US Senate passes sweeping aviation safety, consumer bill

The U.S. Senate late on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a broad aviation bill to boost air traffic controller staffing, increase funding to avert runway close-call incidents and speed refunds for canceled flights.

The $105 billion, five-year measure reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration. The bill prohibits airlines from charging fees for families to sit together and requires airplanes to be equipped with 25-hour cockpit recording devices and directs the FAA to deploy advanced airport surface technology to help prevent collisions.

The bill, which is expected to get final approval next week from the U.S. House of Representatives, does not raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 as lawmakers had sought to do last year.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)