FAAMA 41st Convention

Hello FAAMA.

I’m honored to speak with you on this, the 41st annual “Gathering of Eagles” Convention. I thank FAAMA and all the FAA managers for the excellent work that you continue to do every day for this agency…and for the flying public. 

While our numbers may be few, we all know that managers can have a tremendous effect on the direction and whether an industry succeeds… or fails. 

Make no mistake, we are at an inflection point in aerospace evolution. We are on the verge of some drastic changes when it comes to automation and innovation. 

We’ve got to evolve and expand the aerospace ecosystem to smoothly welcome all kinds of new entrants—drones, Advanced Air Mobility, commercial space…and new forms of mobility yet to come. 

Think about air taxis—only a handful of years ago the concept seemed like science fiction. But because of a perfect storm of technology, innovation and sensible regulation, we will soon have a new route to the sky for the first generation of clean, electric advanced air mobility vehicles—likely as soon as 2024.

It’s up to us—as managers—to make sure we integrate these innovations into our National Airspace System, and do it safely. Failure is not an option!

It’s also up to us to bring in a diverse new generation of aerospace professionals into the business. 

To ensure the levels of safety the public has come to expect, we can’t afford to have “group think”. There has to be a diversity of thought and opinion, and that means a workforce from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. 

Liz (Barcus), I’m happy that you brought a diversity of thought and opinion to FAAMA as the organization’s first female president, and I wish you the best in future endeavors as you transition out of that role. 

FAAMA is more important than ever. That’s because managers have a starring role, through hiring, employee development and mentoring.

I wouldn’t be where I am now without managers who saw my potential, and mentors, who often helped me simply by setting an example. Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas Airlines was one such person, as was David Campbell. David began his career as a mechanic at American Airlines, eventually working his way into senior management. Later he became the CEO of Horizon Airlines. 

Similarly, Peggy Sterling – a Vice President of Safety at American Airlines – joined American Airlines as a flight attendant and worked her way up.

Steve Dickson would also become a mentor both outside and inside the FAA. 

Being a military officer and pilot in the Army taught me a great deal about values and leadership, and I brought all of that over to the civilian world as an airline pilot with American Airlines, and later, a senior manager.

As a pilot, I got to experience the world, but I knew that in becoming a manager, I’d get to change the world. 

Part of my preparation throughout my career was to put my hand in the air as often as I could to volunteer for new challenges. Will Rogers had it right when he said, “You have to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is."

I had a full second career in management when I put my hand up and took on senior safety management roles at Qantas, half a world away, and then at WestJet in Canada. 

But eventually, the clarion call to public service rang out and I came back to the government, first as the head of AVS in January 2022, and a few short months later, as the Acting Administrator.  

I came back because I wanted to give back to a nation that’s given so much to me. And I wanted to give back in the most powerful way—as a manager. 

With everything going on in this industry, there’s never been a more important time for managers to step up, to raise our hands, and to help the FAA succeed. 

The future is bright, and it’s fantastic. And we, as managers, are on the leading edge.

So fasten your seatbelts…. 

Thanks for listening, and have a great convention.

U.S. DOT Announces New Members to the Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Transportation Department today announced 12 new appointments to the Federal Aviation Administration Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee (AAAC). The committee provides advice on key drone and Advanced Air Mobility issues. 

Members are executives and stakeholders who represent a variety of drone and AAM interests,...

US FAA, Japanese Agree to Partner on Advanced Air Mobility Certification, Operations

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) signed a Declaration of Cooperation to support future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) aircraft development and operation. The declaration continues the safety agencies’ long partnership and formalizes ongoing discussions on certifying and validating new AAM aircraft, production, continued airworthiness, operations, and personnel licensing.
 ...

NBAA Panel with Ed Bolen (NBAA) and Patrick Ky (EASA)

Thank you, Ed (Bolen), and thank you NBAA for inviting me here today. Welcome Patrick (Ky), it’s great to see you again. 

It’s quite extraordinary that we are able to come together from across the world here in Orlando only weeks after a devastating hurricane swept across the state.

