The entire RAA team wishes its members and industry partners a safe and prosperous 2014, and what a way to start the new year!

At the same time one of the most challenging and complex rule changes for the airline industry became effective on January 4, 2014--the Flight, Duty and Rest Regulation, known as 14 CFR Part 117--the nation was hit with record breaking cold temperatures cancelling flights and stranding tens of thousands of passengers. While RAA member airlines pro-actively adopted the new science-based scheduling rules for airline pilots, many airlines were forced to cancel flights, especially to small- and medium-sized communities as the combination of winter weather and new crew scheduling practices snarled operations and inconvenienced passengers trying to head back to work and home during the first full week after the holiday season.

While RAA Senior Vice President-Operations & Safety Scott Foose told The Wall Street Journal regionals were prepared and ready to make changes to specialized crew schedule software to adopt the new science-based scheduling rules, the regional airlines bore a major brunt of the surprise winter weather travel disruptions since 70% of US communities rely exclusively on our service.  Despite these challenges, RAA members are working with their dedicated professional crew members and their partner airlines to minimize inconvenience during one of the most challenging periods in recent memory.

President Roger Cohen further underlined to CNN that this past week's service disruptions pointed to a much bigger issue relating to the need for more pilots and a new First Officer Qualification rule that are displaying real world impacts system-wide.