From shut-downs to near-misses, the FAA is experiencing a period of extreme challenges marked by limited resources and unstable leadership.
On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday in January, the skies above the United States became eerily quiet. Between 7:15 and 9:07 a.m on January 11th, planes stopped taking off from most US runways after a major computer outage prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue its first nationwide ground stop since Sept. 11, 2001.
It also underscores the glaring vacancy at the FAA’s helm: More than seven months after being picked by President Biden as FAA administrator, Phil Washington has yet to garner a Senate vote following concerns over his modest aviation industry experience as well as his Despite efforts to prevent a repeat of the January nationwide air-traffic shut-down, Sen. Maria Cantwell worries it could easily happen again.It’s all the more remarkable considering the 935 million-plus passenger boardings at US commercial airports in 2019 — just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — represented a 27% increase over 2014, according to FAA data analyzed by The Post.According to an FAA preliminary review, the Jan.
“I want to get an answer within a week about the NOTAM system having a separate backup, a totally separate backup that could be used,” Cantwell told Nolen as he testified earlier this month at a hearing investigating the January air traffic shut-down. Although there hasn’t been a fatal airplane accident on US soil in over a decade, there have been a spate of recent near-misses including one involving an American Airlines B777 in JFK airport in New York.Rep. Rick Larsen and Graves referred to NOTAM as “outdated” and “antiquated” in a recent congressional hearing. Rep. Pete Stauber called it “archaic” in an interview with the Post.
The FAA is currently without a permanent chief while Biden administration nominee Phil Washington waits for a confirmation hearing. Washington has come under fire for both his modest aviation industry experience and links to a California corruption probe.Unsatisfied with that timeline, bipartisan lawmakers in both the House and Senate recentlyBut some fear even heightened urgency toward modernizing NOTAM is not enough.
Every few years, the FAA goes through a budget reauthorization process on Capitol Hill, the most recent in 2018. Talks for the next reauthorization recently began, inspiring Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, to urge Congress to allocate “stable, long-term resources” to the agency. His sentiments were echoed by Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian’s ‘call to action’ for lawmakers to “fund and properly provide the FAA the resources they need” during a January earnings call.
“By the beginning of 2022, there were more than 1,000 fewer fully certified controllers, and 1,500 fewer total controllers on board.” Does the FAA have the necessary resources to accommodate this growing complexity? When the Post asked the agency, a spokesperson merely pointed to a comment from Nolen’s November speech:
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