Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Hi everyone. It’s good to see all of you, after such a long time.  

Thank you for attending this event, and for your commitment to keeping our aviation system safe. It’s something I cherish, and I know you do too. 

November just happens to be Aviation History Month. And when they write the chapter on the last 20 months, it will be one when people read, they will ask: How did they maintain a safe aviation system despite challenge after challenge?

We all know in a normal year that we face safety challenges, but add to that the seesaw of travel demand, sustained uncertainty, and a highly transmissible virus … you have greater risk overall. 

But just as leaders did 25 years ago … when they put the greater good of the system ahead of their specific interests … and created the Commercial Aviation Safety Team … we have worked together to maintain a high level of safety. 

We saw an unprecedented amount of safety information sharing between industry and the FAA.

The Commercial Aviation Safety Team doubled the frequency of their meetings. 

We pulled together our expertise, and got important safety information out to Part 121 carriers and our international partners.

We’ll hear more about that during the briefings on CAST and the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing system (or ASIAS) later today. 

Now, that doesn’t mean we pat ourselves on the back and call it a day. In fact, our success is because we have not taken safety for granted. We know it is something that is cherished and that we must constantly work to achieve.

And I can tell you that the FAA is focused on meeting the challenges in an ever-more dynamic aerospace industry. 

A big element of that is the FAA’s new strategy plan – called Flight Plan 21.

Through this plan, we are working to keep our proactive safety efforts ahead of the rapid innovations in our industry. 

We are actively expanding our portfolio of data collection and analytics tools so we can share safety data within the FAA, and with industry stakeholders and international partners.

We’ll focus on ways to establish an even stronger safety culture, and position us take advantage of new tools like data fusion and enterprise information management. 

Following on our experience from the MAX aircraft…

We are actively working to implement more than 100 requirements of the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act that Congress passed in 2020. 

We’re promoting more expanded use of Safety Management Systems to manufacturers and considering it in the other areas of the aerospace system.   

The FAA is also taking a fresh look at the human factors assumptions we’ve been using for the design and certification of transport category aircraft—including pilot response times.                                        
And we are working closely with our international partners on pilot training requirements. 

Just as the FAA is making improvements, the industry will need to do that as well. 

COVID-19 hastened a lot of retirements – thousands of pilots, mechanics, engineers, flight attendants, dispatchers, and other professionals. That’s a lot of experience going out the door.

Integrating a new workforce will bring new challenges especially with the stress that is in our system. We need to use our Safety Management Systems to identify risks that may not currently exist but that are looming. And we need new members of our workforce to immediately know they can share safety concerns. 

We’re also seeing a dynamic business environment. 

Some carriers have shifted some of their operations to different airports. Some passenger carriers have gone into the cargo business.

And some airlines are retiring old aircraft and replacing them with a new modern fleet that pilots are less familiar with. 

We must be vigilant in making sure that these operations adhere to safety processes, and that hazards are being identified and mitigated.

The same goes for new entrants. Drones and commercial space operations continue to move at a rapid pace. We have to make sure that new operators are brought into the proactive safety culture. And that these new operations are safely integrated into the airspace system, and that they operate safely together.

In closing, let’s have a productive meeting this week.

We want to know about the safety risk and challenges you’re seeing. Let’s share best practices, and this will help fuel our respective SMS programs. As we do these things, we’ll continue to maintain the tremendously safe system we have.

And when we talk about Aviation History Month, we’ll be in a position to tell the story of how we’ve made aviation safe—despite historic challenges.  

Thanks everyone.