Friday, May 18, 2012

The Federal Aviation Administration says it made "errors" by exempting cargo airlines from rules to prevent pilot fatigue and will revisit the issue.

The FAA issued an overhaul of pilot-scheduling rules in December, but the new rules applied only to passenger airlines. FAA officials said at the time that imposing new rules on cargo airlines would have cost $214 million over a decade.

Cargo airlines lobbied strongly for an exemption. But the UPS pilots' union sued, saying it could find no justification for the cost estimate.

The FAA late Thursday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to put the lawsuit on hold so that it could re-examine the exemption for cargo pilots.