The week before the 2015 LABACE show, a Brazilian Senate committee overwhelmingly approved President Dilma Rousseff’s controversial nominations of non-aviation professionals to two of the five seats on the National Civil Aviation Commission (ANAC). An outgoing commissioner with 32 years of aviation experience will be replaced by Ricardo Fenelon Júnior, a 28-year-old lawyer and son-in-law of a Senate caucus leader, Senator Eunício Oliveira. Several aviation groups, including business aviation association ABAG, objected to Fenelon’s nomination, as well as to that of José Ricardo Queiroz, who also has very little experience in aviation.

During ABAG’s pre-LABACE press conference last week, director general Ricardo Nogueira lamented, “We lost, we lost, we lost…everyone who had a Senator’s cell phone number was asked to call and plead [for the nominations to be rejected].” The current Workers’ Party government continues to be plagued by accusations of corruption and cronyism.

While ABAG maintains that the law creating ANAC requires that commissioners have significant experience in aviation, another general aviation figure active in Brasília, who asked not to be named, defended the nominations, saying: “Commissioners are political by nature; their job is to make sure the technical people do what they should.” He saw the conflict not as between aviation professionals and amateurs, but the regulators versus those who get regulated, suggesting that the agency needs a change of leadership to shake up established processes. “A lot of people have attacked Fenelon, but [Senator] Eunício owns an air taxi firm, so he has that perspective. This may turn out for the best,” he told AIN.

Nogueira conceded that lack of experience can be overcome, noting that one ANAC commissioner had been a novice when appointed, but after that, “He learned. He’s now a specialist in aviation, on the same level as the others.”

However, Nogueira warned that this conflict over the latest appointments was merely “round one,” as in March the terms of three more commissioners expire. The two newcomers will become the veterans on ANAC’s board. Warning against distributing commission seats as political spoils, he said that after these two approvals, the industry should, “Fly with care! There are three more seats to be filled. And if they’re filled the same way–wear a parachute!”