[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NEXTGEN: A REVIEW OF THE
RTCA MID-TERM IMPLEMENTATION
TASK FORCE REPORT
=======================================================================
(111-73)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
October 28, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
__________
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53-122 PDF WASHINGTON: 2009
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20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania SAM GRAVES, Missouri
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York Virginia
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN J. HALL, New York ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
VACANCY
(ii)
?
Subcommittee on Aviation
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois, Chairman
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
Columbia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California SAM GRAVES, Missouri
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania Virginia
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii CONNIE MACK, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JOHN J. HALL, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
CORRINE BROWN, Florida
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
VACANCY
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vii
TESTIMONY
Bolen, Ed, President and CEO, National Business Aviation
Association.................................................... 32
Dillingham, Dr. Gerald, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 6
Gilligan, Margaret, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety,
Federal Aviation Administration................................ 6
Hennig, Jens C., Vice President of Operations, General Aviation
Manufacturers Association...................................... 32
Jenny, Margaret T., President, RTCA, Inc......................... 6
Krakowski, Hank, Chief Operating Office, Air Traffic
Organization, Federal Aviation Administration.................. 6
May, James C., President and CEO, Air Transport Association...... 32
Planzer, Neil, Vice President-Strategy, Boeing Air Traffic
Management, on behalf of the Aerospace Industry Association.... 32
Scovel, III, Honorable Calvin L., Inspector General, U.S.
Department of Transportation................................... 6
Sinha, Dr. Agam N., Senior Vice President and General Manager,
The Mitre Corporation, Center for Advanced Aviation System
Development.................................................... 6
Wright, Dale, Director of Safety and Technology, National Air
Traffic Controllers Association................................ 32
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri................................. 53
Cohen, Hon. Steve, of Tennessee.................................. 54
Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois............................. 55
Mitchell, Hon. Harry E, of Arizona............................... 65
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 66
Richardson, Hon. Laura, of California............................ 72
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Bolen, Ed........................................................ 77
Dillingham, Dr. Gerald........................................... 90
Gilligan, Margaret............................................... 145
Hennig, Jens C................................................... 135
Jenny, Margaret T................................................ 137
Krakowski, Hank.................................................. 145
May, James C..................................................... 175
Planzer, Neil.................................................... 181
Scovel, III, Honorable Calvin L.................................. 195
Sinha, Dr. Agam N................................................ 209
Wright, Dale..................................................... 217
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Boccieri, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New York, letter from the Ohio Delegation................... 25
Bolen, Ed, President and CEO, National Business Aviation
Association, responses to questions for the Record from Rep.
Costello, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 87
Dillingham, Dr. Gerald, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues,
U.S. Government Accountability Office, responses to questions
for the Record from Rep. Costello, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Illinois..................................... 110
Hennig, Jens C., Vice President of Operations, General Aviation
Manufacturers Association, responses to questions for the
Record from Rep. Costello, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois.......................................... 133
Krakowski, Hank, Chief Operating Office, Air Traffic
Organization, Federal Aviation Administration:.................
Responses to questions for the Record from Rep. Costello, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois.... 156
Responses to questions for the Record from Rep. McMahon, a
Representative in Congress from the State of New York.... 170
May, James C., President and CEO, Air Transport Association,
responses to questions for the Record from Rep. Costello, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois.......... 178
Planzer, Neil, Vice President-Strategy, Boeing Air Traffic
Management, on behalf of the Aerospace Industry Association,
responses to questions for the Record from Rep. Costello, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois.......... 190
Wright, Dale, Director of Safety and Technology, National Air
Traffic Controllers Association:...............................
Excerpts from GAO Report (GAO-05-11)....................... 43
Response to question from Rep. Costello, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Illinois................... 223
Response to question from Rep. McMahon, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New York...................... 226
ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Lorraine Howerton, Vice
President of Legislative Affairs, letter....................... 229
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HEARING ON NEXTGEN: A REVIEW OF THE RTCA MID-TERM IMPLEMENTATION TASK
FORCE REPORT
----------
Wednesday, October 28, 2009,
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m. in
room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jerry
F. Costello [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Costello, Petri, Oberstar,
Boccieri, Boozman, Boswell, Coble, Ehlers, Griffith, Graves,
Guthrie, Lipinski, LoBiondo, Norton, Richardson, Schauer, and
Schmidt.
Mr. Costello. The Subcommittee will come to order.
It's good to see my former Chairman, Chairman Roe here, who
when I saw him sitting in the chair, I thought maybe there was
a coup when I was gone.
The Subcommittee will come to order. The Chair will ask
that all Members, staff and everyone turn electronic devices
off or on vibrate.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony
regarding NextGen and to review the RTCA Mid-Term
Implementation Task Force report. The Chair will give an
opening statement, and then call on Mr. Petri, the Ranking
Member, to give his remarks or his opening statement, and then
call on other Members for brief remarks, and then go to our
first panel of witnesses.
I welcome everyone to today's hearing. This is the third
hearing that we have held on NextGen, that Ranking Member Petri
and I have held this year to focus on near-mid-term Next
Generation implementation.
Over the last two years, and as a result of many meetings,
roundtable discussions, and hearings, it became very clear, I
think, to Mr. Petri and I and others that, one, the
stakeholders, users of NextGen were left out of both their
input and the implementation or design of NextGen, and frankly
the FAA had a very difficult time defining and describing what
NextGen really looked like or what they intended to accomplish
with NextGen.
So it became clear to us that the FAA had to change course,
and that they had to look both at short-term steps without
losing sight of the long-term goals. And they have done exactly
that. They have brought the stakeholders in, the users, and to
listen to them and involve them in the process. And as a result
of the persistence on the part of many people, some in this
room today and others, as well as the persistence and the
aggressive oversight of this Subcommittee, that is exactly what
has happened. The RTCA was created, and we are, of course,
examining their mid-term report today.
First, I want to commend Hank Krakowski and Peggy Gilligan
for commissioning the RTCA. They did exactly the right thing,
what all of the stakeholders and what we wanted them to do, the
RTCA, a private not-for-profit corporation that develops
consensus-based recommendations to create a NextGen Mid-Term
Implementation Task Force.
Over 335 individuals from 141 organizations, which included
users from the operating community such as the airlines,
business aviation, general aviation and the military, as well
as participation from the controllers, airports, avionics,
manufacturers and others played an integral role in identifying
the challenges and offering solutions for a way forward.
The RTCA was instructed to work with the industry and
prioritize which NextGen capabilities should be deployed first,
and where they should be deployed to achieve the greatest
benefits. The final report was delivered to the FAA in
September.
By bringing together representatives from all segments of
the aviation industry, specific recommendations and action
items were developed and a consensus on NextGen operational
improvements for the near-to mid-term was forged. I commend the
hard work and cooperation of all of the participants. I believe
the RTCA Task Force report is a positive step forward and
represents a significant breakthrough for the NextGen effort.
Now, it is up to the FAA to determine how to modify its
existing plans and programs in response to the Task Force
recommendations. In the past, the FAA has struggled to define
NextGen and to clearly articulate what benefits government and
industry should reasonably expect from the system. The RTCA
Task Force report provides, and I would quote Administrator
Babbitt, ``clear, actionable and achievable recommendations
that will help guide us forward.''
Moreover, the RTCA Task Force report is distinguished by
the support and, more importantly, the commitments that it has
received from industry. Each of the Task Force's
recommendations has operator commitments to make the critical
investments to achieve benefits. I believe that the industry
consensus embodied in this report represents an enormous
opportunity for the Obama Administration to undertake NextGen
implementation.
While technologies will clearly play a major role in
achieving the RTCA Task Force recommended capabilities,
industry stakeholders have also stressed the importance of
reforming the FAA culture, business practices, organizational
structure and processes needed for successful implementation. I
intend for this Subcommittee to provide consistent and rigorous
oversight of NextGen near-term implementation, including many
of the issues raised in the RTCA's report, while also staying
focused on NextGen's long-term goals.
