Thank you, Margaret [Jenny]. It is a privilege to be here today. I want to start by saying that I am truly honored to lead the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization. And I am very proud of the work we do each and every day.
Today, we’re moving about 50,000 flights.
We’re providing services for more than 2 million passengers.
We seamlessly manage civilian and military aircraft.
We’re controlling air traffic over 31 million square miles of airspace – over big cities, over vast oceans, and through all kinds of weather.
We’re doing it safely. We’re doing it efficiently. And tomorrow, we’ll do it all over again.
In short, we make the spectacular look routine.
On top of that, we maintain a complex infrastructure.
It includes more than 400 staffed facilities and more than 12,000 unstaffed sites – such as radars, weather sensors, and navigation equipment and their shelters.
We conduct flight inspection of both civil and military airspace infrastructure, both domestically and internationally.
And we manage and protect the radio frequency spectrum resources for civil aviation.
But while the ATO performs these functions, and many others, we do something else that’s fundamentally important. We manage the changes that are occurring in aviation.
For some, change is exciting. For others, it’s unsettling. It all depends on your perspective.
But either way you look at it, we have to manage change, so we can maintain what is great about American aviation – safety, efficiency, accessibility, freedom, adventure, jobs.
And the Aero Club has been at the center of the changes in aviation since its founding in 1909. Everyone here has been part of a great professional journey.
The question now is “how do we shape the next 25 years?” How do we best manage the changes that are coming our way?
David Houle, author of a book called Entering the Shift Age, referenced a quotation that struck me. It said that “we should all try to be the parents of our future, not the offspring of our past.”
And while its plain foolish to ignore the future, it’s just as naïve to neglect the now. In the ATO, we’re meeting change head on. We’re doing it by leaning in, and working with the aviation community.
Today, I want to talk about three key things we’re doing to manage change.
First, we’re tapping the wealth of safety data now available to proactively mitigate safety risk.
Second, we’re safely deploying prioritized NextGen capabilities every day.
And third, we’re taking steps to integrate drones and commercial space operations into the National Airspace System.
Let’s start with safety. The ATO works to prevent conditions that could give rise to a safety problem. Our approach can be summed up in three words: Collect, Find, and Fix.
One of the big changes over recent years is the wealth of aviation safety data, and the different data collection capabilities we have at our disposal.
For instance, we collect data from automated tools and from voluntary, confidential safety reports from controllers, technicians and pilots.
Armed with this data, we conduct a sophisticated risk analysis to find potential hazards, and then take corrective action to fix the problems.
The ATO’s Top 5 Hazard list is a powerful illustration of the Collect, Find, Fix approach. Through our data collection and analysis, we determine a list of the Top 5 Hazards each year.
This year, the list includes: wake separation, wake turbulence encounters, helicopter operations, tower visual scanning, and access to weather information on the controller’s scope.
Once these items were determined, we developed a total of 26 corrective actions and we’re in the process of implementing them now.
Runway safety is another area where we’ve employed the Collect, Find, Fix approach. Since 2008, we’ve driven down the rate of serious runway incursions by 38 percent. But we know there is still risk in the system.
So last year, we held a Runway Safety Call to Action. We met with more than 100 aviation professionals including pilots, controllers, airport managers, technicians, regulators, our labor leaders and industry.
Together, we crafted a total of 29 recommendations, and then we turned them into detailed corrective action plans aimed at reducing the number and severity of surface events.
So going back to the idea of managing change – our proactive safety approach helps us to anticipate potential risks that come from the growth and changes in aviation.
Certainly as we add NextGen technologies, we have to make sure we’re doing it safely.
We are making good progress on NextGen and we are on track to meet our original high level objectives by 2025. Every day, we’re integrating it into all phases of flight – More direct routes. Less time. Less miles. Less fuel burn and fewer emissions.
This is not to say that we will have achieved all of the anticipated benefits, but the foundational platforms, such as ERAM, TAMR, DataComm, SWIM, ADS-B, Time Based Flow Management, and the soon to be approved Terminal Flight Data Manager program, will be in place.
And the fundamental capabilities associated with more efficient management of the NAS will be realized.
From that point, there will still be more work to do to leverage these capabilities through advanced applications in ways that benefit all airspace users and the communities they serve. We have been collaborating with our aviation stakeholders through the NextGen Advisory Committee, or NAC, to determine the best path toward that vision.
We are also working with our inter-agency partners and the international community to produce harmonized solutions that will result in global benefits for aviation.
As part of this effort, we will work with our Caribbean partners this year to improve air traffic performance in that region. We have a vested interest. Millions of Americans fly there, and we expect traffic growth to increase by 5-6 percent over the next two decades. We’ve developed a proposal for an air traffic flow management program for the Caribbean region to enhance safety and optimize efficiency.
Here at home, we’re delivering near-term NextGen benefits by:
- Increasing the availability and use of Performance Based Navigation,
- improving surface operations,
- making multiple runway operations more efficient, and
- as I noted before, implementing Data Communications.
You can certainly read more about our progress by going to our NextGen website. But what I want to emphasize today, is not so much what we've accomplished but how we're efficiently managing the changes. We're doing it by leaning in and working closely and creatively with our stakeholders.
I’ll give you a good example.
Some of you might be familiar with the New York Triple Play. We’re not talking about the Yankees. We’re not talking about the Knicks. And we’re not talking about the state lottery either.
