September 6, 2019 — Last year we successfully achieved 10 Hours minimum rest free from duty under the law. According to the legislation timeline and past practice on implementation of new rules, airlines should have had to comply with the law by the beginning of June 2019. Instead, a few airlines mounted significant opposition to the implementation and argued it would be too costly and difficult to implement. The Government Shutdown and the Boeing 737Max grounding further delayed the implementation of hundreds of provisions of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018.
Flight Attendants made our rest a top priority and it's because of all of you that we were able to achieve this legislative win. We have been working diligently on several fronts to remove obstacles to getting our rest implemented. We have worked directly with Chairman DeFazio (D-OR), Chairman Larsen (D-WA) and several other members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. As we did with the original bill, we had both Republicans and Democrats from the Committee speaking up and pushing for implementation with FAA and DOT. We also have worked with our airlines to remove obstacles and specifically negotiated and implemented the 10 hours rest at Frontier and PSA. This also helped to demonstrate to regulators that the implementation should not be as difficult as they had been told by some airlines.
Recently confirmed FAA Administrator Steve Dickson assured AFA and lawmakers he would make implementation of 10 hours rest a priority. Today, under his leadership the FAA took an official and public step forward announcing a rulemaking process for implementing the 10 hours minimum rest. Within hours, Delta announced they would implement the rest with the February bid month - demonstrating the truth that all airlines can do this within a few months time. We will keep the heat on and press for full federal implementation as soon as possible. This is about safety, health, and equality.