For example, several different offices within the FAA,
including the Aircraft Certification Service, the Flight
Standards Service, and the Air Traffic Control Organization
have responsibilities that relate to NextGen. However, the
Government Accountability Office will testify today that some
of the stakeholders have raised concerns that the FAA does not
have adequate coordination across the agency to efficiently
integrate NextGen-related infrastructure and processes.
On this topic, the RTCA Task Force reports that the FAA
must commit to delivering benefits by assigning appropriate
responsibility, accountability and authority and funding within
the agency. Chairman Oberstar and I both expressed concerns at
our NextGen hearing last March about whether the FAA's current
organizational structure adequately supports NextGen. I am
still unclear whether there is a single point of
responsibility, authority and accountability for NextGen
activities, with the stature to leverage the interagency
coordination that the NextGen will require. I look forward to
hearing from Mr. Krakowski and others concerning that issue
today.
In addition, there are specific recommendations in the Task
Force that the Subcommittee needs to examine more closely. For
example, the report recommends streamlining the operational
approval and certification processes for aircraft avionics. In
addition, many of the witnesses also discussed in their
testimony the importance of streamlining these processes. I am
aware it takes several months for an operator to gain approval
once the process is initiated, and it is complicated and
expensive. Again, I would like to hear more from our witnesses
concerning this issue.
Further, the FAA may be confronted by a number of staffing
and workforce challenges as it moves forward with the
implementation of NextGen. In September of 2008, the National
Academy of Public Administration issued a report that
identified several areas, including software development,
systems engineering, and contract administration, where the FAA
currently lacks both the capacity and the capabilities to
execute NextGen implementation. Congress and this Subcommittee
stands ready to work with the FAA to ensure that the agency has
the resources that it needs to meet its workforce challenges.
Finally, I believe that post-Task Force engagement such as
continued collaboration and joint decision-making among all
members of the aviation community is a key component to ensure
successful implementation of NextGen. I strongly encourage the
FAA to continue a high level involvement and engagement with
stakeholders, including operators and air traffic controllers,
to ensure success.
In addition, I agree that specific metrics to measure pre-
and post-implementation operational performance is important
data for the FAA to track. This Subcommittee has already
requested that the Department of Transportation Inspector
General monitor FAA's process in responding to the Task Force
recommendations and to determine if the FAA has a system in
place to assess progress and measure benefits.
Before I recognize Mr. Petri for his opening statement, I
ask unanimous consent to allow two weeks for all Members to
revise and extend their remarks, and to permit the submission
of additional statements and materials by Members and
witnesses.
Without objection, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee,
Mr. Petri, is recognized.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Chairman, thank you for providing leadership
to have diligent oversight of the NextGen process. It is very
important.
When the RTCA NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force
was chartered in January, Task Force members were asked to
achieve industry consensus on what steps must be taken over the
next several years to deliver NextGen benefits to users. The
Task Force, comprised of over 300 members, released its report
and recommendations in early September.
The Task Force's recommendations do not focus on which
research and development activities will lay the groundwork for
an end state NextGen architecture. Rather, the report's
recommendations focus on activities that can maximize the
potential benefits on existing aircraft avionics and airport
technologies in the near term.
Well, some have reacted by saying, well, that is not really
NextGen. The report does mark an important milestone in the
long history of air traffic control modernization. Without user
buy-in, the FAA's NextGen efforts will fail. However, the
direct involvement of stakeholders and financial officers in
making these recommendations to FAA indicates a willingness on
the part of industry to make the financial commitments needed
to carry out the recommendations.
Another valuable outcome of the Task Force is the clear
call for collaboration across FAA lines of business. This will
be critical to timely delivery of near-and long-term NextGen
capabilities. For example, the delivery of key platforms such
as ERAM, ADS-B, and SWIM are the necessary infrastructure for
NextGen. But without procedures, standards and regulations,
users will not be able to benefit from the technological
improvements.
Critical to maximizing benefits derived from technologies
both old and new is the development of operational procedures
overseen by the FAA's Office of Aviation Safety. I am pleased
that Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Mrs.
Gilligan, is participating today. I am interested in hearing
how the agency plans to streamline the development and
implementation of operational and environmental approval
processes.
The Task Force report has been characterized as a
confidence-building exercise between users and the FAA.
Specifically, the Task Force stated that if the FAA can
maximize benefits of past avionics investments, users will be
more confident in making future avionic investments. I am
interested in hearing how the FAA will take advantage of this
opportunity to work with the industry in delivering
improvements.
While ADS-B is regarded as the backbone of NextGen, it was
not the focus of the Task Force recommendations. Unfortunately,
there still is no clarity from the FAA on the business case for
ADS-B equipage. The Task Force has been praised for its work in
developing industry consensus and what is specifically needed
in the near term to deliver NextGen. I am interested in hearing
from both panels what the best process is for answering the
challenging questions surrounding the shape and size of ADS-B.
Finally, while it is important to set near-term goals, FAA
must also be held accountable for delivering the long-term
vision in a timely fashion. I am interested in hearing how the
FAA will allocate its resources to strike the necessary balance
between answering the users' demand for operational
improvements in the near term, while maintaining efforts on the
ground necessary to achieve the NextGen vision.
The last thing we want to do is meet again on this topic
five years from now, having invested billions of dollars, and
find ourselves nowhere near to a modernized air traffic control
system. I am sure that the user community shares my dread for a
NextGen Groundhog Day.
Once again, I thank the Chairman for calling this hearing,
and look forward to the discussion.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member, and
would ask, are there Members who have opening statements or
comments?
If not, the Chair will recognize our first panel: Ms.
Margaret Jenny, who is the President of RTCA, Incorporated; Mr.
Hank Krakowski, Chief Operating Officer, Air Traffic Control
Organization with the FAA; Ms. Margaret Gilligan, who is the
Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety with the FAA; the
Honorable Calvin Scovel, III, who is the Inspector General with
the U.S. Department of Transportation; Dr. Gerald Dillingham,
who is the Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, with the
U.S. Government Accountability Office; and Dr. Agam Sinha, who
is the Senior Vice President and General Manager at The MITRE
Corporation, Center for Advanced Aviation Systems Development.
Let me say before I call on Ms. Jenny for her testimony
that, as I stated in my opening remarks, this Subcommittee
urged the FAA to begin the process of including stakeholders
when it was very obvious to us a few years ago that
stakeholders were not being consulted. The very people who
would operate and use the system were on the outside, as we saw
it at that time, and needed to be included not only in order to
make the system work, but also in order to take advantage of
their expertise and the advice that they could lend to not only
building NextGen, but in bringing the process forward.
I am very pleased that Mr. Krakowski and Ms. Gilligan and
you, Ms. Jenny, are here today on behalf of all of your Task
Force members. I am very pleased with the work that you have
done. I think it is a major breakthrough. It moves us forward
and I want to commend you for the action that you have taken,
and want you to know that we consider ourselves not only a
Subcommittee that has responsibility for oversight for NextGen
and the FAA, but also we want to be a partner in this process
to make sure that it happens and happens in a reasonable period
of time.
So again, I commend those of you, all of you who were
involved in this process. It is something that we look forward
to seeing happen, and it has happened, and now what we need to
do is, it falls on the FAA to figure out how they are going to
look at their structure, their policies, to blend in the
recommendations that have been made by the Task Force.
With that, we have a five-minute rule normally with our
witnesses. We would ask you to summarize your testimony in five
minutes, which would allow time for questions, as we have a
second panel that will follow you. And we want you to know that
your full statement will be entered into the record.
With that, the Chair now recognizes Ms. Jenny.
TESTIMONY OF MARGARET T. JENNY, PRESIDENT, RTCA, INC., HANK
KRAKOWSKI, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICE, AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION,
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; MARGARET GILLIGAN, ASSOCIATE
ADMINISTRATOR FOR AVIATION SAFETY, FEDERAL AVIATION
ADMINISTRATION; THE HONORABLE CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR
GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; DR. GERALD
DILLINGHAM, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S.
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND DR. AGAM N. SINHA, SENIOR
VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, THE MITRE CORPORATION,
CENTER FOR ADVANCED AVIATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Ms. Jenny. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Costello,
Ranking Member Petri and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you
for inviting me to participate in today's hearing on NextGen.
