Jennifer Owens

This issue has been known to the FAA since at least September, 2007 (when the original Boeing paperwork was released). Under the original docket, published in March, 2008, multiple parties requested that the rule be amended to refer to a later revision of the Boeing paperwork. This paperwork, according to the current proposed rule, was released on October 16, 2008. The new proposed rule was published on October 19, 2009, just over a year since Boeing revised their paperwork. According to http://www.aircraft-commerce.com/sample_articles/sample_articles/fleet_planning_2_sample.pdf, "annual utilisation of about...1,050 flight cycles (FC) is representative of how many 757s are used." Given this delay and based on this utilization, operators have had the opportunity to skip three or four of the required 300 cycle inspections and are approaching the point where they may skip the first of the 1500 cycle inspections. Based on this delay and the fact that the FAA chose instead to reopen the comment period (further delaying the release of the final rule by, based on past history with this docket, another 18+ months, the time between the close of the previous comment period and the reopening of the current one), one must conclude that one of the following must be true: (a) The FAA cares naught about the safety of the flying public and is simply interested in rulemaking imperialism that will inconvenience the airlines and the flying public. (b) The FAA does not feel that the additional delay in publishing a final rule has an adverse effect on safety, at which point one must question the need for the rule and/or the intervals contained therein. Specifically, if a delay of approximately three years is acceptable, then the inspection intervals of approximately 2-3 months and 18 months (based on the utilization contained above) are unnecessarily short. If neither is true, then initial compliance times should be shortened to account for the delay in releasing the final rule.