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FAA’s glacial pace puts local man’s business in deep freeze for years
September 2nd, 2009, 6:00 am · 15 Comments · posted by Dena Bunis, Washington Bureau Chief
Anthony Reguero had it all figured out. He’d buy a helicopter and two executive planes, and fill a void in the local aviation business with shuttles to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix - even Chicago.
But what the Coto de Caza businessman hadn’t counted on, he said, was the mound of red tape that has kept his multi-million dollar investment in a deep freeze for more than two years.
In order to operate a charter and helicopter shuttle business – Choice Aviation – at the Chino Airport, Reguero needed a 135 certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.
That’s where his trouble started.
In October 2007, Reguero said he filed the pre-application to get such a permit. The FAA wants to make sure that the equipment will be safe and that Reguero’s pilots will be qualified.
Then Reguero’s chief pilot visited the local FAA office in Riverside. He visited again the next month. And the month after. And the month after that.
“When we sent the application and went over there they said three to six months,’’ said Reguero (pictured right). “Then the stonewalling started.’’
They were repeatedly told that the office was understaffed, and FAA officials had no idea when processing would start on their application. On Nov. 24, 2008 - more than a year after Reguero started the process - he learned his application was ninth in line to be processed. And even then, FAA officials couldn’t tell him how long it would be before they began actually looking at his request.
Reguero wrote to congressmembers, including some on the House Transportaiton Committee and California’s two senators. He heard nothing back. Two local lawmakers said they never received Reguero’s 2008 letter.
All during this time, Reguero has had one helicopter and two executive aircraft sitting at the Chino airport. A pilot for the past two d
ecades, he flies one of the planes for private use, but the other one, and the helicopter, are idle until he gets federal permission to begin his business. He has also been paying his chief pilot to hang on until they get an approval.
He estimates he’s invested several million dollars in this fledgling business.
“This is a much bigger issue than me,’’ says Reguero, who also has a financial services business in Lake Forest. “It relates to anyone trying to get into aviation and is road-blocked.’’
The regulations for how to get a 135 certificate are spelled out on the FAA’s website. But in all those screens of rules there is nothing that says how long an applicant should expect to wait for a permit request to be processed.
“I feel like these government people just don’t want to do their job,’’ Reguero said.
FAA officials say that a personnel problem is to blame here.
FAA spokesman for the western region Ian Gregor said in an e-mail that Choice Aviation’s application is now number five of the 13 in the Riverside Flight Standards District Office’s queue. The four ahead of Reguero’s were filed in 2007, before his. Three of those four are now being processed.
“Delays are occurring because the Riverside FSDO had only one qualified operations inspector until November 2008,’’ Gregor said. Their inspector ranks were down, he added, because of retirements and the death of one inspector.
Asked why FAA couldn’t ‘t just loan an inspector to Riverside to get this backlog cleared up, Gregor said that couldn’t be done because it would either make another office short-staffed and because “it’s critical for the local FSDO to certificate and conduct ongoing inspections of companies that are located in its coverage area.’’
Neither Gregor nor another FAA spokesman we spoke with could say how many applications are processed each year or what the average time is for applications to be handled.
“It makes me feel better that I’m up on the list,’’ Reguero said after learning that he had been moved from ninth to fifth. But he’s not happy about the fact that FAA acknowledges there is this problem but doesn’t do anything to solve it.
This week, after Reguero sent out another round of letters to lawmakers, the media and anyone else he thought might help, Rep. Gary Miller, who represents the Chino area, called Reguero and told him they’d be looking into it.
Miller, R-Diamond Bar, is a member of the Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over aviation. Miller never received Reguero’s first letter, his staff said.
Rep. John Campbell, who represents the district Reguero lives in, just received Reguero’s latest letter but never got the first one either, said Campbell spokesman Brent Hall. He said they’re opening a constituent case and will contact the FAA for an explanation.
Hall did say Campbell has gotten at least one other complaint about the slowness of aviation application processing. They reached out to the FAA and got the same response Reguero and we did:
We’re short-staffed.
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Our government at work! And now they want to run our health care? Scary!