A few words about RTCA might help set the stage for my
remarks. RTCA is a private, not-for-profit corporation that is
utilized by the FAA as a Federal advisory committee, providing
a venue for stakeholders to forge consensus on aviation-related
issues. RTCA provides two categories of recommendations: first,
policy and investment priorities to facilitate the
implementation of national airspace system improvements; and
second, performance standards used by the FAA as a major input
for certification of avionics.
My testimony today will describe the RTCA Mid-Term
Implementation Task Force Initiative and the resulting
recommendations.
The Task Force was established in February in response to a
request from Hank Krakowski and Peggy Gilligan. Over 335
individuals from 141 different organizations participated in
the Task Force, bringing technical, operational and, for the
first time, financial expertise. Forging a consensus was a
challenge, but at the end of the day, the shared desire to
improve the Nation's air transportation system prevailed. On
September 9, RTCA delivered a consensus-based set of
recommendations to the FAA.
First, the Task Force stressed the importance of
implementing operational capabilities versus technologies, and
deriving benefits from existing equipage. This approach will
help relieve congestion in today's system, but success will
also increase the community's confidence in the FAA's ability
to implement NextGen.
Second, the Task Force recommended an airport-centric
approach to NextGen, delivering capabilities at key airports
and large metropolitan areas where the problems are most likely
to ripple through the Country, causing unnecessary flight
delays, misconnections, and cancellations. Many capabilities
will require deploying an integrated suite of capabilities.
This will require a new way of doing business.
Third, for each capability recommended, the report
identified the location, as well as the list of operators
committed to making the investments.
The Task Force made recommendations in seven key areas.
First, improve the airport surface traffic situational
awareness and data-sharing for enhanced safety and reduced
delays. Establish a single point of accountability within the
FAA to oversee the implementation of operational capabilities
for the airports serviced.
Second, increase throughput at airports and closely spaced
parallels converging at intersecting runways.
Third, increase metroplex capacity and efficiency by de-
conflecting the traffic to and from the airports in the
metropolitan area.
Fourth, increase the cruise efficiency through enhanced use
of special activity airspace, increased use of aircraft
metering and spacing at the bottlenecks, and increase the use
of flexible RNAV routing.
Fifth, enhance access to low-altitude non-radar airspace
for general aviation traffic, and increase the availability of
GPS approaches to more general aviation airports.
Sixth, deploy air-ground data digital data communication
applications to decrease gate departure delays and to enhance
efficiency and safety of airborne traffic, especially when re-
routing of multiple aircraft around weather is necessary.
And seventh, improve the overall efficiency by enhancing
the collaborative decision-making between the FAA and the
users' flight operations centers.
The Task Force also made four critical overarching
recommendations. The first is to achieve the existing three-and
five-mile separation by eliminating buffers now applied. Second
is to streamline operations approval process. Third is to
incentivize equipage. Fourth is to utilize the RTCA mechanism,
as well as joint government-industry implementation teams to
facilitate the collaborative planning and implementation and
tracking of NextGen.
The report makes another critical point. Closing the
business case for NextGen investments requires delivering
benefits within a requisite payback period. Many of the NextGen
investments have high costs, long payback period, and low
confidence of payback, due in part on the dependence of outside
forces such as the FAA.
One way to close the business case for such investments is
to achieve a faster return. For example, the Task Force
analysis showed that while no individual DataComm capability
would close the business case, when five capabilities were
delivered for one investment, the business case closed for the
airlines. The Task Force documented all known challenges to
delivery and the benefits as well.
Some have asked whether the FAA can afford to implement the
Task Force recommendations, as well as the NextGen vision. The
answer is that we cannot afford not to. The recommendations
solve current problems, while laying the necessary groundwork
for the longer term NextGen. The recommendations are in effect
a risk mitigation program for NextGen.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important
topic. I would be happy to answer any of your questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Ms. Jenny. And again,
we thank you for your work on the Task Force.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Krakowski.
Mr. Krakowski. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, Members of the Subcommittee. I will be making the
opening statement for FAA today.
I would like to start out by also thanking Margaret Jenny
and Captain Steve Dixon from Delta Airlines, and the Task Force
leads for leading what we think is a definitive jump start to
actually implementing NextGen.
The two major principles of the Task Force were: prioritize
initiatives that have a near-term effect; and continued
cooperation and involvement of the industry in the execution
and the evolution of the plans.
To prioritize the initiatives, we are reviewing the NextGen
implementation plan, along with the Task Force recommendations
in the guise of the Operational Evolution Partnership, which
has now become the NextGen Management Board. It is the OEP
which brought us three runways on time and under budget, as
well as other improvements to the NAS. It also helped us
achieve being removed from the GAO high risk list.
To do the needed follow-up, the FAA is committing to work
with our stakeholders through the ATMAC, which is a sub-group
of the RTCA, and its work groups. The ATMAC's work will
complement the work of the NextGen Management Board, as I have
described, as well as the Review Board which resides under it
for detailed work. And through that process, we will bring all
the relevant issues together to make the right strategic
decisions.
It is important to know that the NextGen Management Board
is chaired by the Deputy Administrator of the FAA, and it is
Randy Babbitt's intention to make the Deputy Administrator the
central point of focus for the over arching implementation
issues through this process at FAA.
In the meantime, we are pleased that the Task Force did
reaffirm that we are on the right track. Airport surface
improvements are a good place to start. It is where much of the
congestion does exist. We have been deploying ASDE-X, as well
as other technologies, on the surface. Now, we have an
opportunity to use it more effectively.
The metroplex. Instead of looking at this from singular
airport perspectives, it is important to look at it as a system
of airports and integrated airspace, so as we make decisions
around improving the metroplex areas, you do have to consider
all of the different aspects and interdependencies of what we
are trying to achieve.
Access to the NAS. This means approaches. This means our
NAS procedures, places in particular for general aviation
aircraft to gain access, which were prohibited by the lack of
infrastructure in avionics in the past.
Incentivizing equipage. This is probably going to be one of
the more interesting conversations. We have to sort out what
``Best-Equipped, Best-Served'' means; and how we possibly fund
incentive of equipage. There are a lot of different
conversations going on here in Washington about how to do that.
And lastly, streamlining. Streamlining our process within
the ATO, streamlining the processes within AVS and coming
together to create a single performance-based navigation point
of focus and office within the FAA is our intention.
As we move forward with examining the Task Force
recommendations, we welcome Congress' continued interest, and
commit to moving NextGen forward to heighten safety and
maximize efficiency throughout the national airspace system,
and we intend to see this commitment through.
Chairman Costello, Congressman Petri, and Members of the
Subcommittee, this concludes our prepared remarks, and we look
forward to answering any questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Krakowski.
And now we will recognize Inspector General Scovel.
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Petri, Members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to
discuss the status of NextGen's implementation.
When fully implemented, the satellite-based system is
expected to improve air traffic management and yield
significant economic and environmental benefits. Yet our body
of work on NextGen has shown that these benefits will remain
elusive unless FAA addresses a number of operational and
management issues now and into the future.
Last month, an RTCA Task Force reported its findings on
NextGen and made a number of recommendations on what FAA needs
to achieve in the near-and mid-term, actions consistent with
those we have recommended over the past five years. While FAA
has concurred with our past recommendations and endorsed
RTCA's, FAA needs to take action now to transition from
planning to implementation.
Today, I will focus on five overarching near-and mid-term
capabilities that we and the RTCA have determined FAA must
address if it hopes to implement NextGen successfully. The
first capability concerns the capacity of airspace in
metropolitan areas with multiple airports, such as New York,
Chicago, and Southern California.
Of particular concern is FAA's implementation of RNAV/RNP
procedures. As we have previously reported, FAA needs to track
data on the use of RNP procedures to determine which routes are
not being used and why. We found that air carriers' limited use
of new RNAV/RNP procedures is due largely to FAA's practice of
overlaying RNP routes over existing ones, out of date traffic
policies, and insufficient pilot and controller training. At
Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport alone, controllers have
yet to use any of the 10 RNP procedures FAA implemented two and
a half years ago.
The Task Force also emphasizes the need to shift from the
quantity of RNAF/RNP procedures implemented to the quality of
the routes.
