Airlines for America (A4A), the industry trade organisation for the leading U.S. airlines, today affirmed its support for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decision to apply the recent final rule on crew-member duty limits and rest only to scheduled passenger airline operations, and voiced strong opposition to newly proposed legislation that would reverse the careful analysis and conclusion by FAA that applying the rule to all-cargo carriers could not be justified. A4A issued the following statement:

"The FAA flight-time limitations and rest-requirements rulemaking was a thorough undertaking successfully built on a foundation of existing safety measures, fatigue mitigations and diverse airline operating environments," said A4A President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio. "This long-overdue rule puts the safe operation of passenger and cargo airlines first for customers and crew members as U.S. airlines continue to operate at the safest level in history."