And what do you think the current system is?
Just TRY and go and start your own private health-care provider company, and you will end up in the exact same shoes as this guy.
The government already runs heath-care, via the monopoly corporate machine. Trust me, no one does anything unless someone’s palms are greased in DC.
Like I said below… eventually, we will all need a lobbyist in the gov’s pockets, just to go to the bathroom.
Yeah can you imagine this for health care… your liver transplant was not performed because the paperwork is sitting on some government worker’s desk who has no accountability to the marketplace and the response is “we were understaffed to do the paperwork for your transplant, sorry.”
A business like this generates tax revenue for both the state and federal governments. So typical of a government run agency. These people would never make it in the private sector.
Sounds to me like ’some’ commercial airline doesn’t want his app to go through (along with the others), because it might cut into their business.
I guess eventually, we will all need a lobbyist in the gov’s pockets, just to go to the bathroom.
That is such a huge bummer. Has it always been this way? Perhaps the cost of the permit still the same as 1970’s, but the FAA costs more to run now as everything else? This looks like a fun little business to run next to the big guys, full support from me, Anthony!
Wonder why aircraft from the 1930s are still being used today? (for example to drop water on the fire) … because the snail pace of the FAA combined with out-of-control lawyers and lawsuits have frozen the aviation industry. The innovation happened from 1930-60 when private companies were free to innovate. Government beauracracy and lawyers have largley extinguished the flame of aviation modernization.
I cannot believe this guy invested one dime of his money PRIOR to researching and fact finding all the FAA permits, operating requirements and other inspection processess. It appears more to me that Mr. Reguero did little research, limited front end work and now because HE made errors in his start up business, it\’s the Governments fault. Buddy, it’s your fault for not doing your homework! There are Consultants galore in this business that over two nice dinners and a payment of $2500.00 would have told you all about your future issues and impasses with the FAA and how long it would take… You could have taken the easier route - Hire the FAA Consultant, pay the Man, who pays THE MAN and you and your aircraft would be flying the friendly skys over the Southwest…but you didn’t do your homework, did you?
Having the exact same problem with the lackies at the county right now in starting a food related business. Been working on the approval process for eight months and still rarely get a phone call returned. Complete hacks work in government, clearly.
There are ways to get the government to act, even when they are short-staffed. The old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” applies here. There are ways using the legal process: for example, if a government agency fails to do something it is statutorily required to do, you can apply for a “writ of mandamus” which directs the agency to perform that task. And there are administrative ways: for example, hiring a consultant or an attorney who has experience working with/for the government agency can be extremely helpful in negotiating the administrative nightmare that is government.
imacobru says:
September 3, 2009 at 6:25 am
I cannot believe this guy invested one dime of his money PRIOR to researching and fact finding all the FAA permits, operating requirements and other inspection processess. It appears more to me that Mr. Reguero did little research, limited front end work and now because HE made errors in his start up business, it\’s the Governments fault. Buddy, it’s your fault for not doing your homework! There are Consultants galore in this business that over two nice dinners and a payment of $2500.00 would have told you all about your future issues and impasses with the FAA and how long it would take… You could have taken the easier route - Hire the FAA Consultant, pay the Man, who pays THE MAN and you and your aircraft would be flying the friendly skys over the Southwest…but you didn’t do your homework, did you?
Listen to you imacobru, like you know what your talking about, no one’s ever right, the government is never wrong, what a jerk, #1 you need the planes BEFORE you apply because they have to inspect them BEFORE they give you a permit, and you need a pilot BEFORE you apply because they have to check out his credentials and certifications. This guy does it right, has to wait two, going on three years to start a small business and you bust his balls ??? You must be one of the growing number of dickwads that think the government can do EVERYTHING better that the private sector.
I have a different outlook on this.
If they have so few inspectors, then he should just start up the business and start flying. It will be years before they get around to any enforcement action.
Get the f*cking government OUT OF OUR LIVES AND OUT OF OUR WAY!
Except when they finally come knocking on your door, they will want to confiscate your aircraft for violating the regulations.