The Triple Play results from weather conditions that drive JFK to land on ILS 13L. The airspace and approaches between LaGuardia, Newark and Teterboro become dependent affecting operations at all locations.
We thought if we could de-conflict the airspace, we could free up the pressure in the region when the Triple Play happens.
Working closely with JetBlue, we designed an RNP approach for JFK’s Runway13L. The RNP approach would have lower minimums that would allow JFK to land on Runway 13L longer before requiring aircraft to use the ILS approach due to low ceilings.
We thought we had a solution until one of JetBlue’s aircraft drifted off centerline trying to get the approach certified.
We told JetBlue that to fly the procedure, their aircraft needed to have a switch enabling them to do an automatic Take-off to Go Around, or TOGA. TOGA is a switch on the auto throttle of modern large aircraft with two modes – Take Off and Go Around.
So the problem was, only some of JetBlue’s fleet was equipped with the switch.
Our controllers didn’t know which aircraft had the switch and which ones didn’t. They needed confidence that JetBlue was equipped to perform TOGA before they felt they could safely issue the RNP approaches to them.
So we had a dilemma. We had designed an RNP approach. JetBlue wanted to use it. But they couldn’t.
Meanwhile, JFK’s Runway 4L/22R was scheduled to be shut down last year for four months to complete a runway construction project, and this was going to take place during the severe weather season.
So you have increased the potential for the Triple Play, during the severe weather season, plus a scheduled runway shutdown that reduces configuration options at JFK – conditions that could have a significant impact and shut New York (and our customers) right out of the game.
This required a team approach.
JetBlue made the decision to equip every aircraft with the TOGA switch and trained every pilot to know how to execute it.
This gave controllers the confidence and flexibility to consistently assign them the approaches. The TRACON and JetBlue signed an agreement that all flights will be assigned the RNP approach.
When all was said and done, JetBlue was able to execute nearly 6,000 RNP approaches during the runway shutdown last year, and we greatly improved the use of JFK’s runway 13L during adverse weather conditions.
This example highlights the importance of collaboration to produce good results and cross over cultural barriers that may have prevented solutions in the past.
Progress like this takes time. But by working together, we can figure out how to use new capabilities to our advantage when and where they are needed.
That last point is important to the future because it brings me to the third key way that the ATO is managing change – the safe, efficient integration of new airspace users.
We expect there to be as many as 7 million drones sold by 2020. We already have about 500,000 registered drone users in the United States, more than the number of registered aircraft.
This spring, the FAA plans to publish a rule that will allow routine, non-hobby commercial operations of small unmanned aircraft.
In the meantime, we have been authorizing non-hobby operations on a case-by-case basis. We have approved nearly 5,800 exemptions for purposes like movie filming; inspections of pipelines, power lines, bridges and flare stacks; and conducting precision agriculture operations.
We’re developing a UAS strategy to guide our integration efforts and better align our work with other lines of business in the agency.
This summer, the FAA will establish a new Drone Advisory Committee to advise us on integration issues.
And we believe this group will serve the same type of purpose as the NextGen Advisory Committee, in terms of helping us prioritize our efforts.
As small UAS brings change below 500 feet, commercial spacecraft bring change above 60,000 feet. The progress in this industry is breathtaking. Last month, we saw Space X make history, by landing the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. This marks a big step toward achieving reusability of these rockets.
This year, the FAA predicts a total of 25 launches, and we expect this number to climb as the industry matures. One day, we may even see multiple launches per week as the space tourism industry grows.
Currently, we accommodate these operations by blocking off airspace.
As they increase, we’ll have to move from accommodation to integration, meaning that we take into account the needs of all airspace users – just as we are doing with unmanned aircraft.
This fall, the ATO expects to complete our Commercial Space Integration Roadmap that will define changes in airspace usage policy, regulation, procedures and automation capabilities, and determine the schedule by which these changes will be made.
And this summer, the FAA plans to conduct a demonstration of a prototype technology – the Space Data Integrator or SDI – when Space X conducts one of its reentry missions.
The demo will help us determine how much airspace we have to block off in advance to ensure a safe operation, and how we can more efficiently release the blocked airspace so it’s available for other users.
So as you can see, while the ATO controls traffic, we also manage change. We’re bringing in new users, implementing NextGen, and driving down safety risk.
As the pilots here can tell us, thrust and lift are two forces that make the plane fly. When it comes to improving aviation, innovation is our “thrust.” And collaboration is our “lift.”
Of course, there is one more power source that can’t be ignored. Funding is the fuel.
Stable funding remains a concern for the FAA. We have another short-term extension of our authorization that runs until July 15th.
The Senate passed their version of a long-term bill last month but it remains to be seen what will happen.
In closing, I came to the federal government in 1992 and I've been in this job now for about 2.5 years.
I have been so fortunate to have had a very diverse career working across nearly all directorates of what is today's Air Traffic Organization, including acquisition, program management, air traffic and technical operations.
People often ask me "What's been the biggest surprise in your job?" Easy–The people.
"What's the best part of your job?" Easy–The people. They continue to do the spectacular every day.
So let me reiterate the quotation I stated earlier – “We should all try to be the parents of our future, not the offspring of our past.” By working together, we have an opportunity to shape the future of aviation, by delivering an even safer, more prosperous, more accessible airspace system than ever before. Let’s seize it!
Thank you.