Plane Conversations

In a May 12 USDOT press release DOT Secretary Ray LaHood announced the members of the  Future of Aviation Advisors Committee.

Quoting from the press release: The Future of Aviation Advisory Committee was formally established in March to provide information, advice, and recommendations to the Secretary on ensuring the competitiveness of the U.S. aviation industry and its capability to address the evolving transportation needs, challenges and opportunities of the U.S. and global economy.

“Aviation is essential to our nation’s economy and our ability to compete in international commerce,” Secretary LaHood said.  “This committee, which represents a broad cross-section of the aviation community, will begin the important conversation about how to ensure the industry remains vital and competitive.”

The committee will focus principally on five issue areas:  ensuring aviation safety, ensuring a world-class aviation workforce, balancing the industry’s competitiveness and viability, securing stable funding for aviation systems, and addressing environmental challenges and solutions.

The advisory committee grew out of a forum last November hosted by Secretary LaHood on the future of the U.S. aviation industry, during which he urged attendees to nominate potential committee members. The members selected represent airlines, airports, labor, manufacturers, environment, finance, academia, consumer interests, and general aviation stakeholders.  The committee will meet at least four times over the next year, after which it will issue its recommendations to the Secretary.

You can go to the link above to see the rest of the press release and get the full list of the names of the members to the committee. Here is the basic rundown of the committee members by who they represent:

• Academia: 2
• Airport Management: 3
• Government: 1
• Airlines: 4
• Airline Unions: 3
• Airline Manufacturers: 2
• Investment Banking / Analyst: 2
• Consultant Consumers Union: 1
• General Aviation Manufacturers: 1
• General Aviation Operators and Small Business: 0
• General Aviation Associations: 0

In the press release, they mention that general aviation stakeholders are represented. The only General Aviation Stakeholder I can find in this group is Jack Pelton, CEO of Cessna.

What about the rest of GA including any of the associations like AOPA with 500,000 members or NATA or NBAA, or any air charter company, or small aircaft maintenance company?

Airlines and their Unions get 7 committee members and if you add up the rest most are tied to or affiliated to the airlines. General Aviation which represents 1.3 million jobs in this country doesn’t seem to have much of a voice in this administration and their committee.

Rob Mark in his May 17 Jetwhine Blog post says it better than I could ever say it. We ought to be Mad as Hell and we should not take it anymore. Thanks, Rob, for bringing this to our attention.

What do you say about it?

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