Bryan Bedford, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, will face questions from senators on Wednesday at a critical juncture for an agency confronting staffing shortages and mounting concerns about passenger safety.
Mr. Bedford spent decades running and revamping regional commercial airlines, including Republic Airways, where he currently serves as president, chief executive and director.
He is expected to tell members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation reviewing his nomination that “if confirmed, my top priority will be public safety and in restoring the public’s confidence in flying,” according to a copy of his prepared remarks shared with The New York Times. He is expected to add that he will work “to build a new, best-in-class air traffic control system, and to rectify the chronic understaffing at our nation’s air centers.”
In a recent questionnaire obtained by The New York Times that Mr. Bedford prepared for the committee, he pledged to use his management experience in the private sector to address longstanding technology problems and staffing gaps that were highlighted by the deadly Jan. 29 midair collision between a commercial flight and a military helicopter at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
In the months since the crash at Reagan National Airport, a series of near misses and outages at major airports have drawn fresh attention to risks posed by the F.A.A.’s outdated tracking systems and understaffed air traffic control towers.
The next administrator of the agency — which has had five leaders in the last four years — will be under pressure to correct those problems, even as the F.A.A. sustains staffing cuts elsewhere as part of the Trump administration’s downsizing of the federal government.
In his questionnaire, Mr. Bedford roundly criticized the agency he hopes to lead for what he called a “lack of strategic vision” and a “profound lack of trust with and within the agency.”
But Democrats have raised concerns that as administrator, Mr. Bedford might work to reduce or carve out new exceptions to safety standards that he criticized as an airline executive, further complicating the agency’s efforts to restore public confidence in air travel.
Mr. Bedford has been outspoken about his disdain for a rule requiring new first officers to have a minimum of 1,500 flight hours, calling it “arbitrary.” He argued in congressional testimony in 2014 that the requirement would “hasten the growing pilot shortage.” The rule, ordered by Congress after a deadly 2009 regional airline crash in Buffalo, went into effect in 2013.
Under Mr. Bedford’s leadership, Republic Airways petitioned the F.A.A. in 2022 to allow graduates of the company’s flight school to be exempted from the 1,500 hour rule, arguing that it offered rigorous training of a quality commensurate with that received by military pilots. For them, the aviation agency only requires 750 hours of additional training for commercial aircraft.
The F.A.A. denied the petition a few months later.
Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, the top Democrat on the panel’s aviation subcommittee, said on Tuesday evening that she had challenged Mr. Bedford about that record in a recent meeting, and that he had told her he considered the 1,500 flight hours rule to be settled law.
“But I am still concerned that he would unilaterally decrease that requirement,” Ms. Duckworth added, noting that as F.A.A. administrator, he would have some discretion to waive that rule for pilots in certain circumstances.
A spokeswoman for the Transportation Department said that if confirmed, Mr. Bedford would follow the laws set forth by Congress, which set the requirement of 1,500 flight hours.
Democrats are also expected to ask Mr. Bedford about comments he made in 2019, hinting that he would be in favor of allowing commercial flights to be flown by a single pilot. He argued that lawmakers were too skittish and the pilots’ lobby too powerful to allow the industry to move away from the two-pilot requirement.
“I don’t think in my lifetime we’re going to see the commercial passenger flying done with less than two pilots,” he said during a talk at Liberty University in 2019, adding, “I don’t think the Congress has the courage, even if the data and the science suggests it makes sense.”
In a statement last week, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the commerce committee, said in a statement that he would “look forward to thoroughly evaluating” Mr. Bedford’s candidacy.
“The next F.A.A. administrator will need to provide strong and steady leadership to complete modernization projects in a timely manner but also to identify and implement what the future of the F.A.A. and America’s airspace should be,” he added.
Democrats are also expected to scrutinize Mr. Bedford’s personal interests during the hearing. In ethics disclosures, Mr. Bedford promised to resign from his current positions running or serving on the boards of various airlines, noting that he expected to receive a lump-sum severance payment and outstanding bonuses from Republic upon resigning his position, should he be confirmed as the next F.A.A. administrator.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation said Mr. Bedford, if confirmed, would comply with conflict-of-interest laws.