I have been trying for 3 (THREE) years to get a 135 certificate for my company, YourJet.
THREE YEARS, during which time we have attended countless meetings, made numerous contacts, pitched endlessly, met with mayors, state secretaries, governors, prominent CEO’s, chambers of commerce, SBA, bankers, potential customers, marketing and advertising firms, attorneys, optimization experts, and on and on and on the list goes. We believe that this is necessary to be prepared to go into business with the granting of our 135 certificate and delivery of the first of 6 DJet positions that are already paid-for.
From the outset, we expected actual airplane acquisition and the FAA to be our biggest challenges; so we planned and addressed these at the beginning with not only Plan B but Plan C and now, currently, Plan D. Still no 135 charter certificate.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that we hired, not one, but two AVIATION law firms with gobs of experience working with the FAA–that cost us over $20,000 and yielded NOTHING except another letter bemoaning their shortage of staff in their over-100 person Louisville office.
Next, we enlisted the aid of then-United States Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell with whom my wife’s family has a longstanding and cordial relationship. Senator McConnell, the Senate Majority leader, initiated a congressional inquiry and, for the effort, received a one paragraph letter almost identical to my three–not enough staff.
But a few months later we were “deep-selected” from the list and the Louisville FSDO began work one year ago. So, maybe it helped to play that card–or so we thought–since we have been repeated stonewalled since beginning the process. Our materials were developed by a consultant for $12,000 (not $2500 as Imacobru maintains) and yet they have been rejected THREE TIMES even though they were written by an expert with a perfect record.
This particular consultant was highly recommended having spent 22 years at the Louisville FSDO office and now, in retirement from government “service”, he has an aviation consulting business for those seeking a charter license. So, we have done our homework, poured tons of sweat, passion and much money at a process and yet stand empty-handed.
We’ve spent all of our treasure only to be stonewalled by our very own government in the guise of the FAA whose statutory mandate it is to “facilitate” air commerce.
The Louisville, KY FSDO is widely considered to be the worst FSDO office in the country. (It is now obvious that the Riverside FSDO is in tight competition with Louisville.) Even UPS whose air operations are based here in Louisville has endless and costly trouble with them in spite of an entire division staffed with 100 persons just to work with UPS. It’s outrageous that this agency can squash dreams, derail economic activity (that the country sorely needs now) and destroy the financial futures of entrepreneurs like me. Heinous!
I am certain that a successful entrepreneur like Tony Reguero has done his “homework” just as I have. Our “homework” began 3 years and $1.2 million dollars ago. It includes vetted business plans and financial models and optimization technology platforms and aggressive marketing and sales plans employing Web 2.0 concepts and code-sharing agreements with other air taxis and enough money to bootstrap startup and then calibrate growth to demand while implementing an air taxi model that will “revolutionize” (yes, I said “revolutionize”)regional air travel that will thoroughly exploit–heretofore ignored–smaller airports and their communities, new avionics, airframe and materials technologies as well as the VAST airspace above this greatest country on God’s green earth (credit to Michael Medved).
WE are 21st CENTURY visionaries; call us prescient, passionate, erudite or entrepreneurial, many, many people just like us have valuable solutions to problems Americans face every day that government is incapable of conceiving let alone implementing.
We merely ask, no, we DEMAND our own government do its job expediently and then exercise the oversight required for safety sake and then GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!!
Imacobru, the incomprehensibly obtuse bureaucratic apologist, knows not of what he speaks
Best,
Todd House, M.D.
CEO
TOD-Air, LLC
502.693.2037
I was told by the owner of a Part 135 paperwork consulting firm, who I will disclose upon request by email to marc at skymachines.com, that there was a letter sent out from Washington to all FSDOs during the Bush Admin. stating that, if they weren’t able to get cracking on a Part 135 application in so much time, they were to shop it around to less busy FSDO’s in the region. For example, if Denver is too busy, it’s supposed to ask Cheyenne or Billings to step up and help out.
He also told me to always apply and get ANY certificate first, even a VFR for single pilot, and you’d automatically go to the head of the line for any increases to your certificate. Makes sense.