The Biden era of American aviation officially ends on Jan. 20. Over the past four years, President Joe Biden’s administration has overseen profound changes that have had major impacts on air travel throughout the United States.
The federal government invested $15 billion in airport infrastructure, $105 billion in the FAA, increased regulatory oversight, and passed new rules to protect consumers.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) increased its scrutiny of Boeing following an incident in January 2024—when a door plug on a 737 Max 9 blew out—and the Department of Justice (DOJ) revived the criminal case against the company that began during the first Trump administration.
The consumer protection rules enacted under Biden require airlines to issue automatic refunds for canceled or significantly delayed flights.
Aviation experts told The Epoch Times that Biden leaves behind a multi-layered legacy on American aviation, including support for both labor unions and COVID-19 relief programs that sustained an ailing aviation industry.
Of all Biden’s ambitious goals before assuming office, the push for infrastructure funding—particularly for land, water, and air transportation—was significant.
In late 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which allocated $15 billion for airport infrastructure funding to invest in “runways, taxiways, safety and sustainability projects, as well as terminal, airport-transit connections and roadway projects.”
So far, the FAA has made $12 billion in infrastructure grant funding available to airports nationwide.
“To have the best economy in the world, you have to have the best infrastructure in the world,” Biden said in a November 2024 statement, explaining his support for the law.
“These investments are creating jobs [and] benefitting our communities.”
Capt. Ross Aimer, CEO and spokesperson for Aero Consulting Experts, with more than 60 years of experience as a pilot and flight trainer, told The Epoch Times that some of the nation’s airports were previously “falling apart.”
He said airport reconstructions, runway expansions, and the deployment of new technologies to keep passengers safer have all been critical component of the funding.
Capt. Shem Malmquist, an airline and aerospace safety consultant who has been in the industry for nearly four decades and currently pilots a Boeing 777, said Trump initially highlighted the need for airport improvements in his first term by suggesting U.S. airports were “outdated, antiquated” compared to some major international airports.
“For whatever reason, it didn’t really seem to kick off during that period of time. So, it really is a continuation of the same idea,” Malmquist told The Epoch Times, referring to Biden’s support for the funding.
“Some of the [U.S.] airports are just ridiculously outdated, and others are doing better,” he said. “I think the airports need expansion, more facilities—not just for the safety side, but also for the customer service side.”
Aside from infrastructure funding, Aimer celebrated Biden’s support for aviation labor unions.
“The unions are very important in aviation because … unions are not only there to get more money and job security for personnel, it allows them to … have some kind of backing when they see something unsafe, to report it,” he said.
Aimer added that union pilots are allowed to decline flying over active warzones overseas.
Consumer Protections, Relief Programs
In April 2024, the Department of Transportation passed a rule requiring automatic cash refunds whenever airlines cancel, significantly change, or delay flights.
The rule defined significant changes to flights “departure or arrival times that are more than 3 hours domestically and 6 hours internationally.”
They include departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or airport or flight connections that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability.
Passengers who file a mishandled baggage report are also entitled to a refund of their checked bag fee if the bag’s delivery falls outside of a 12-hour window after a domestic flight arrival or 15–30 hours after an international flight arrival.
Lastly, if a passenger paid for an extra service, including Wi-Fi, seat selection, or inflight, and the airline fails to provide the service, the passenger is entitled to a refund for the fee.
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Biden also continued COVID-19 relief programs for the airline industry.
These began during Trump’s term in 2020 and continued with the Consolidated Appropriations Act (2021) and the American Rescue Plan (2021), providing financial assistance to commercial airlines during a historic downturn in worldwide air travel.
The pandemic relief funds were critical for saving the airlines from bankruptcy, Aimer said.
FAA Reauthorization Act
The Biden era also saw the passage of Congress’s FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024.
The legislation reauthorized FAA programs through fiscal year 2028 and invested more than $105 billion into the agency, in part to alleviate the shortage of air traffic controllers and to set maximum hiring targets and staffing standards while preventing further near-collisions on runways.
These controller staffing shortages began during Trump’s first term, as a partial government shutdown in 2018–2019 closed an FAA training facility in Oklahoma City.
That shutdown also occurred when many air traffic controllers were close to retirement, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused even more to retire.
Air Traffic Control has been struggling because of a high number of retirements in recent years, Malmquist said, and current staff are stressed.
“People will do what they can to make things work as best they can, but if we overload people, then their ability to protect the margins of what you know on safety becomes compromised,” he said.
Having an extra controller on hand for evening shifts can help with “all sorts of problems in terms of fatigue and sleepiness and the ability to be aware of the whole situation.”
Capt. Richard J. Levy, a retired American Airlines pilot and lead consultant at Aviation Expert Consulting, told The Epoch Times that controller training standards are the same as pilots, “you’ve got to meet standards,” regardless of increasing ATC funding.
“So where was the supervision?” Levy asked about the various runway near-collisions. “That’s what I want to know.”
DOJ Charges Boeing
Boeing’s quality control received renewed scrutiny during Biden’s time in the Oval Office following another major safety incident with the 737 Max.
That jet has been in the spotlight since the two deadly 737 Max 8 airplane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed all 346 people on board.
Aimer described feeling terrified and disappointed by the news, as he has spent most of his career flying Boeing airplanes.
“It was very disheartening, very disappointing for that company,” he said.
