By Capt. Dan Adamus, ALPA Canada Board President

In yesterday’s federal elections, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada won a decisive victory. On behalf of the ALPA Canada Board, we congratulate Canada’s next prime minister and look forward to working with our new government in furthering our mission as a forceful advocate of the airline piloting profession.

Among our top priorities for this new government is the repeal of several anti-labour laws, including C-377 and C-525, both of which would adversely affect labour unions, including ALPA.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) recent announcement that it will support an interim ban on all cargo shipments of lithium batteries on passenger airliners at an upcoming International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) meeting is promising news, but ALPA urges the FAA to strongly advocate its position at ICAO’s Dangerous Goods Panel, which is slated to meet later this month. Moreover, the United States must go further by fully regulating lithium battery shipment by air and implementing packaging restrictions and quantity limits on passenger and all-cargo aircraft.

Currently, lithium-ion batteries can be carried in all quantities as cargo on passenger and all-cargo flights. In its draft comment summary prepared for the ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel Twenty-Fifth Meeting to be held October 19–30 in Montreal, the U.S. government states, “At this time, we feel it is necessary to support an interim prohibition on the carriage of lithium ion-batteries as cargo on passenger aircraft to ensure that the risk is mitigated while we continue to aggressively pursue development and implementation of the performance-based standard for air transport.” The FAA’s position came in response to recommendations submitted by First Officer Mark Rogers, ALPA’s former director of the Dangerous Goods Program and current IFALPA Dangerous Goods Committee chairman and ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel member.

Today, I testified [oral|written] before the U.S. House of Representatives Aviation Subcommittee and urged lawmakers to direct the FAA to regulate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operated for recreation and hobby.

With the anticipated sales of one million UAS during this year’s holiday season, we must address all UAS operations immediately. The FAA is making some progress in ensuring the safe integration of UAS into our nation’s airspace system, but more is required. Just look at this summer’s release of the hundreds of FAA reports from pilots on UAS encounters. In these reports, pilots across the country described seeing a UAS while in flight, often during takeoff and landing, the most critical phases of flight.

In order to continue to track these instances, ALPA has been encouraging pilots who encounter a UAS to follow their company guidance and, where applicable, file a report with the FAA. There is a dedicated page on ALPA’s website, available to anyone, that helps pilots understand whether the encounter is likely reportable as a near mid-air collision and provides the links and information needed to submit the necessary information.

ALPA pilots were on Capitol Hill this week as the U.S. federal government took steps to avert a shutdown and Congress extended the current authorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until March 31, 2016.

It is indeed good news that the FAA’s authorization has been extended, but this week’s temporary fix is just the latest example of Congress’s long history of stop-and-start funding for the agency. While erratic reauthorization has made it challenging for the FAA to implement necessary safety and air traffic system upgrades, the progress made during its most recent three-year reauthorization offers a taste of the advancement that stable funding makes possible. For example, over the last three years, the FAA made significant strides in air traffic flow and coordination through en route automation modernization (ERAM) and gained safety, environmental, and efficiency benefits through a number of NextGen initiatives such as ADS-B and performance-based navigation implementation.

Education is one important element in ALPA’s four-part solution to safely integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace. As a result, this week, ALPA joined the “Know Before You Fly” campaign, a public initiative designed to inform those interested in flying an unmanned aircraft about the safe and responsible operation of UAS.