The second capability concerns runway access. A key
transition issue for NextGen is determining whether throughput
at already congested airports can be increased. This is
particularly important for airports with complex runway
configurations, such as converging or closely spaced runways.
Updated safety assessments are also needed to ensure
unanticipated hazards are not introduced, particularly during
periods of low visibility.
FAA must also address longstanding concerns with terminal
modernization, the equipment controllers rely on to manage
aircraft in the vicinity of airports. The Task Force parallels
our work on the need to address exactly how various
technologies and procedures can unlock congested airports and
improve arrival rates under all weather conditions.
The third and fourth capabilities concern high-altitude
cruise and access to the national airspace system. To improve
high-altitude flights and service at smaller airports, FAA
needs to increase the availability of real-time data on the
status of airspace use. Our concern about the impact of mixed
equipage on NextGen is relevant here. Understanding and
mitigating the impacts of air carriers' different capabilities
and procedures are important for several mid-term efforts,
including RNAV/RNP, datalink communications for controllers and
pilots, and satellite-based surveillance systems for tracking
aircraft positions.
In addition to these four capabilities, RTCA also calls for
a major reevaluation of airport surface operations to enhance
use of taxiways, gates and airport parking areas. These needed
capabilities and RTCA's recommendations highlight a number of
NextGen policy questions.
For example, RTCA discussed several sources of funding to
implement its recommendations, such as providing financial
incentives, possibly in the form of low interest loans, direct
subsidies for equipment, or income tax credits. Whether such
incentives should be used is a policy decision for Congress. If
incentives are used, they must be properly designed and timed
to achieve their objectives at minimal cost to taxpayers.
A related policy concern focuses on the proposed best-
equipped/best-served concept as a way to advance NextGen. The
concept, first mentioned in FAA's January 2009 NextGen
implementation plan, gives preferential treatment to airspace
users equipped with new systems. Historically, however, FAA's
policy for providing air traffic control services has been
first come, first served. A best-equipped/best-served policy
would, therefore, represent a significant change in how traffic
is managed. Key concerns include ensuring equity among users in
implementing the policy at specific locations.
To set realistic expectations for NextGen, FAA needs to
take several actions now. First, implementing RTCA's
recommendations will require FAA to adjust budgets and plans.
Accordingly, FAA must develop plans to initiate action and
establish a five-year funding profile for the NextGen mid-term.
Second, FAA must develop metrics for assessing progress,
measuring benefits, and identifying problems in order to put
timely corrective actions in place.
Third, FAA must determine how a best-equipped/best-served
policy could be implemented.
And finally, FAA must develop and implement a strategy for
linking near-and mid-term efforts with long-term plans for
NextGen's major transformational programs.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy
to answer any questions you or Members of the Subcommittee may
have.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Inspector General
Scovel, and now recognizes Dr. Dillingham.
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Petri and Members of the Subcommittee.
The RTCA Task Force report and its recommendations can be
viewed as a blueprint for the transition from the current air
traffic control system to NextGen. This transition phase is
often referred to as NowGen, as distinguished from the NextGen
Program.
My testimony today highlights some of the challenges that
we believe FAA needs to consider as it develops its response to
the Task Force recommendations.
These challenges fall into three areas: first, allocating
its resources for developing and certifying RNAV and RNP
procedures and addressing the related environmental issues;
second, managing FAA's organizational culture and business
practices to support a new way of operating; and third,
deciding on cost-effective options for encouraging operators to
equip their aircraft for new systems capabilities.
The first group of challenges involves allocating resources
to prioritize and expedite the development of procedures that
allow more direct flight paths than existing RNAV and RNP
procedures, and redesigning airspace in congested metropolitan
areas.
Our work suggests that FAA will have to prioritize its
development of RNAV and RNP procedures because at the current
pace, it will take decades to complete the thousands of
procedures targeted for development.
This challenge also includes finding ways to expedite
environmental review processes and proactively addressing the
environmental concerns of nearby communities. Both of these
efforts have oftentimes contributed to very significant delays
in implementing new procedures and redesigning airspace.
The second group of challenges involves adjusting FAA's
organizational culture and business practices. Traditionally,
FAA's culture and business practices have supported the
acquisition of individual air traffic control systems.
Implementing NowGen will require FAA to increase its emphasis
on integration, coordination and measurable outcomes.
Specifically, FAA will have to work with a greater number and
variety of external stakeholders, as well as across multiple
internal lines of business, and may have to re-prioritize some
of its current NextGen implementation plans and programs.
At the same time, FAA must ensure that its near-term plans
align with its longer term NextGen vision. Additionally, with
NowGen, FAA must ensure that standards, procedures, training
protocols, and other necessary requirements to operate in the
NAS are developed and certified in a sequence that supports the
timely implementation of capabilities. Furthermore,
streamlining these processes is critical.
The last group of challenges involves ensuring that
operators are equipped for NowGen and NextGen. Although the
Task Force assumed that for the most part, Federal funds would
not be required to implement its recommendations, our work has
shown that for a variety of reasons, from establishing the
credibility of FAA's long-term commitment, to the financial
condition of the industry, the Federal Government may be asked
to provide financial assistance incentives for NextGen aircraft
equipage. If Federal resources are used, we believe that it is
important that key considerations include a focus on what would
be in the national interest, rather than the best interest of
any one or more stakeholder groups, and that the Federal
assistance will not displace private investment.
Mr. Chairman, we agree with the Task Force conclusions that
its report should be seen as a beginning, and not an end. I
would add that successful next steps for NowGen will require
the same kind of cooperation, collaboration and transparency
among stakeholders that was shown in the work of the RTCA Task
Force, as well as the continued oversight that has been
provided by this Subcommittee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Dr. Dillingham.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Sinha.
Mr. Sinha. Good afternoon, Chairman Costello, Ranking
Member Petri, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for
inviting me to participate in today's hearing on NextGen: A
Review of the RTCA Mid-Term Implementation Task Force Report,
commonly known as Task Force 5.
My testimony today will address the RTCA Task Force 5
recommendations, their feasibility and challenges, and post-
task force priorities.
It is important to begin by acknowledging that the way the
Task Force was conducted constitutes a transformational process
for how government and industry should forge consensus. I would
like to highlight three unique aspects that led to the success
of this activity and that should be viewed as best practices
for future collaborative efforts.
First, the recommendations and conclusions of Task Force 5
are rooted in data and analysis that was collected and made
available to all participants. This transparent data-driven
approach provides traceability for the decision-making process
and allows new information to be incorporated as it becomes
available.
Second, participation by stakeholders finance
representatives is unprecedented and was a key success factor
for this Task Force. In the past, representation from
stakeholders' operational and technical personnel left out key
considerations that are required to successfully drive the
users' investment decision-making.
Finally, commitments by operators were focused on
implementation at specific locations based on expected
benefits. Capabilities were identified that provide benefits
for each operator group, including general aviation, business
aviation, commercial and military.
The Task Force did a commendable job in reaching consensus
amongst the diverse set of participants. However, there is much
work to yet to be done to successfully achieve the operational
improvements and associated benefits.
Tier one recommendations for the near term are based on
mature technologies and procedures already under development
and are targeted to benefit all operator groups. One example is
optimizing RNAV and RNP procedures. The operational capability
description includes selected, high-benefit locations and
recommends instituting joint government-industry ``tiger
teams'' to focus on the quality of the RNAV procedures as they
are implemented, and to identify and resolve issues early in
the implementation process.
Some capabilities will require FAA to accelerate or
redefine the current plans. An example is expediting
implementation of data communications. The recommendation calls
for deployment of the initial data link capability to deliver
revised departure clearances and en-route clearances to the
pilot, thereby providing early benefits.
Some tier one near-and mid-term capabilities, though well
defined, still require further work in areas including safety,
certification, human factors and potentially some policy
changes. For example, expanded parallel runway operations need
additional human-in-the-loop simulations and blunder analysis
to support enhancements to closely spaced parallel runway
operations.
Another key challenge that was identified across many of
the proposed operational changes was the need to accelerate
processes related to avionics certification and operational
approval.
