Archived Speeches
"A Sense of History"
Remarks of Marion C. Blakey, Administrator,
Federal Aviation Administration to the Aero Club,
November 28, 2005
Good afternoon, and thank you, Rob. What a pleasure to be here . with a who's who of distinguished guests. Secretary Coleman. Charles Simpson from Canada. And my predecessors, Allan McArtor, Jim Busey, Jane Garvey, and Langhorne Bond.
But you know . I've got to tell you . there's little doubt in my mind about the most important dignitary in this room. Libby Halaby, we're here to salute the man you knew so well. A giant in aviation. It's our pleasure to have a rousing round of applause for him now.
As my esteemed predecessors can well attest, the job of FAA administrator requires more than a little sense of history. It's often said that history repeats itself . whether we like it or not. I'll be honest . a great deal of my time seems to be spent with issues that have popped up again and again.
I need to look no farther than the plate of one Najeeb Halaby. You know, JFK's announcement about Najeeb Halaby's appointment was captured by the New York Times. This is how they reported it: After a meeting in Georgetown just before his inauguration, and I quote, "The President-elect emerged from the house and stood in the cold without a hat or coat and with the first snow beginning to fall, to announce a major appointment. It was the selection of Najeeb E. Halaby , Los Angeles lawyer and air expert, as head of the Federal Aviation Agency."
The record suggests that the announcement may well have been Mr. Halaby's easiest day at the FAA. Mr. Halaby was a visionary , but that doesn't mean he didn't take practical matters into his own hands. When there were issues about whether or not the speed restrictions on the Lockheed Elektra should be lifted, Najeeb Halaby dusted off his test-pilot jump suit and conducted his own research. He wanted to see that the decision by Pete Quesada made sense. It did. And Jeeb stood by it.
The key was quickly going after and wrestling immediate problems. You know, other Administrators have followed that model. Jim Busey established a government/industry group to address survivability after major structural failures - following the Sioux City accident. And that group rolled up its sleeves and went right to work.
Najeeb Halaby also faced a bit of an issue with something historians call " ATC modernization ." The effort was called Project Beacon. It faced the problem of reaching agreement on the configuration of the next generation air traffic control system. Sound familiar? This was 1961 .
When Najeeb Halaby entered the agency, the big stick fight going on pitted the air traffic controllers against the research engineers. Thank goodness we've got that one resolved.. Or maybe there's still a little healthy tension.. Now Langhorne tried to resolve that by building up the Tech Center. It's still a world-renowned facility for air traffic and aviation safety research.
We smile a bit about the inherent tension between the controllers and the engineers . history repeating itself one more time. But other lessons abound as well. Mr. Halaby also faced the age 60 rule. That particular battle was well under way when he took office. Aviation historians note that he met with ALPA to help them understand the FAA's position.
Jeeb was relentless in his efforts to hear from pilots in general. He once sent a letter to 300,000 pilots. It began, "Dear Fellow Airman," and Jeeb asked them to share ideas. We're still asking . that's exactly what we do right now with our Flight Plan. And getting to the bottom of things . going right to the pilots themselves . that was something that you were known for, Allan. In your official portrait, you're wearing a flight jacket .
Now there are some challenges from that era I've yet to face. Here's a headline from Mr. Halaby's tenure that made me sit back and imagine what I'd do when the newspaper hit my desk: "Ex-Stewardesses Testify They Were Allowed to Take Controls in Airliners." That's one that must have had Najeeb put his head in his hands. No rest for the weary.
Some of this comes from sources other than the newspaper. When Jeeb was being sworn in, his mother made the trip from California . by train. According to one of the histories of aviation, "Along with the multitude of tests that face Halaby in his first days as FAA administrator was the job of convincing people like his mother that American aviation was no longer the domain of the foolhardy and the rich , but was rather a respectable and essential business enterprise anxious to serve the needs of its ever-growing clientele."
You know it's a tough job when the raised eyebrow belongs to your mother. It comes at you from all corners, doesn't it?
But Najeeb Halaby wasn't slowed down by any of this. Just six months after the moon landing, Najeeb predicted a role for the airlines . in space. I'd say he was right. In fact, in my talks with Burt Rutan and Richard Branson last year . they're positive he was. They think outside the box. You were known for that too, Jane , although Free Flight was much closer to Earth. You had a vision . for Free Flight . something we'd never done before . and you were right, too.
So the issues from the early days remain. Now, we're facing a critical need for the next generation air transportation system. With smaller, regional jets coming along, the workload is increasing. The annual number of passengers breaks records year after year. Clearly, we need to put a transportation system in place that can handle the demands of the next generation. Clearly, we don't have that now .
