Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19910311: The United States and the United Kingdom reached an agreement on airline service which included permission for United and American Airlines to succeed Pan American and Trans World Airways in serving London Heathrow. In return, British airlines received supplementary rights involving increased access to U.S. airports.
19910311: FAA began a series of hearings in New Jersey to obtain public comment on the noise effects of air traffic changes under the Expanded East Coast Plan (EECP), which had been implemented in phases between February 1987 and March 1988 (see August 25, 1988). The meetings reflected strong citizen discontent with the EECP. On June 28, FAA announced a contract with PRC, Inc., to assist in developing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the effects of New Jersey flight patterns revised under the EECP. In October 1992, Congress acted to freeze the pay levels of certain FAA employees involved with the project until the final impact statement was completed. In a response to another congressional action, FAA on October 28 announced a series of public meetings in New York and Connecticut as part of an Aircraft Noise Mitigation Review for the New York metropolitan area (see November 20, 1992). On November 12, 1992, FAA released a Draft Environmental Impact Statment (DEIS) on the EECP’s effects on New Jersey. The agency scheduled public hearings and gathered public views on the DEIS during a comment period that was subsequently extended until November 23, 1993. (See October 31, 1995.)
19990311: Department of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and FAA Administrator Jane Garvey dedicated the newest FAA air traffic control computer system in a ceremony at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center. They dedicated the Host and Oceanic Computer System Replacement, known as HOCSR, a key component of the NAS infrastructure modernization program and FAA’s Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance effort. The new system was more than four times faster and orders of magnitude more reliable than its predecessor – while occupying only an eighth of the floor space of the system it replaced. The New York Center’s HOCSR, the first in the nation, went online February 24. (See September 30, 1999).
20090311: The President signed Public Law 111–8, Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. That legislation provided several departments within the executive branch, including the Department of Transportation, with the funds to operate until the end of the fiscal year. The law contained a provision that prohibited the Secretary of Transportation from promulgating regulations or taking any action regarding the scheduling of airline operations that involved auctioning rights, permission to conduct airline operations at such an airport, or withdrawing a right or permission to conduct operations at such an airport (except when the withdrawal was for operational reasons or pursuant to the terms or conditions of such operating right or permission). The prohibition was limited to the fiscal year. (See December 22, 2008; May 14, 2009.)
20200311: FAA temporarily waived minimum slot-use requirements at U.S. airports to help airlines that canceled flights due to the Coronavirus. Under normal circumstances, airlines could lose their slots at congested airports if they failed to use them at least 80 percent of the time. FAA waived the 80-percent-use requirement through