The tier two and three recommendations identified by the
Task Force were deemed to have lower benefits and/or higher
risks. The community should continue its R&D activities to
better define and integrate evolutionary capabilities to build
on those in tier one.
Integrated human-in-the-loop experiments, fast-time
modelings and simulation, data analysis capabilities, and
operational demonstrations and evaluations at selected sites
will provide necessary verification and validation or needed
modifications of concepts, technologies and procedures.
Availability and use of these resources will be a critical
factor to support further refinement of the recommendations in
all tiers, and to ensure their successful implementation.
Now, looking to post-Task Force engagement, the complexity
and challenges of moving forward will require continued
collaboration and joint decision-making among all members of
the aviation community. Specific metrics should be agreed upon
to measure pre-and post-implementation operational performance,
and determine if expected benefits are materializing.
Stakeholders will need to collaborate to address complex
policy issues related to airspace design, congested airspace
access, data security and environmental considerations.
Further, definition of best-equipped/best-served policies and
procedures in a mixed equipage environment will need to be
addressed as each operational capability is agreed to and
corresponding locations are prioritized.
The Task Force report calls for responsibility,
accountability and authority and funding stability as necessary
components of the stakeholders' commitment. The FAA should
capitalize and build on past examples of successful
stakeholders' engagement and project execution.
For example, both the Free Flight Program and Operational
Evolution Plan have demonstrated the ability to deliver on
promised benefits. Both FAA and the operators need to engage
their workforces to develop procedures and training for pilots,
controllers, system implementors, and maintainers. This will
ensure that they will be ready at the same time and place, so
that available avionics can be used as intended to deliver
improved operations and benefits.
Finally, although key NextGen foundational programs such as
ERAM and ADS-B are not included in the Task Force
recommendations, progress and assessment of these programs must
proceed and also be transparent to all the stakeholders.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be happy
to answer any questions the Committee may have.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Dr. Sinha.
Ms. Jenny, in your testimony you talk about the importance
of a single point of accountability within the FAA. You know of
the FAA's plans to name a yet to be named Deputy Administrator
to put that person in charge of NextGen. I am not sure how that
relationship between the Deputy Administrator and JPDO will
work, but if you will elaborate a little bit about what the
RTCA found or addressed in their concerns about single point of
accountability and why that is necessary.
Ms. Jenny. Yes, I would be happy to, speaking for the Task
Force.
It should be noted that the Task Force limited its
recommendations to the FAA on what needed to be implemented
between now and 2018, and not how. Having said that, the Task
Force participants felt fairly strongly because once we stepped
back and looked at the set of capabilities that we recommended,
so many of them require an integrated suite of capabilities to
be deployed at specific locations, as opposed to doing things,
investments in infrastructure across the Country, that it was
felt that there needed to be some higher level accountability
that would require, that would force that kind of integration
across the FAA.
So I think that most of the Task Force participants would
be pleased for that to be something that would be a
responsibility of the Deputy.
Mr. Costello. What was the Task Force recommendation for
follow-up after the report now has been delivered to the FAA?
Did you make any recommendations as to what follow-up should be
done between the Task Force and the FAA?
Ms. Jenny. Yes, we did, Mr. Chairman. There were three
parts to that recommendation. The first was to establish the
group of leadership of the Task Force. That is about 18 or 20
people who led the different sub-groups of the Task Force, and
have key understanding of its recommendations. The idea was
that that sub-group would be stood up as an RTCA sub-group
under our advisory committee, and would work collaboratively
with the FAA to provide more input into what the
recommendations meant, and to understand from the FAA how they
are integrating them into their plan.
At the end of that would be new NextGen implementation
plan, and that group would probably stand down, and we would
move into a use of the RTCA sub-groups under ATMAC to monitor
the implementation of the recommendations and the
implementation of NextGen, both the milestones, how they are
being achieved, and how the performance is improving. We are
agreeing to stand up specifically the finance sub-group that
will have all the finance people from carriers to stay as a
standing group to help us with the kinds of things that Dr.
Sinha referred to in terms of updating all that data that we
have supporting the costs and the benefits needs more work.
And the third part was to establish government and industry
joint implementation teams for those things that we agree we
are going to implement at specific locations, and have all the
stakeholders working together to synchronize their investments
and their activities.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
Mr. Krakowski, again I mentioned we commend you and the FAA
for doing what we and others have asked you to do in seeking
the input of the stakeholders. Now that you have their input
through the RTCA Task Force, let me ask you. There were 29
recommendations, if my memory serves me correctly, that the
Task Force specifically made. How many of those 29
recommendations do you agree with and intend to move forward
with?
Mr. Krakowski. Well, they are kind of bucketed in about
seven different buckets. The key issue in my mind is, as was
stated earlier, this is just a beginning because we now need to
sort out with the RTCA and the Task Force and the members what
the real priority needs to be, and in some cases, what are we
going to stop doing or delay so we can get to a more near-term
focus on some of the capabilities.
Tomorrow will be the first ATMAC meeting that we will have
since the recommendations came out. And tomorrow, in our view,
starts that very process. Now that FAA has had six weeks to
take a look at the recommendations, reference them against what
we are currently doing with the NextGen implementation plan and
other activities going on, and identify what are the gaps.
And then tomorrow, we expect to enter into a discussion on
how we are going to work through reprioritizing it so we can
satisfy our commitment to make the Task Force recommendations
become real. And that is going to, I think, be an iterative
process for a few months here, leading up to a NextGen
implementation near-term plan to be published in January, which
is what we always we do, with the intention of having as much
of this defined in that document as we can.
Mr. Costello. And it is my experience, at least in the past
in dealing with the FAA, as well as other agencies, that if we
do not set goals and time lines, that things can drag on
forever. So my question to you is, is there a time line that
you have within the agency to analyze these recommendations, as
you are beginning to do now with the Task Force, and you have
been looking at them for the last six weeks internally. Is
there a time line where you are going to pull the trigger and
say, by this date, we are going not only to identify the
priorities, but by a date, we are going to make a decision as
to which we are going to accept and act on, and which we
disagree with?
Mr. Krakowski. We don't have any solid time lines quite
yet. I think we are, quite frankly, a little early in the
process. But the intention is to have as much of this framed
out for that January NextGen Implementation Plan publication,
so from that point we can actually then be talking about
realistic time lines. Because what is different about this is
this isn't just about FAA making commitments to make this
happen. The industry has to agree to it with some specificity.
That is going to take some work.
Mr. Costello. And the industry will say, I am sure, in the
second panel that their willingness to commit financially and
otherwise will depend on the action taken by the FAA and the
benefits that you can demonstrate that they will receive. So I
understand where you are coming from. I would encourage you to
try and look at some time lines and also to continue to
communicate on a regular basis with Ms. Jenny.
With that, the Chair would recognize the Ranking Member,
Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As I indicated in my opening remarks, this is another in a
several years series of hearings we have had, and I just wanted
to say that I am actually kind of encouraged because we are
seeing the problem being broken down and brought more
immediate, and trying to get different players to focus on
solutions, and getting things moving forward, rather than some
huge project that is not going to really be implemented, when
suddenly in 25 years we will have this wonderful new world.
I mean, that can be a long-term framework, but within that
framework, how do we get from here to there? And how can we
start collaborating? So I am very, very encouraged by the Task
Force report and your response to it, and look forward to the
next panel's discussion about how to work the collaboration so
we don't get into a chicken and egg problem, but can try to
figure out how to actually move forward profitably for the
airlines and efficiently and safely for the traveling public,
because there are a lot of benefits for our Country and the
public in this process.
One thing, if you could, both Ms. Jenny and Mr. Krakowski,
discuss a little bit the airport-centric approach, how you
envisage that reducing delays in the national airport system.
And I think for Mr. Krakowski, how you would expedite the
implementation of RNP/RNAV routes for operators that are so
equipped? And is there room for streamlining the procedure
approval for that process, both in safety certification and in
environmental approval?
We know the political side of environmental approvals
particularly, and it is a no-win situation, but we need to move
forward and airplanes are quieter than they were. And so the
real-world consequences of doing this are probably a little
less than they might have been some time ago. Could each of you
comment?