In the final days of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department charged Boeing with conspiracy to defraud the FAA’s Aircraft Evaluation Group over the 737 Max 8’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight control software that caused the two fatal crashes.
Boeing was accused of deliberately hiding that software function from both airline pilots training on the new jets and FAA regulators.
The Justice Department offered Boeing a deferred prosecution agreement, in which the company had to pay more than $2.5 billion in fines and stay in compliance by preventing any further incidents for three years from the date the agreement was signed—Jan. 7, 2021.
But on Jan. 5, 2024, just two days before that time window would have elapsed, a 737 Max door panel ripped off an Alaskan Airlines flight just after takeoff.
The incident garnered criticism of Boeing’s safety practices and the Justice Department announced that the company had broken its 2021 prosecution agreement.
Boeing’s safety controversies have been a continual topic in Washington during Biden’s time in the Oval Office, leading to multiple congressional hearings.
Families and friends who lost loved ones in the March 10, 2019, Boeing 737 Max crash in Ethiopia, hold a memorial protest in front of the Boeing headquarters in Arlington, Va., on March 10, 2023. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
Levy, who defended Boeing’s manufacturing on “Dr. Phil Primetime” in 2024, described the actions that led to the Alaskan Airlines incident.
“That was sloppy work there with the bolts, and they were somewhere else, and the bolts weren’t put back on,” Levy said. “That was a bad step there, and everybody would acknowledge that, but [Boeing is] cleaning their act up.”
FAA Puts Pressure on Boeing
The door panel incident inspired several current and past Boeing employees to step forward as whistleblowers, reignited the Justice Department’s investigation, and propelled the FAA to assume a level of regulatory authority the agency has not wielded in decades.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker quickly capped the production of Boeing’s 737 Max planes to 38 per month, while also temporarily grounding 170 planes to ensure there were no widespread safety issues.
The FAA also demanded that Boeing submit a 90-day safety and compliance report to guarantee the company had addressed any manufacturing blindspots.
Additionally, the Justice Department again charged Boeing with defrauding the U.S. government, leading to Boeing pleading guilty months later. Recently, a U.S. District Court judge rejected the plea deal.
The DOJ “don’t want to put the company out of business, but they do want to hold them accountable,” Malmquist said. “How much is performative? I don’t know.”
He said the federal government, under both Trump and Biden, has been walking a tightrope while charging Boeing because if it starts penalizing executives, “Instead of people being forthcoming … they tend to start burying things.”
“Is there a way to hold them accountable without at the same time leading everybody to run for cover and the nearest shredder they can find?” Malmquist asked.
The FAA’s actions presented challenges for the company, slowing down its manufacturing and leading to major headwinds, including a $355 million loss and a near-50 percent drop in deliveries in 2024’s first quarter alone.
Oversight Reform
However, airline experts told The Epoch Times that these additional reforms were a highlight of Biden’s time in office, as the agency had for years taken a backseat in its regulatory oversight.
The FAA’s recent actions, which followed similar regulatory efforts during Trump’s first term related to the 737 Max 8 crashes, indicate a more hands-on approach than what it has done in past decades, Aimer said.
“Prior to that, FAA had basically relinquished their responsibility in overseeing Boeing, they had a symbiotic relationship, and Boeing did whatever they wanted with the blessing of FAA,” he said.
“Although I’m not 100 percent satisfied … there has been a lot of improvement in quality control.”
Boeing is a “national treasure,” Aimer added, and also the country’s largest exporter by dollar value. Regulating and overseeing the company’s safety practices is important for American aviation.
“We have no other choice but to try to help them get on the right track because they had definitely fallen off those tracks,” Aimer said.
As the agency works with Boeing to fix its safety issues and regain the company’s prominence in American aviation, Levy described the government’s actions as being “cops and [a] good guy at the same time.”
“What the FAA has done, I stand by it,” Levy said.
The FAA’s efforts regarding Boeing’s safety issues is a “complex problem,” Malmquist said. “They need to have that oversight.”
Boeing is “like a big ship, it takes a while to change direction, but the FAA is also a big ship,” he said.
Malmquist explained that one contributing factor to Boeing’s troubles was the decades-long push in Washington to deregulate in the hopes that companies would do the right thing under their own supervision.
This seemingly changed with the Biden administration.
“I think that we’ve seen evidence that [deregulation] doesn’t work,” he said, especially for safety-critical industries like aviation.
“These companies will have a tendency to maximize shareholder value at the expense of anything and so. And that certainly affected Boeing,” Malmquist said.
Aimer agreed, “Complete deregulation doesn’t work in safety-related businesses. So much like airlines, you can’t allow them to police themselves.”
Malmquist said the more difficult question is whether the FAA—under Biden or any other president—is doing enough, particularly as the Biden era gives way to the second Trump era.
The pilot explained that, in the 1960s, the FAA had significantly more oversight of aviation companies.
Over time, the agency slowly relaxed its regulatory might, leading to the recent situation with Boeing and its suppliers, where the company was able to self-certify certain procedures in its assembly lines. That included the 737 Max.
“All of these things contribute and all work together to make slow migrations to increasing risk over time. And the ultimate responsibility to ensure that things don’t do that is the regulator, in this case, the FAA,” Malmquist said.
With a new commander-in-chief about to take the reins and new FAA leadership coming soon, Malmquist asks: “Will that be sustainable?”
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