By JOAN LOWY
The Associated Press
3/23/2010

WASHINGTON — Transforming the nation's air traffic system by replacing
World War II-era radar with 21st century GPS technology would be
accelerated under a bill approved Monday by the Senate.

The $34.5 billion bill funds the Federal Aviation Administration through
Sept. 30, 2011. It also addresses a series of safety concerns raised by the
crash of a regional airliner last year near Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 50
people.

The centerpiece of the bill calls for key elements of the FAA's NextGen
program to be in place at the busiest American airports by 2014. The system
won't be fully in place for noncommercial aircraft until after 2020.

The nation's antiquated air traffic control system is a major source of
airline delays.

The new system is projected to cost the FAA as much as $22 billion through
2025. Airlines would have to spend as much as $20 billion more to install
equipment in their planes.

In the long term, the system is expected to save airlines money by allowing
planes in crowded air corridors to take more direct routes and fly closer
to each other without safety risks, reducing delays, saving energy and
cutting down on pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions. Pilots will
have real time information on the location of other aircraft.

The system is crucial to handling the expected growth in air traffic from
about 700 million passengers in 2009 to the more than 1 billion annually by
2023.

The United States lags behind other nations in making the transition to the
new technology, said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a key sponsor of the
bill. Even Mongolia, he said, is further along.

"It's embarrassing," said Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce,
Science and Transportation Committee.

The bill, passed by a 93-0 vote, contains a provision authorizing the FAA
to make grants to airlines to help cover equipment costs. Some airline
executives have said that as much as they want the new system, they can't
afford to put it in their planes.

Airlines have suffered repeated shocks over the past decade, including the
Sept. 11 terror attacks, the SARS virus, volatile oil prices and the
current economic downturn. They have shed more than 158,000 full-time jobs
since employment peaked in 2001 and lost an estimated $30 billion to $60
billion in recent years.

Sponsors of the bill labored for a week to reach compromises with senators
over amendments. Moments before passage of the bill, the Senate accepted
without opposition a Rockefeller amendment containing some of those
compromises.

Rockefeller's staff declined to release a copy of the amendment. However, a
list obtained by The Associated Press showed more than a dozen provisions
on issues ranging from flights over the Grand Canyon to air quality in
airline cabins.

Among the safety measures in the bill is a requirement that FAA update how
many hours airlines can require pilots to work and how much rest they must
get between work days. Airlines would be required to have remedial training
programs for pilots who fail skills tests or make other errors, and
programs that use electronic data recorded during flights to spot safety
trends before they cause an accident.

The bill also:

-Raises the minimum number of hours of flying experience an airline
co-pilot must have from 250 hours to 800.

-Bans pilots from using personal electronic devices in the cockpit, a
response to an incident last October in which pilots of a Northwest
Airlines plane flew more than 100 miles past their destination of
Minneapolis while they were working on their laptops.

-Doubles to twice a year the frequency of FAA inspections of foreign
aircraft repair and maintenance stations that work on U.S. planes.

-Contains a "passenger bill of rights" that would require airlines to
provide food, water and other amenities to passengers kept waiting on
tarmacs and give them the opportunity to deplane after a three-hour wait.

That would give legal status to Transportation Department rules adopted in
December that also limited tarmac waits to three hours and fine airlines up
to $27,500 per passenger for violations.

-Authorizes $8 billion over two years for airport improvement projects,
which supporters said would generate 150,000 jobs.

The House passed a three-year FAA funding bill last year that includes
several contentious labor provisions not part of the Senate bill. The House
bill would also raise the passenger facility charge, which goes to airports
to pay for improvements, from $4.50 per ticket to $7. Differences between
the two bills remain to be worked out.

Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.