September 21, 2010

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

The National Air Transportation Association (NATA), the voice of aviation business, is the public policy group representing the interests of aviation businesses before the Congress, federal agencies and state governments. NATA's over 2,000 member companies own, operate and service aircraft and provide for the needs of the traveling public by offering services and products to aircraft operators and others such as fuel sales, aircraft maintenance, parts sales, storage, rental, airline servicing, flight training, Part 135 on-demand air charter, fractional aircraft program management and scheduled commuter operations in smaller aircraft. NATA members are a vital link in the aviation industry providing services to the general public, airlines, general aviation and the military. 

As president of NATA, I am writing to express my support for Assembly Bill 1889 (Portantino) and to request your signature on this bill. AB 1889 provides a one-year delay, retroactive to July 1, 2010, in compliance for flight training facilities with the regulations issued by the California Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE). This delay is imperative to allow time for the legislature to revisit the issue of flight training’s regulation as a private postsecondary institution.

Assembly Bill 48, passed and signed by you in 2009, extended, for the first time, the BPPE’s regulatory authority to include flight training. This was done without input from the hundreds of flight training providers across the state. The end result is now regulations that fail to acknowledge the extreme diversity in operations and business models of the flight training industry. This failure to understand fully and account for the diversity in flight training will lead, without your signature on AB 1889, to the utter devastation of the industry within the state. Many of California’s flight training facilities and operations, all small businesses, will be forced to close their doors and lay off their employees.

The flight training industry is not asking not to be regulated, only that we be afforded a fair voice in the development of the rules that will be applied to our industry. Up to this point, that has not occurred. Your signature on AB 1889 will provide the time and opportunity for our concerns to be heard by the legislature.

Sincerely,

James K. Coyne
President

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For general press inquiries, contact Shannon Chambers at 703-298-1347 or schambers@nata.aero. 

The National Air Transportation Association (NATA) has been the voice of aviation business for more than 80 years. Representing nearly 3,700 aviation businesses, NATA’s member companies provide a broad range of services to general aviation, the airlines and the military and NATA serves as the public policy group representing the interests of aviation businesses before Congress and the federal agencies.