The fact that we’re here today speaks to resilience—for the State of Florida and your citizens, for NBAA and all of your members and vendors, and for this industry.

Just hours before Ian came ashore on September 28th, a NOAA P-3 Orion, better known as Kermit, was mapping out the storm’s eye and eyewall. The pilots had to abort the mission early due to the extreme winds and turbulence. According to NOAA, it’s the first time in the history of their program that a hurricane hunting mission had to be abandoned midstream…. That’s how bad it was. 

The FAA’s job was to keep our people and the airspace safe, and that included closing down airport towers and facilities where appropriate and helping first responders by setting up airspace coordination areas, and in some case, TFRs. We also spent a lot of time telling drone hobbyists to stay away, but approved drone operators did—and still are—providing essential surveillance missions in the region.

I know NBAA lent a helping hand through your network of volunteers, and general aviation in general provided much needed support though groups like AERObridge and Operation Airdrop. 

But that’s how we roll in this business. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Aviation makes us all friends when we strive for the same goals—safe and efficient travel that benefits everyone. Oceans can’t separate us—I know Patrick and I agree on this—nor even flight levels to the edge of space. 

Having common goals and bonds is essential as we work to seamlessly integrate the next generation of innovative vehicles into our airspace. 

Evolution in aerospace is fundamental to who we are, and evolution is clearly on display here at NBAA, particularly in the Advanced Air Mobility halls…. Only a handful of years ago these concepts seemed like science fiction. 

But because of a perfect storm of technology, innovation and sensible regulation, we will soon have a new route to the sky with the first generation of electric advanced air mobility vehicles—likely as soon as 2024 here in the U.S.

The roadmap for aerospace evolution is quite basic: We allow innovators to do what they do best—innovate—while we at the FAA create safe certification pathways, not roadblocks. We don’t compromise on safety, because that’s our bottom line. It’s the bottom line for all regulators. 

I’ll end by saying this about the future of aviation and aerospace—fasten your seatbelts. It’s coming, it’s fantastic, and we’re thrilled to be on the leading edge.

Thank you again for the invite, and I look forward to our discussion. 

FAA Activates New GPS-Guided Routes in Alaska to Fly Below Hazardous Weather

FAA Invests $31M in Key Airport Cargo Projects to Strengthen Supply Chains

FAA, Universities Pursue Critical Research to Achieve U.S. Aviation Climate Goals

DOT 2022 Cybersecurity Symposium - Keynote

Good morning everyone.

From air traffic control to the largest airliner or the lightest drone, connectivity is the way of the future in aerospace. It’s also why we have to constantly raise the bar when it comes to defending our computers, servers, networks and data from malicious attacks. 

Given that we’re increasingly reliant on highly integrated and interdependent systems in aerospace, it goes without saying that we have to be increasingly proactive and vigilant when it comes to cyber threats. 

That vigilance is carried out day-in and day-out by a cybersecurity workforce that protects our aerospace assets. You are in many respects our unsung heroes, because this cyber battle is being fought behind the scenes, 24/7/365. 

This is especially true at the FAA, where we are responsible for operating the nation’s air traffic control system and overseeing the design, manufacture and testing of aircraft and systems, including avionics. 

Within our agency, we have an extensive networking architecture, as data flows from trusted internet connections, through thousands of switches, and onward to almost 70,000 endpoints for the FAA network alone. A healthy network and systems are vital to us fulfilling our mission to provide the American people with the safest and most efficient aerospace system in the world. 

Today I’ll talk about the FAA’s approach to safeguarding this critical infrastructure from cyber threats, both within our agency and for the aerospace community at large. 

To achieve our mission, the FAA depends on information systems in three separate areas, which we call domains: the National Airspace System Domain, which is operated by FAA’s Air Traffic Organization; the Mission Support Domain, operated by FAA’s Office of Finance and Management, and the Research and Development Domain, which is operated by FAA’s Office of NextGen. 

