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Remarks Of Carol Hallett, President & CEO Air Transport Association At The ATA/FAA ATC Users' Forum
REMARKS OF CAROL HALLETT, PRESIDENT & CEO AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION AT THE ATA/FAA ATC USERS' FORUM RENO, NEVADA June 21, 2000
Thank you Neal for that kind introduction. I'm very pleased to be here in Reno once again, to speak to all of you who have gathered for the annual FAA/ATA Customer Forum.
If this year's meetings are anything like those held in the past, this Forum will make a number of serious contributions to the advancement of aviation safety and capacity in this country. And while we are here to discuss some serious ATC topics and attempt to resolve some pressing airspace-use problems, as a by-product of these meetings, we'll also become better acquainted with one another, not just as air traffic control specialists or operations managers or airline executives -- but also as people.
So, let me take this opportunity to share the airlines' perspective on the challenges we face, as well as the progress we -- airlines and the government together -- have made in expediting the efficient flow of air traffic, while maintaining and improving the overall safety of the national airspace system.
It has been largely through the cooperative efforts by many people in both government and industry that we have set the stage -- particularly in the last year -- for potentially significant improvements in the ATC system. Working in a spirit of cooperation -- similar to the effort behind this forum -- knowledge gained from past experiences has been shared among users, and that has been a key to determining how we, as a group, have moved forward.
Certainly, we are all aware of the congestion brought on by weather-related delays within the system. The summer of 1999 was one of the worst air traffic delay seasons that anyone can remember. According to FAA data, summer delays at certain airports throughout the U.S. reached new records: Dallas/Ft. Worth: up 93%; Chicago O'Hare: up 86%; and Detroit: up an unbelievable 160%. Throughout the nation, on average, the travel plans of over one hundred thousand people were delayed each and every day last summer. Bad news for travelers and airlines.
At the same time, last summer FAA management, the airline industry and the controller workforce sat down together in an effort to develop some solutions. Everybody -- controllers, the airlines and the FAA -- rolled up their sleeves and began working cooperatively, to find solutions to the delay problem. It was clear from the start that Administrator Garvey did not view ATC system problems as either "acceptable or insurmountable." Instead, she authorized the formation of key working groups to recommend fixes for system problems.
One such group produced a joint FAA/industry evaluation of operations at 33 FAA ATC facilities, which resulted in the development of specific action items to attack the delay problem. A direct outgrowth of that effort has been the "Spring/Summer 2000 Severe Weather Plan process" for joint decision-making by airline operations center personnel and the FAA Command Center in Virginia.
The principle objective of this program has been to collaborate on a strategic plan of operations, developed by government and industry at one-hour intervals, to better accommodate flights delayed by weather. The FAA recognized that, in the past, Severe Weather Avoidance Procedures had been slow to be implemented and needed better coordination among FAA facilities in the field.
In an effort to better deal with these problems, the National Command Center was delegated the authority to execute command and control over system operations. So far, the cooperative efforts in the program have been encouraging. There is great hope that operations this summer will run more smoothly, as a result of this joint initiative. That is not to say, however, that the situation will be perfect. To date, we have only seen minimal improvement, but we are optimistic that improvements over last year are possible.
Spring-Summer 2000 is just one of a number of joint government-industry efforts currently in progress. However, most of those other efforts, like the one directed by the Free Flight Steering Committee, are designed to bring government and industry closer together to work on solutions to the system's long-term problems.
Phase One of the Free Flight Program uses a number of core technology programs, developed jointly by the FAA and industry, and includes: the "User Request Evaluation Tool"; the Center/TRACON Automation System; SMA; and CDM.
All of this has been done to improve NAS flight operations, by providing for more direct routing of aircraft from point to point, while maintaining maximum safety throughout the system. Free Flight can provide industry and the FAA the breathing room necessary to avoid gridlock, while longer-term solutions to current problems are developed.
For those of you who attended the NATCA Convention held recently in Alaska: you know we have some tremendous new tools with which to work -- tools that were developed jointly by controllers, airlines and the FAA.
The advent of Free Flight Phase One was not government's first realization of the "inadequacy" of the ATC system. In fact, the government has recognized for some time that the system was in need of modernization and that updating ATC equipment was going to be a costly undertaking.
That's why, in 1970, Congress established the Airport and Airways Trust Fund and authorized the collection of a ticket tax from airline passengers, to finance the Trust Fund. But, like the best-laid plans of mice and men, the congressional plan for funding ATC system modernization came face to face with "the 700-pound gorilla" of government fiscal policy -- federal budget deficits.
With the creation of the Trust Fund, Congress had a new source of revenue that, if left unspent, could be used to offset deficit spending in other areas. And, even though all of the money in the Trust Fund was and is from the passenger ticket tax, and can only be spent for aviation-related purposes -- if it were collected, but not spent at all, it could, through federal budgetary gimmickry, give the impression of reducing the federal deficit.
This fact has proven to be a serious impediment to spending the money in the Trust Fund for aviation modernization -- its intended purpose. And that problem has remained with us since 1980. For twenty years, every attempt to modernize the ATC system, beginning with the Advanced Automation System of the early 80s and continuing through today, has been stifled through, among other things, insufficient funding - even though enough money was in the Trust Fund. For twenty years, those forces in Congress fighting to protect spending for a myriad of "pet" and "pork barrel" programs have been able to keep aviation taxes high and aviation-modernization spending low.
The delays of last summer were visible symptoms of twenty years of neglect in rebuilding our aviation infrastructure -- and clear signs that worse things were to come if changes were not made - and made soon.
Fortunately, Congressman Bud Shuster, Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, recognized this and developed an FAA Reauthorization Bill, known as AIR 21, with the specific intent of freeing the Aviation Trust Fund from the budgetary tricks it had suffered under since the early 1980s.
The Air Transport Association, along with many other aviation groups, worked very hard, lobbying Congress for enactment of AIR 21 - and it paid off. The bill was signed into law by the President on March 15th of this year. The net effect of that action will be to make almost one billion more dollars available annually for air traffic control modernization under the FAA's budget, beginning next year.
This is a three-year bill that will increase investment in aviation by $10 billion more than current levels over the three-year life of the law. The bulk of the additional spending provided by AIR 21 will go to fund the much-needed modernization of the ATC system.
Lobbying Congress for increased funding for aviation infrastructure programs was one thing that industry could do to help advance the cause of FAA modernization. And, since we in industry are often requesting the help of the FAA, to the extent that we were able to influence FAA funding levels, industry worked to help make a significant contribution to the success of the system modernization we all so desperately seek.
It is our hope that the jump-start AIR 21 will provide, in funding for FAA projects and programs that are so critical to the future of aviation, will prove to be a lasting contribution to the joint government-industry effort to secure ATC modernization for the new decade. Regardless of the near-term fixes we put in-place, the viability of the system is dependent upon solid funding over the long-term.
Again, I want to thank everyone for participating in this conference and for working together for the betterment of commercial aviation. We have much to look forward to in this new century, so let's continue to work together to bring about beneficial change. Thank you.
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6/21/2000