesses suffer due to the FAA’s inconsistent interpretation of the regulations. At that time, NATA submitted a letter to Representatives John Mica (R-FL) and Pete Sessions (R-TX), re- questing Congress initiate a review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) into the lack of standardiza- tion of FAA regulatory interpretations at the regional and local levels. NATA provided the survey results to the GAO to assist with its review. NATA’s prodding helped spur the GAO report, which, in turn, led to congressional language in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, H.R. 658. Section 313 of the Act BY CAROL E. GILES specifically required the FAA to estab- lish an advisory panel to determine the causes of inconsistent interpreta- tion of regulations by the FAA's Flight Standards Service (AFS) and Aircraft Certification Service (AIR). The advisory panel, an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) known as the Consistency of Regulatory Interpretation (CRI), was co-chaired by the NATA Maintenance Committee liaison and included representatives from the FAA, NATA, Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA), Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Airlines for America (A4A), General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), National Air Carrier Association (NACA), and Regional Airline Association (RAA). The ARC developed recommen- dations to improve consistency of interpreting regulations and to improve communication between the government and both applicants and certificate/approval holders. The ARC report, submitted on November 28, 2012, included a call for clear regu- latory requirements, and noted that, when regulations are unclear, the application of regulations and policy can vary from inspector to inspector and compliance can also differ among certificate holders. The report pointed to the FAA culture as a main contributor to inconsistency and also commented Aviation Business Journal | 4th Quarter 2016