Ms. Jenny. Thank you. One of the things that we did in the
Task Force was we started with a large, a fairly longer list of
operational capabilities. And then we looked at each one and
defined its benefits and its costs, and we brought in as many
studies as we can find. And then we looked at ranking them.
And when we did that, it became very clear that the highest
benefit, the biggest bang for the buck we would get out of all
of the recommendations were those things revolving around large
metropolitan areas with many airports. So we had actual data to
look at.
And it is pretty clear when you look at the data that if
you can solve the delay problem in the New York area or the
Chicago area, those delays ripple through the whole system. So
if you can solve those, you solve a large percentage of the
problems in the whole transportation system.
So those sort of naturally made their way to the top
because of the process that we used and the process we hope to
continue to use moving forward.
Mr. Krakowski. Clearly, we concur with what Ms. Jenny said.
Relative to the streamlining of RNAV and RNP procedures,
there is a lot of opportunity here. We are taking certain
specific steps. For example, within ATO, there are three
organizations under two different Vice Presidents who have been
processing RNAV/RNP procedures from the air traffic point of
view. We don't think that that is a successful model for
implementing the Task Force recommendations, so we are
consolidating that into a single performance-based navigation
office under our Senior Vice President for Operations, Rick
Day. And it also links up with service areas where a lot of the
customers have direct contact with our people who are doing
these procedures and creating them in their regions and at
their local airports. So we think that will go a long way in
helping streamline our ability to deliver procedures that are
approved.
Now, Ms. Gilligan has the other side of the house with the
approvals from a flight standards point of view.
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, sir. And we agree that we can streamline
the approval process for the procedures. I think we, and
industry, had a lot to learn as we started down this road
because obviously we want to implement these procedures, but we
don't want to introduce any unintended safety hazard or safety
consequence.
We have learned a lot. We have worked with the
manufacturers and with the operators to better understand who
needs to bring what data to the table, so that we can
streamline the process. The Task Force recommends that we
establish a standard process. Up until now, individual
applicants have come in and they have wanted to do what may
have worked well for them in their individual airline or at
their individual operation. We are going to standardize that,
and that will help to reduce the time as well.
It took a long time at the start, but I think each of the
new applicants would agree that it has gotten better and easier
as we have gone along, and we are going to focus on enhancing
that even more.
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes the distinguished
Chairman of the full Committee, Chairman Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for staying close on the hide of all these participants in
NextGen. You have been doing a terrific job, and I thank Mr.
Petri for partnering in this initiative.
I have a good deal more confidence about the future of
modernization of the air traffic control system with the steps
that have been taken.
Mr. Scovel and Dr. Dillingham, I have one question. Based
on your review of FAA's management of NextGen, and of the
numerous technologies--airport operations, runway access,
metroplex airspace, high altitude cruise, continuous glide-path
in and so on--give us your evaluation of FAA's ability to
manage multi-billion dollar contracts.
Mr. Dillingham. I will take a shot at it first.
Mr. Oberstar. You have been there before, Dr. Dillingham.
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. With us, together.
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, yes. In fact, we have been monitoring
FAA for 15 years with regard to air traffic control
modernization. I haven't been here the whole 15 years, but a
lot of it.
FAA has definitely shown progress in its ability to monitor
those large contracts. Part of that, we attribute to the
Congress mandating the stand-up of the ATO and subsequently the
business practices that, and operational practices that the ATO
brought into being. As the COO just talked about earlier, we
did remove them from our high-risk list after 12 years because
they were able to do that.
What we are saying now is that should provide a foundation
for what needs to be done with NowGen and NextGen, though they
will have to shift from sort of concentrating on acquiring one
system and deploying it nationwide, to this more integrated,
cooperative, regional kind of orientation.
But we are definitely guardedly optimistic that FAA can
make this happen, but it is indeed a complicated undertaking.
Mr. Oberstar. You remember, and this was before General
Scovel's tenure, you remember the period in which FAA was mired
in the advanced automation system, and the contract for that
was supposed to be $500 million, and went up to well over $1
billion in a day when $1 billion was a lot of money.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Oberstar. And you remember my calling the Vice
President of IBM in this hearing room and telling him, I am
going to nail your shoes to the floor. He said, why? I said,
because you keep moving around. You can't stay with one system
until you have it completed. And the other thing is, you need
to stay in one place and manage more than one system at a time.
Do you think they are able to do that?
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, sir. I think, you know, we see things
like when that system, when the IBM system was being developed,
FAA used the concept of what we used to call the ``big bang''
theory. Let's, you know, all of this at once. And they since
have moved to build a little, test a little. And that has
proven to be a useful way to approach things.
So you learn as you go, and I think that, you know, they
have a good chance. It is going to take that collaboration and
cooperation that we saw with the RTCA Task Force, with industry
being a part of it. But also it is going to require that this
Subcommittee and the full Committee maintain that oversight
that they have been doing for the last two decades.
Mr. Oberstar. Yes, a good deal of all those things you
mentioned happened because of this Committee's, Subcommittee's
oversight under various management. But you remember when
Administrator Hinson, after we had quite some consultations,
and with Linda Daschle, who was Acting Administrator, brought
in Navy auditors to review FAA's contract management, and found
there were just--it was deplorable, just deplorable. And Navy
made a number of very pertinent and insightful recommendations,
which then we took and translated into legislative language,
and Mr. Hinson implemented.
Well, FAA has been able to do a number of major projects,
but I still, with a question also: Is there an arm's length
relationship with the contractors?
Mr. Scovel?
Mr. Scovel. Tall question, sir. In the context of NextGen,
we will be looking at that very carefully when we look at how
FAA undertakes its implementation of the RTCA's Task Force.
Mr. Oberstar. Remember Coast Guard, remember the IBM Days.
You couldn't tell where FAA left off and IBM began and vice
versa. Now, there is a contractual relationship. There has to
be inclusiveness within FAA, with bringing the controllers in
at the early design and engineering stages, and FAA can't be,
as the Coast Guard was doing, telling contractors: you do it
and certify to us that you are doing a good job.
Mr. Scovel. Yes, sir. I understand your cautionary comments
along those lines, and I well recall in the context of aviation
safety hearings that we have had in this hearing room where I
have been privileged to appear before you, sir. And one of the
lessons for all of us was the, in your words, sir, a cozy
relationship between FAA and carriers.
Back to your earlier question, sir, about multi-billion
dollar contracts. We can point to some successes on FAA's part.
ERAM is certainly one of them. My staff's work has led us to
conclude that stable requirements are an absolute key if FAA is
to successfully carry off a contract of that nature.
On the other hand, you referred to WAAS, sir, and we are
all familiar with STARS as well. As we look at NextGen
implementation for the mid-term, terminal modernization, with
its history of being virtually a trail of tears, has the
possibility of being almost a show-stopper for anything that
can be accomplished in the near-to mid-term.
Mr. Oberstar. Let's all keep in mind, and all of us on this
Committee do, I know, it is not the airlines. It is the air
travelers who are paying for this system through their ticket
tax. It is that excise tax that goes into the AIP account and
to the F&E account and 80 percent of the operations account.
And so we are very directly responsible to the air travelers
for the investment they are making, and they are counting on us
to make sure that this works.
And they are also counting on us not to over-promise and
under-deliver. And I need you two watch-dogs to stay on top of
it, as we will, this Committee as well, I assure you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Chairman Oberstar.
And let me mention to General Scovel, we are aware of the
aggressive review that you are doing with ADS-B, and we take
our responsibility as oversight of the agency and others
involved in the system, and we appreciate the work that you are
doing with ADS-B and the work that you do in general.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina,
Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to have the
panelists with us today.
Mr. Chairman, as you pointed out earlier, much has been
said about NextGen, and I am not sure that I am capable of
intelligently defining it. So I am going to be very elementary.
I am going to have two questions. I am going to put the first
question to Mr. Krakowski, and my second question to Mr.
Scovel.
My first question, Mr. Krakowski, is: What is NextGen?
And my question to Mr. Scovel is: Who is in charge of
NextGen?
And I hope I am not being too elementary, but I need to
know the answers.