Each of the three domains has its own security perimeter with a distinct set of security controls. To assess cyber threats and vulnerabilities to our networks, we developed a Cyber Test Facility at our William J. Hughes Technical Center, where we also conduct testing and evaluation. We ensure the health of our networks through the Security Operations Center, or SOC, where experts continually monitor the DOT and FAA infrastructure for suspicious cyber activity and resolve any incidents.

The FAA Chief Information Security Officer and the Chief Information Officer have overall responsibility for the FAA’s cybersecurity. They also make sure that each Domain complies with agency, departmental, and federal requirements.

Our goal as an agency has always been to reduce cybersecurity risks in civil aviation and in the FAA’s information systems, including air traffic control. The FAA developed its first cybersecurity strategy in 2015, and it is constantly evolving. 

The Cybersecurity Strategy discusses in detail the FAA’s goals, which include protecting and defending FAA networks and systems, enhancing data-driven decision capabilities, and building and maintaining workforce capabilities for cybersecurity. 

In 2018, we modified the strategy to align it with emerging executive branch cyber initiatives, including the National Cybersecurity Strategy and the National Strategy for Aviation Security. The big ticket item here was that we needed to address cyber threats associated with the growing use of cloud technologies.  

We also updated our strategy to include cybersecurity best-practices, often referred to as cyber hygiene principles, and we added a focus on sharing aviation cybersecurity information with our stakeholders.

And speaking of sharing, I want to thank the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency for their continued collaboration with us on cybersecurity. 

This was particularly helpful in carrying out President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. Speaking of the President’s priorities, I’d like to highlight that the DOT, including FAA, last month reach 95% compliance in implementing multi-factor authentication for access to our networks. This is a huge step to becoming more resilient as an agency. 

That’s key, because lapses in cybersecurity can disrupt safety and efficiency in all the realms we operate, oversee and regulate—aircraft, air carriers, airports, air traffic operations, maintenance facilities and the people that carry out the functions for each. 

Protecting these assets is a massive job—the FAA has safety oversight responsibilities for aircraft design, manufacturing and testing of aeronautical products, production, the continuous operational safety of certified products—including avionics—and the certification of pilots and mechanics. 

We’re successful in large part because of our ongoing collaboration with other government agencies and private sector organizations that also have cyber responsibilities in the aviation ecosystem.  

I started out by talking about how connectivity is the way of the future in aerospace. Nowhere is this more evident than in the latest aircraft coming off the assembly lines.  

Modern airplanes include communications and navigation systems that rely on connectivity between an airplane and ground or space-based infrastructure. 

Unfortunately this reliance creates cyber risks that could affect the airworthiness of the aircraft. And that means it’s the FAA’s job to address any risks during the certification process. 

So as part of our certification practices for transport category airplanes, we require that the applicant conduct cybersecurity risk assessments for a new certification project or when there’s a change to a previously certified product.

We generally manage cyber risks by issuing project-specific “special conditions” that require the applicant to show that critical aircraft systems are protected from intentional unauthorized electronic interference—in other words, hacking.

The FAA uses special conditions when the existing airworthiness regulations don’t contain adequate safety standards for what we call “novel or unusual” design features. It’s hard to imagine anything more novel or unusual than advances in connectivity! 

Once an aircraft or product is out in the field, the FAA addresses cybersecurity safety issues in much the same way as all safety issues, by continuously monitoring operational safety using a data-driven methodology.  

You’ve heard FAA Administrators say this many times, and I’ll repeat it again, “Safety is a Journey, not a Destination.” 

The same is true of cybersecurity and our cybersecurity strategy. What we do today, will not be good enough tomorrow, or the day after. We are always striving to be more resilient to better protect against the next threat, and that includes taking input from others. 

We put a cyber-risk model in place to support our air traffic mission and related systems, and established priorities for research and development activities on cybersecurity in response to a 2019 DOT Office of Inspector General audit.

We tasked an Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee to develop solutions when the GAO issued a report about cyber threats to avionics. 

They responded with 30 recommendations related to information security and protection in aircraft systems. The FAA then updated policy, standards and industry guidance for certifying critical aircraft systems. 

