"What’s Coming Up"
Robert A. Sturgell
Good afternoon, and thank you, Susan [Sheets]. I want to begin by
thanking the President, Secretary Mineta, Secretary Peters and Marion Blakey
for the opportunity they gave me. It’s been an honor and a privilege to have worked
with these great mentors and leaders.
Looking back on this year, there’s a story that bears repeating. I
remember one of my first memories as acting administrator — it may have been
the first week or the first month, when the phone rang and I was asked to come
to the White House to brief President Bush. Everyone was saying, “Hey, how cool
is that?” And I thought, I think the answer to that question is really a
function of why the phone is ringing.
Not long after that, the Post ran a feature that included a picture
of me with my son Ben at lacrosse practice. Ben is 6 and has two speeds: full
power and off. His afterburner is lit the moment he opens his eyes. When I got
home, Ben was waiting for me at the door with a copy of the Post in his hands.
“Dad, look,” he said. “Our picture is in the paper. We’re famous.”
“Ben,” I said, “It’s not always a good thing to have your picture
in the paper.”
Ben’s fame notwithstanding, a lot of things have happened in a
year. It’s been a year of highs and lows. We opened three runways last week,
celebrated our 50th anniversary and won the Collier Trophy. And we also made
our way through some tough spots with Southwest Airlines and the MD- 80. Even
still, as one of my favorite persons is fond of saying, facts are a stubborn
thing. And the fact is, the safety record speaks for
itself.
We’ve been well over two years without a large commercial transport
crash. This literally and figuratively is the safest period in the history of
aviation — maybe in all of transportation. This has gone largely unnoticed, but
I suppose that allegations like “The system is hanging by a thread” or “FAA too cozy with industry” makes a much better headline
than “Dog Does Not Bite
But with that said, an independent review team not only ratified
our approach to system safety, they saluted us for it. The record itself is a
testament to our collaboration and partnership efforts with the industry. That
interaction must not only be allowed to continue but to also grow. It’s the
only way we can continue to improve on our safety record.
On the congestion front, this summer, we focused on chronic delay
issues. At the same time we increased operations at its three major airports,
we reduced the long delays in
the MITRE
numbers, the delays of two hours or more are indeed down by as much as 35
percent.
We will continue to reduce delays in
So when delays affect the NAS broadly, the choice comes down to
adjusting schedules, introducing new technology and procedures or laying
pavement. For the latter, the cliché used to be that FAA couldn’t get runways
off the ground. Well, in the last eight years, we’ve opened 16 of them at our
major airports. These new runways provide the potential for almost two million
more operations a year. We’ve got more coming, most prominent are projects at
CLT and
Another great sound bite that still persists is the “FAA can’t
manage a program” or that we “haven’t been able to modernize the system in 25
years.” The facts are that we are off the GAO high risk list for financial
management. We just got our eighth clean audit in a row, and this one without a
material weakness. We’ve met our critical program goals four years in a row.
We’ve successfully rolled out our major programs like TMA and ATOP — both of
which are bringing huge capacity, efficiency and environmental benefits. ERAM
is next — on budget and on schedule.
Finally, we’re dealing with claims like “NextGen won’t be here
until 2025” or “NextGen’s just a slogan.” I think that talk comes to a halt
today. Earlier, I spoke with before I came here, Hank Krakowski and Nick Sabatini.
They were making a recommendation for ADS-B — that we move forward with an
in-service decision. For those of you who don’t play inside baseball,
“in-service decision” means “green light” on commissioning the system. Both
Nick and Hank are pushing for a commissioning of ADS-B essential services in
At the same time, we’re setting up key sites for ADS-B testing for
surveillance. We’re going to use the Gulf of Mexico,
By 2013, we’ll have 794 ground stations to complete the deployment,
covering everywhere that you find radar today. And also in places like the Gulf
and the mountains of
I said a moment ago that the critics contend that NextGen is a
slogan. This is the order to accept the system — to commission it. Vinny
Capezutto’s group has tested ADS-B ten ways from Sunday, and it works. The top
safety expert, Nick Sabatini, says it’s a go. The COO is a former airline
pilot, and he’s giving it thumbs up. Consider ADS-B operational on
So, we’ve done it on the ground with 16 runways. We’re doing it in
the air with NextGen. The third leg of this stool is the people of the FAA, and
I can say that I’ve never been more proud. From financial management to program
management to HR, the controllers, technicians, engineers, inspectors — across
the board — they are moving America safely and efficiently. And we’ve got a
great, well-motivated new generation coming on board. To them, I say
congratulations.
In closing, I’d like to make a few observations. The first is to
resist the temptation to think that somehow, some way safety is red or blue.
Safety is and needs to be by definition a non-partisan subject. An agency like
the FAA has to be given the flexibility to exercise its regulatory judgment in
the normal course of business to make risk-based decisions. It also needs to be
able to make good use
of taxpayer
dollars when it comes to things like facilities and maximize safety and
efficiency with airspace redesign. When safety becomes a political football, we
all lose, and that includes the flying public.
And for the carriers and labor unions, we have fought long and hard
for voluntary disclosure programs like ASAP. They are critical for us to
continue to raise the level of safety. It’s disheartening to see some of our
carriers and pilot unions abandoning these programs at a time when we need them
the most. I encourage you to separate safety from the labor issues and put
these programs back in place. The data we gather from them is critical.
Second, the contract with controllers union has really been a bone
of contention, and unfortunately has colored the media’s portrayal of
labor/management relationships at the FAA, which include three recent voluntary
agreements. That said, it’s been well over two years, and we’ve hired over
5,000 new controllers under the new contract. We have thousands of applications
for what are still among the highest paid jobs in government. We ended the year
251 over our staffing goal, and the training is progressing. Both Congress and
the IG were previously very critical of our ops cost growth and we simply could
not afford the old contract. We made tough decisions to control our cost
growth, control our programs, to operate more like a business, to be good
stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. We subsequently made three handsome
settlement offers, each of which was rejected. We have won all the legal
battles. We have bargained in good faith and we followed the law. The
differences were simply too great to overcome. If the contract is to be
revisited, whatever changes may come, it will be a zero sum game. Especially in today’s economic environment. The money will
come from the airport, NextGen or ops accounts. Ultimately, that flows to the
users and the taxpayer. As an aviation professional, I have complete respect
for our controller workforce. It’s my hope that both sides can reach common
ground, but it will take both sides to get there.
Finally, in the midst of the economic turmoil, I’d ask you to
believe in the resiliency of aviation. As of about a month ago, 35 airlines
have gone out of business since the turn of the century — eight in the past
year. It looked like gas prices were going to crush this business. After 9/11,
many were thinking we’d never be back. But in both cases, aviation found a tail
wind and survived. Make that flourished. I see more of the same in the future.
And while the FAA must fulfill its roles as regulator and air navigation
service provider, the rest of you need to promote and support this industry
that so substantially drives our country and its economy. I want to thank the
industry, the Congress, and the FAA employees for their support. It’s been an
honor and a privilege to have been along for the ride.
Thank you and God bless
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