Mr. Krakowski. It is a frequent question in the last two
years that has been asked. NextGen is an evolution, and as I
think about NextGen, it is not a big-bang theory. It is not
something you turn a light-switch on. It is a methodical
modernization of how we run air traffic, not only here in the
United States, but globally as well because our airplanes fly
overseas, overseas aircraft fly here.
So we have to have a common approach with common
technologies and procedures to be able to fly airplanes closer
together, on more efficient routes, and the current
technologies do not permit that.
One of the current problems with our system is it is
somewhat like a hard-wired house with the old telephone system.
It is not scalable. It is not flexible. It is not movable. If
you look at the promise of satellite-based navigation, data
communication, and all of the pieces that layer in, you are
creating a system that has much more flexibility and
scalability when traffic flows change, or when thunderstorms
impact the system, so we can do it better than the current
system allows right now.
So in my mind, it is a march toward a system that just
keeps improving over time.
Mr. Coble. Thank you for that.
Mr. Scovel, who is the boss? Who is in charge?
Mr. Scovel. That is a very tough question, sir. In fact,
you may recall from my testimony back in March and at a
roundtable last year where the question of FAA's organization
for NextGen implementation was raised. I expressed skepticism
on the part of my office as to how leadership is to be
exercised within FAA.
It has been mentioned today that the incoming Deputy
Administrator for the agency will have overall accountability
for NextGen, and that is certainly true. But I would draw a
distinction between political accountability, which of course
rests with the Administrator and his Deputy. They are
responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen in
the agency, including NextGen, and day-to-day operational
decision-making authority, which right now we see as being very
diffused and fragmented.
There is a Senior Vice President within the Air Traffic
Organization whose title is NextGen Implementation and
Operations Planning. However, that official does not have
either personnel or budgetary authority over many of the key
programs that will be necessary for NextGen, not even those
within the ATO, much less those that are on the outside of that
organization. Perhaps they are over in Aviation Safety or even
elsewhere in the organization.
In our view, for one of the key missions of the agency, if
one of the key missions is to operate the NAS today safely,
efficiently, effectively; another key mission, prepare to
operate the NAS in the future safely, efficiently and
effectively; FAA today is not properly organized to carry out
that key second mission.
Mr. Coble. Well, I thank you, sir.
Mr. Krakowski, back to you. Will implementing the
recommendations of the RTCA Task Force require delays in the
implementation of NextGen, A? And B, is FAA still aiming for a
2025 target window?
Mr. Krakowski. I actually think you accelerate and start
moving us to NextGen faster by adopting the RTCA
recommendations. One of the most important elements of NextGen
is aircraft being equipped with high-fidelity GPS systems in
the aircraft. And much of the Task Force recommendations point
to an increased usage of that so we can get better safety and
efficiency on the surface of airports, more efficient routes in
the system.
So the more that we can provide near-term benefits closer
in, moving the dial to the left, so that the airlines can be
encouraged to equip with the higher-fidelity equipment, you
start moving it toward a kind of a faster trajectory, and you
actually make the system healthier as you are doing it.
Now, there is a distinction. The Task Force recommendations
don't speak to the longer NextGen vision of ADS-B, some of the
larger programs like System-Wide Information Management, but
those are moving along. Those are going to continue to move
through our NextGen plan that has been defined by the JPDO and
then by the NextGen organization within ATO as well.
Mr. Coble. So 2025 is still the target window?
Mr. Krakowski. We are not sure what we are going to end up
with at 2025 at this point. I mean, it is an interesting target
for some things to be in place, but the fact that the whole
world is going to NextGen by 2025, I don't think we are there
anymore.
Mr. Coble. Mr. Chairman, can I ask one more quick question?
The red light, I see, is illuminated.
Ms. Jenny, let me put a question to you. It has been
suggested that since the RTCA report focuses on maximizing
capabilities from existing equipage, the recommendations really
are not about NextGen. Is that a fair criticism?
Ms. Jenny. Thank you. I don't think that is a fair
criticism. I think I would agree somewhat with what Mr.
Krakowski just said. The recommendations really are sort of a
risk mitigation for moving toward the more sophisticated
technologies. If we are going to develop and implement ADS-B
and DataComm, to get the full benefit, if you just put the
infrastructure out, nothing changes and you don't get a
benefit. What you need to do to get the benefit is implement
new procedures, train controllers and pilots, possibly change
the way airspace is designed.
What the NextGen Task Force says is let's do some of those
things for the existing capabilities, for things like
multilateration for RNAV and RNP. We will make all of those
changes so that when we can go to ADS-B, all of that work is
done. That increases the confidence of the community that we
can do it, and it is much more likely that we will close the
business case and move to NextGen faster.
Mr. Coble. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. I thank the gentleman.
And now the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
Boswell.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having this hearing.
I won't address this to this panel, but I will just say
this to you. Two weeks ago, I was all set to start all over
again. I couldn't find you that day to talk about passengers'
rights as I tried to travel across the skies of this Country,
but I have calmed down since then, so I am good, but it is a
concern.
On this issue here, it was interesting to hear Mr. Coble.
It seems to me like we are moving awfully slow. You have heard
that before. It is a big, big thing. And I have just observed,
as a user, that it seems like general aviation has adapted
quicker and maybe it is much more complicated for the airlines
and corporations and so on. I don't know.
And then I get to thinking about the international side of
it, and it is. So I think about the time you are getting ready
to make a step forward, you find out Collins Radio or somebody
has come up with a better idea to do it. The technology is
moving so fast, so I don't know. Maybe Mr. Chairman, we just
need to set a deadline and see what we could put together at
that time, we do it. Otherwise, it seems like it stays open-
ended, and that is something we might want to think about.
It has kind of changed a little bit here. Ms. Gilligan,
would you explain the role that FAA's AVS plays in the NextGen
and what are some of the specific processes that your office
handles as it pertains to NextGen implementation?
Ms. Gilligan. I would be glad to.
There are two parts to the system, there always have been,
the ground-provided infrastructure and the airplane. For many
years, they were relatively separate. The ground provided
service for separating air traffic and the airplane did things
that assured that it was operating safely.
But now, they actually can share those responsibilities.
The airplane actually has a tremendous amount of capability,
technology that it can contribute to separating airplanes, as
well as to operating safely. To do that, operators and
manufacturers need to have approvals, and those approvals go
through the Aviation Safety Organization. And as someone
commented, we want to make sure as we are making--as we are
introducing those new processes and procedures that we are
understanding whatever risk we may be introducing and that we
are eliminating that or managing that or mitigating it as we go
along.
All of that is work that is done with our safety
inspectors, with their operators, and with the manufacturers to
understand the capability of the aircraft, to be sure the
company, the operator develops processes and procedures, that
they have training for their pilots and other staff members,
and that that all comes together before we issue the approval
to actually take advantage of what can be done in the system.
So that is the role that we play.
Mr. Boswell. I appreciate that.
Now, in my previous statement, and I mentioned Collins, for
example. That was a compliment.
Ms. Gilligan. Yes.
Mr. Boswell. I have been to their site and their
laboratory, if you will, and it is amazing what they are
putting into this and what we can expect even day by day. It is
a compliment to them. They are really, really good.
I would like to move on to Dr. Dillingham for a minute. In
your testimony, you mentioned the need for FAA to change its
culture to give NowGen and NextGen a better chance for success.
What do you mean by culture change in this case? And how could
this change be facilitated?
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Mr. Boswell. I was referring to
the tradition that FAA has with focusing on implementing or
developing one system at a time and deploying it nationwide.
The new paradigm has to be an integration and cooperation and
multiple system deployment for the NextGen-kind of situation
that we are in now.
And if I could just go back to your first comment about how
technology is passing and time is getting ahead of us. I think
part of the answer to your concern is a part of what we are
talking about now, and it is instead of focusing on 2025 and
what may or may not be possible to do by that time, the focus
now has shifted back to technologies that we know and
procedures that we know that will end up making a difference
now.
So that I think that is why, you know, what RTCA and FAA
has done is very, very important just because of the idea that
you suggested, is that technology is moving awfully fast.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this hearing.
To our panel, thank you all for being here and for doing
what you do.
