Time is running out for many American workers. The Payroll Support Program—which prevents companies that receive CARES Act grants from making layoffs or involuntary furloughs and secures the pay and benefits for airline workers—expires on September 30. This fall, hundreds of thousands of more workers across our entire economy could lose their jobs and health insurance due to the pandemic.

Right now, the same airline pilots who fly your family for a vacation and deliver products for your business, large and small, are now fighting on the frontlines of the COVID-19 public-health crisis—transporting doctors, nurses, and medical personnel to the outbreak hotspots and keeping global supply chains moving to provide essential medical supplies. These same airline pilots are also helping strengthen the U.S. and Canadian economies by flying goods and services that drive commerce.

On the night of Feb. 12, 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407, operating as a Continental Connection flight, crashed on approach to Buffalo, N.Y. Fifty people were fatally injured that night, including all four crewmembers, the 45 passengers, and one individual on the ground.

The crash was the last in a series of four high-profile fatal airline accidents over a six-year timeframe in the United States, and the ensuing investigation introduced serious questions regarding numerous safety issues within the airline industry. As a result, several notable safety advancements were enacted in the wake of the Colgan crash, including an increase in pilot training, qualifications, and experience requirements.

For decades, ALPA has advocated for One Level of Safety for one simple reason: a tired pilot is a tired pilot, regardless of payload. However, when new fatigue rules were implemented in 2011, a flawed cost-benefit analysis of the regulations excluded cargo pilots. Despite this “cargo carveout,” there is no scientific basis for the separate pilot duty and rest rules based on the type of operations they conduct. Cargo pilots fly the same routes, in the same airspace, and into the same airports as pilots of passenger airlines, and inconsistencies in regulations put the traveling public at risk.

For more than 80 years, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) has advanced aviation safety and security on behalf of pilots, crewmembers, and the flying public. During the early days of air travel, pilots lacked many basic safety provisions. That’s why ALPA’s founder and first president, Capt. Dave Behncke, brought pilots together with one goal in mind—to advance aviation safety. And that goal remains the core of our mission today. ALPA is the largest airline pilot union in the world, growing to more than 63,000 #TrainedforLife pilots at 35 airlines in the United States and Canada.