Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us this afternoon to talk about safety, and runway safety in particular. 

I’m Billy Nolen, the Acting Administrator for the FAA. 

I’ve spent a lot of time on runways in more than four decades in the aviation business...I started as an Army helicopter pilot flying the UH-1 Huey and the OH-58 Kiowa, and moving over to fixed wing on the U-21 and C-12 King Airs. 

I left the Army in 1989 to join American Airlines, first as a flight engineer on the Boeing 727. During my 26 years with American, I flew the MD80, the 757 and the 767 all over the world. 

Later I got into the safety side of the business at American, and after I retired from American, I did the same at Qantas and WestJet. 

So it’s fair to say I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly in runway safety. 

I’ve also seen the good that comes when groups like this get together to proactively wrap our arms around safety trends that might not be going in the right direction. 

And that’s what today is all about—being proactive. We’re not here to talk about an accident. We’re here to talk about what the data is telling us, and how we’re responding...and how you, the general aviation community, can help. 

So is there a runway safety problem in GA right now? Some initial data on lower severity runway incursions for fiscal year 2022 is telling us there might be...  

We saw the number of pilot deviations for the first half of the fiscal year jump 17% compared to the previous year. 

When we looked behind the numbers, nine out of every 10 of these were GA pilot deviations. 

You’ll hear more about the data later from senior FAA leaders who have also joined us for this meeting....

...The bottom line is this—based on the data, we’re redoubling our efforts to mitigate any risks that could eventually lead to an increase in more severe incursions, or worse, a fatal accident.

Our shared responsibility for safety makes it all the more critical that we take time to examine the trends we’re seeing. 

We’re here to raise awareness, discuss the data and talk about how all of us—working together—can make sure this is an anomaly and not a continuing trend. 

I know there are many other areas where we are working together to better the GA safety record—including a wide variety of data-driven initiatives underway with the General Aviation Joint Safety Committee—with our focus today  on runway safety.

Along with a deep dive on the data, you’re going to hear about FAA and industry efforts to help pilots navigate the airport environment. 

Included will be information about the Runway Incursion Management program, our “From the Flight Deck” educational videos, Hot Spot standardization, arrival notices, charting upgrades, new technologies and more. 

So let’s get this conversation going. Thanks again for joining us, and thank you for being proactive. 

We’re all in this together, and we’re all working toward the same goal—a safer general aviation community.