To the Editor:

The airlines are blaming the FAA, the pilot and flight attendants are blaming the airline executives, and us lowly peons who are stuck in musty terminals dealing with our bags being lost and flights being cancelled don’t know who to blame. The current state of the travel industry is in disarray.

After being cooped up for nearly two years because of COVID, people are desperate for some travel and adventure, but are only being met with more disappointment. Exorbitant airfares, major delays, mass cancellations, and too many over-sold flights: What is going on and how can we fix this?

As a commercial pilot and aviation author, I fully recognize the frustrations my passengers go through when, for example, their flight becomes cancelled or severely delayed. If I’m at work and it’s my last flight of the day so I can get home to see my 5- and 3-year-old boys, I’m just as upset as everyone else when we’re smacked with a massive delay or get cancelled.

The issues our aviation system currently face are so intricately complex it will take more than this short letter to describe in proper detail. The takeaway I want to leave for my community members reading this paper is this: The “quick fixes” I hear on the news and from certain politicians are Band-Aids on bullet wounds. There are shortcuts that are being pushed that might temporarily solve some of the current issues of delays and cancellations, but these shortcuts undermine the impeccable safety record our country has in aviation.

“Aviation regulations are written in blood” is a common adage we are taught in flight school. Many laws we follow as pilots are usually the result of some previous accident which was then proceeded with a change to the regulations manual.

It scares me to see politicians talk about rolling back some of these changes such as the retirement age, minimum pilot experience rules, and crew rest rules because their constituents are upset about too many delays and cancellations, or the airline executives blaming the regulations for these problems.

The discussion should be about the 1950’s technology that air traffic controllers are relegated to using that is probably a leading cause of the inefficiencies that lead to major delays, or the fact that entry level pilot positions have such low pay and poor quality of life that nobody wants to do it anymore, all of which are leading to the current staffing crises that have been anticipated for over a decade and we now see happening today.

I urge our legislators and our community to listen to the aviation professionals who are advising safe, common-sense changes to the current system that will benefit us all without compromising safety.

Sen Falzano

Southbury