US Senate Approves Stephen Dickson as FAA Administrator

On July 24, 2019, the U.S. Senate voted along party lines 52 to 40 in favor of appointing airlines/president-trump-nominates-former-delta-executive-to-head-faa.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>Stephen Dickson—a former Delta Airlines executive—as head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a five-year term. The confirmation comes just two weeks after a vote by the Senate Commerce Committee to approve him, which also fell along party lines.

Dickson spent 27 years at Delta, starting as a pilot and working his way up to senior vice president of flight operations, before retiring last autumn. President Trump nominated him for the position in March 2019, shortly after the airlines/ethiopian-airlines-crash-kills-all-onboard-including-8-americans.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>infamous Ethiopian Airlines crash, which brought the embattled Boeing 737 MAX model aircraft under intensified scrutiny. This was only after Trump very publicly considered appointing his own personal pilot, John Dunkin, to lead the agency.

Dickson came under criticism from some Senate Democrats when it was determined that he had failed to disclose his involvement in an ongoing lawsuit, which alleges retaliation on the part of Dickson and other company executives against a whistleblower employee during his time as Delta’s senior vice president of flight operations.

An experienced pilot, Karlene Petitt, filed the suit against Delta as part of a Labor Department dispute in which she posits that Dickson and another executive subjected her to a psychiatric exam—conducted by Delta’s hand-picked doctor—in a retaliative move after she reported some safety concerns to them. They also grounded Petitt for over a year before outside experts intervened, overruling Delta’s psychiatrist and determining that she was mentally fit to fly.

In May 2019, the FAA notified Petitt’s attorney of its investigation into another of the concerns she had brought before Dickson—Delta’s failure to fully implement an FAA-required safety-management system, which (ironically) is meant to encourage airline employees to report safety issues without fear of retaliation.

Although not a defendant in the case, Dickson did give a day-long deposition in October 2018 in which he defended his actions against Petitt, as well as Delta’s overall handling of the matter.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell, said of Dickson, “It is clear to me he is not the right person for the safety culture that we need today at the FAA.” She felt that voting against Dickson would, “help us create an environment where whistleblowers will be listened to.”

Dickson inherits charge of the FAA from acting administrator Daniel Elwell, a former American Airlines pilot who took over the role in January 2018 in the absence of a confirmed chief when former FAA leader, Michael Huerta, ended his five-year term.

For more information, visit FAA.gov.

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