And after a malicious actor in December 2020 infiltrated the networks of governments and businesses around the world by exploiting a vulnerability in a widely-used IT-monitoring software, the FAA developed a “Playbook" to ensure we could detect anomalous activity in our own systems, and minimize the chances that this type of hack could have an operational impact.

Part of making ourselves more resilient to future cyber threats is strengthening our core expertise in cyber through our workforce. 

Several years ago, we entered into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a workforce study. 

The results of that study made clear that there is more work to do, although I will say that many of the recommendations are consistent with the FAA’s cybersecurity strategic objectives, and many others align with broader ongoing FAA workforce development, and recruitment efforts.

And finally, one of the major components of our cybersecurity strategy is to build and maintain relationships—and trust—with external partners. 

This is critical for defending, reacting, and recovering from a cyber-attack. It’s why we are a lead agency on the Aviation Cyber Initiative interagency task force with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. It’s why we work collectively to identify and address cybersecurity risks in the aviation ecosystem. 

As the technology of the aviation ecosystem evolves, we expect that cybersecurity will continue to be a growing challenge, and a significant component of aviation safety and airspace efficiency. 

And it’s a certainty that threats will continue to evolve—that’s the nature of the business. Our job is to ensure that many layers of defense are in place; that we act on threat information; detect attacks, and follow up with remediation and updated best practices. 

That’s how we protect against tomorrow’s threat. 

It’s a tough job, but it’s our job…and it’s our priority 24/7/365. 

I commend Secretary Buttigieg and the DOT for spotting a spotlight on this issue with all the activities around Cybersecurity Awareness month, including this annual Cybersecurity Symposium. I’ll repeat their tag line: Do your part—Be cyber smart. 

Thank you for inviting me. 

Biden-Harris Administration Extends Rest Periods for Flight Attendants

Flight Attendant Duty Period Limitations and Rest Requirements Rule Signing - Remarks

Good morning! 

It is truly a good morning, because we are here to make an important change. One that is going to improve aviation safety and that has been long overdue. 

Even better, we have some great partners in aviation safety with us: 

Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and Julie Hedrick, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants are here. 

And we have the women and men who serve as flight attendants … and critical crew members of every flight here. 

So thank you to all of you for joining us.

Earlier this morning, I signed the paperwork and, the ink may be drying still, that increases rest periods for flight attendants to 10 consecutive hours. No exceptions! 

It’s been a long road, and it’s about time. I can tell you it’s been a priority for me and for this administration, and that’s why we’re here today. 

I am a pilot. Any pilot will tell you that we cannot fly the plane without the safety expertise and support of flight attendants. 

Flight attendants are trained to take action during emergencies, administer first aid, conduct evacuations and manage medical emergencies. They know the location of every piece of equipment needed during an emergency-- fire extinguishers, first aid kits, flotation devices, oxygen masks, and emergency slides. They also have to check that equipment before flight. 

I spent 11 years as captain on the MD80. And I remember having a hydraulic issue on one flight. I briefed the flight attendants, and we let the passengers know we were returning to Dallas due to a mechanical issue. 

As always, the flight attendants did an incredible job making sure the passengers were informed, but also making sure they were safe and felt confident as we returned to the airport. 

During those years, I remember many times being at maximum duty with minimal layover time. And flight attendants had even fewer rest hours than pilots. I worked alongside them, traveled with them, and I will tell you firsthand that well rested crewmembers are important to safety. 

And, as we have seen too often recently, they are on the front lines responding to unruly passengers who could threaten the safety of the flight and other passengers.

Like I said, they need just as much rest. Because flight attendants are the foundation of aviation’s safety culture, starting with cabin safety.  

Everyone knows about the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River. There were actually two miracles on the Hudson that day—first, landing the plane. The second was just as important: it was the flight attendants who got the passengers off the plane and kept them safe throughout the entire event. 

The bottom line is that the rest period increase for flight attendants corrects a historical inequity. And now I am pleased to turn it over to Sara Nelson for remarks.