Needing the system of the future is one thing . paying for it's another. I think we'd all agree that the federal dollar is going to be stretched tighter than ever. For our part, we're pushing to operate more like a business. Over the years, we've been criticized for not spending . managing . or deploying properly . not altogether unfairly. ; But it's also true that the agency is filled with people who were trying to do the right thing . back in the day. But now, with much greater emphasis on financial management . plus much better tools . highly computerized cost-accounting . we're in a much better place to stand and deliver.
You'll be pleased to know that we're taking the same approach with our labor contracts . For the record, we cannot and will not sign a contract that we cannot afford. We want a deal that's fair and equitable. And we need for our negotiations to move along so everyone will know what to count on. As everyone here knows, our controllers do a great job . as do our technicians, inspectors and so many others in our workforce. There's no argument that our controllers are consummate professionals , delivering safety and efficiency as a matter of routine. But with 12,000 retirements coming in 10 years, we need to strike a deal that makes sense in the short term and in the long run .
Each of these issues point to what may be our biggest challenge: the future financing of the agency. We must demonstrate through our ability to launch the next generation system and operate the FAA like a business that a change in our funding structure not only necessary but is warranted. You know, the Congress and the public have to have confidence in our ability to stand and deliver . and therefore have confidence that a new funding structure is the right way to go. As you've heard me say many times before, the taxes that fuel the trust fund will expire in 2007. The trust fund is what pays the bulk of our operating expenses. Our ability to pay the operations bills is literally tied to the price of a ticket. With low-cost carriers driving the market . and more and smaller aircraft up there . we have reduced income and increased workload. It's an equation that doesn't work.
What we need is a constant , stable revenue stream that's related to the actual cost of the services we provide. What a difference that could make for the future of the FAA, for the future of aviation. We've been working with stakeholders, industry, Wall Street, OMB and the Hill to come up with a proposal that's fair to all and that continues broad taxpayer support through the General Fund . The clear fact of the matter remains that we can't wait until 2007 to take action. We need to have agreement on how we finance our system long before. We already have a good starting point for healthy debate and some of the elements for consensus.
But you know . as I think about each of these . it brings me back to the man whose memory we honor today. Najeeb Halaby was hyper-focused on safety. His work with N-CAR was nothing short of revolutionary. He knew he couldn't control the weather . but he darn well could make a way for us to deal with it. Doppler radar. The low level wind shear alert system . LLWAS . That's quite a resume. Bill Coleman, I know I speak for us both when I say that I expect nothing short of spectacular results from the new Halaby Fellowship .
If you have a sense for history, it's easy to see that we're at a tipping point in aviation. We're at a place where fundamental change is possible . where it's mandatory .
And if you appreciate history . you'll know that Najeeb Halaby had a deep appreciation of the past. This is a story that . to my knowledge . even Libby might not have heard.
About 15 years ago, some of the FAA staff were cleaning out our film archives. Lo and behold, they came across the newsreel of the dedication of Dulles Airport. Many of you know Jerry Lavey, who runs our internal communications group. Looking at the newsreel in his hands, Jerry said, "You know, we should invite Jeeb over to watch this."
And so they did. And Najeeb Halaby came right away. The airport had been dedicated 30 years before, so we're not talking about video. This is film , the kind where you can hear the projector clicking away. The kind where the smell of the bulb grows as the minutes pass.
This amounted to a screening just for Najeeb.; As the newsreel popped up on the screen, a young Roger Mudd . a very young Roger Mudd . came on with that deep voice to describe the first American airport designed to handle supersonic traffic. He talked about the mobile lounges.
Najeeb was smiling as the newsreel continued. Then came the speech by President Kennedy. Picture the FAA auditorium. It seats about 160. Except it's almost empty.
There on the screen, President Kennedy rises to the podium . young . healthy . just the way, I think, all of us remember him. And the president opens his remarks . by recognizing Najeeb Halaby. Jerry Lavey looked over and saw a single tear rolling down Najeeb's cheek. There in the darkness, the former administrator spoke in what was barely a whisper. Najeeb murmured, "He was a great man. Such a great man ."
That's a moment that speaks to us all. History presents us with a series of challenges over the years. Some come in the form of a mother who refuses to fly. And then there's the struggles between the operational environment and R&D. And the age 60 rule.
And sometimes, the challenge comes in the form of an exhortation from the president . asking us to step forward and meet the needs of our nation . to meet the needs of aviation. When that newsreel flickers, it's an emotional thing to think about the challenges and how you faced them. We all know that some of those challenges just keep coming around again and again. Our job . is to face them with greatness . just the way Najeeb Halaby did it.
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