House Passes Legislation to Improve Air Travel, Sending Bill to Biden’s Desk

The House on Wednesday passed legislation to reauthorize federal aviation programs and improve air travel at a time of intense passenger woes and dysfunction in the system, sending the bill to President Biden, who is expected to sign it into law.

The House approved the bill 387 to 26, days after the Senate passed it on a vote of 88 to 4.

The measure provides more than $105 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration and another $738 million to the National Transportation Safety Board for safety programs, airport modernization and infrastructure projects, technology upgrades and next-generation aviation systems. It also boosts the hiring and training of air traffic controllers, codifies airlines’ refund obligations to passengers, restricts seating fees for families with children, strengthens protections for passengers with disabilities, bolsters aviation work force development programs and protects access to air travel at rural airports.

“For over a century, the United States has led the world in aviation safety and innovation, and this bill is critical to ensuring America remains the global leader in aviation,” Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the Transportation Committee, said in a statement after the vote. “It’s vital to our economy, to millions of American jobs and to the millions of passengers that depend on our National Airspace System every single day.”

The final package, which lawmakers heralded as a timely and necessary investment in the nation’s aviation system and a win for consumers, was the product of months of negotiations between the House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over federal aviation programs. It was approved after Congress had repeatedly passed short-term