Mr. Krakowski, I have a couple of questions, but first I
want to say a very special thank you for all of your help and
assistance in the recent groundbreaking that we have had for
the Next Generation Aviation Research and Development Park at
the FAA Tech Center which is in New Jersey's Second
Congressional District. I really believe that this park will be
a force enhancer for the Tech Center, that it will be a force
multiplier and will assist in many ways. So I thank you.
Two pretty quick questions. First, Mr. Krakowski, as you
know, in response to the recommendation of the GAO and others,
this Committee included language in the FAA authorization bill
to move the Joint Planning and Development Office out of the
ATO and place it directly under the Administrator. My question
to you is whether you think this is an appropriate
organizational structure to ensure the success of NextGen? Or
if you believe significant progress can be made under the
current alignment?
Mr. Krakowski. I actually believe that the JPDO is less of
an issue for the purposes of this Task Force because the Task
Force recommendations are near term. The JPDO was never set up
as an implementing organization. It really was set up for
planning and collaborating across other agencies for kind of
the long-term plan, where are we going, what are the
technologies that are going to get us here.
It is the FAA. It is our responsibility and it is our
mission to implement that which is going to make the system
better, and it is the people that run the system every day
through the current structure of the NextGen Management Board,
which exists under the leadership of the Deputy Administrator,
and has been for quite some time. A new Deputy Administrator
coming in ties it all together between the Aviation Safety
organization, people that run airports, people that run
government affairs, and the ATO as well at the highest level
toward the Administrator.
So since we are more into an implementation role now versus
planning and kind of long-term strategy, I think the current
structure that I have described serves better, sir.
Mr. LoBiondo. Okay. Thank you.
And the second one, I think we can all agree that to design
and implement the NextGen system, the FAA will need to hire
more staff, especially if it were successful in accelerating
the program. I know that the RTCA has raised concerns with
staffing levels and certification offices, and I would like to
see the engineering capacity at the Tech Center grow.
But do you have a NextGen workforce plan for the coming
years that you can share with the Committee?
Mr. Krakowski. Yes, I would be happy to sit down with you
and give you some detail on that. But we do agree that if we do
not attract and hire the right kinds of talent, the right type
of people, with the quality that we need, the program will
suffer. This is high on our radar scope.
Mr. LoBiondo. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, before I yield back, I would just like to
recognize that who we affectionately call in New Jersey ``Mr.
Transportation and Infrastructure,'' Mr. Bob Roe. Thank you for
joining us today, the former Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Boccieri.
Mr. Boccieri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the panel.
I have a question for Mr. Krakowski. Earlier this year, our
Ohio delegation sent a letter to you asking that the FAA's plan
to consolidate several air traffic control facilities in our
State be postponed until Congress has completed its work
reauthorizing the FAA.
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This Committee passed a bill that includes a process for
aviation stakeholders to review and evaluate those
consolidation proposals. The full House passed that bill. The
Senate Commerce Committee has now passed the bill and we are
waiting for the full Senate's action. Having these
consolidations reviewed is important to me, and to the Ohio
delegation and to the flying public in my State.
I would like you to tell me today if you can take these
consolidations off the table until they can be properly vetted
by the bill's review process.
Mr. Krakowski. Without actually thinking about that and
having the document in front of me, it is difficult to answer
it specifically. I would like to be able to do that with you at
some other point.
However, I will say this. One of the key issues around
consolidation has been the sensitivity of our relationship with
the controllers union and our ability to work together to find
out whether or not the consolidations overall make sense. Just
in the past few weeks, there is new leadership at NATCA, and we
do have the contract behind us. Mr. Rinaldi, the new president
of NATCA, and I, are talking about that very subject. In fact,
we will be meeting next week, actually, to start talking about
what that looks like.
Until we get through that and until we understand what that
looks like, we don't have any direct plans right now to
continue marching toward consolidations in your area.
Mr. Boccieri. Just to be clear, sir, you are saying that
consolidations are not going to be on the table until you have
had a chance to vet them and clearly refine that process?
Mr. Krakowski. I would say we are putting them in abeyance
right now until we get that process understood.
Mr. Boccieri. It will be in abeyance. I am a military pilot
in that area, and we have flown, you know, quite frankly, many
low-level missions training and what-not. And I can speak
first-hand that they have saved our neck quite a few times. And
to consolidate those to a point where I think would jeopardize
the safety of that region--you know, we are in between two of
the most busy airspaces in America, class B airspaces with
respect to Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and there is a lot of air
traffic, single engine and multi-engine aircraft, doing, you
know, just recreational flying, as well as military training in
that area. So it would be detrimental to have that happen, in
my opinion.
Mr. Krakowski. If I may, just one quick comment on that. In
the longer term as we get away from radars and the radar-based
navigation system, we are going to have to look at what the
right structure is going forward under ADS-B, but that is many
years downstream.
Mr. Boccieri. Great, great. We are going to get you a copy
of this letter and maybe if I could have a moment of your time
after the Committee to follow up with this.
Mr. Krakowski. Very good.
Mr. Boccieri. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And before I get to any questions, I would like to respond
to my colleague, Mr. Coble, who asked what the meaning was of
NextGen. And all I can say is, you know, the media likes to
lump things in generations, generation acts and so forth. But I
am pretty well convinced, Mr. Coble, that you and I and
probably Mr. Boswell are members of what could best be called
BestGen.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ehlers. I offer that in all humility.
At any rate--he is not going to touch that one. I
understand why.
I have a question, a very broad question here. And I have
head a lot of discussion about NextGen and I have had a lot of
reassurances, but I haven't heard any mention today of how
seriously you are working at incorporating general aviation
into the whole process. That is a very important part of this.
It is not the big money part, but a lot of small businesses
depend on that. A lot of people depend on it. Air ambulances
depend on it.
What is the involvement of general aviation in this? And
how are you meeting their specific needs?
Ms. Jenny?
Ms. Jenny. Yes, I would be happy to take a run at that.
The Task Force had pretty major involvement from general
aviation, both the business aviation and general aviation
involved in all of the deliberations, and were part of the
consensus at the end.
Of our seven categories of recommendations, one full
category addresses general aviation needs, and that is the
ability to fly in the low-altitude, non-radar airspace, and
have more GPS approaches to the general aviation airports. It
is one of the few recommendations that actually requires ADS-B.
That was part of our report that went out.
So I think from their perspective, I would say they felt
fairly well represented by these recommendations for the mid-
term.
Mr. Ehlers. Any other comments from any of you,
particularly----
Ms. Gilligan. If I could answer? In addition, we are
working closely with GA community already in trying to approve
their access. We have over 700 approvals, for example, for RNAV
procedures. There are only about 90 airlines. So we are working
with a lot of the general aviation and business community to
make sure that they are able to participate in the system as
well. Gulfstream, for example, is one of the leading
manufacturers in helping provide the data we need to be able to
approve operations for those people who fly Gulfstream
aircraft.
So we think actually we are learning a lot working with the
GA community that will help us streamline our approval
processes for everybody who operates in the system.
Mr. Ehlers. And Mr. Scovel and Dr. Dillingham, do you, in
your work there, have you noticed good involvement of GA in all
the various stages?
Mr. Scovel. Sir, from our perspective, it seems that GA has
been somewhat left on the sidelines in the overall discussion
of NextGen long term. It is greatly encouraging to us that the
RTCA Task Force has taken a step to bring general aviation to
the table at least when it is talking about access to the NAS
by improving service at smaller airports.
At this Committee's request, my office will be following up
to observe and report on the actions of FAA in pursuing the
RTCA Task Force recommendation in that specific area, sir.
Mr. Ehlers. Dr. Dillingham, do you have any----
Mr. Dillingham. I don't have anything to add to that, Dr.
Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. All right. Let me also make a comment. I have
no further burning questions at this point. But we are dealing
with an immensely complicated issue here. And I am not afraid
of complications. In fact, I rather enjoy it. But I am feeling
lost again. Every once in a while, I have to be in touch with
reality.
And Mr. Krakowski, maybe you are the best one to address
this to. I think it is time again for some product
demonstration, just something that we can see hands-on and see
how it works. And I don't know if you are at the point of
taking us up in planes and seeing how that operates, but at
least look at it from the airport perspective, perhaps a visit
to National again or bringing in equipment here, as you have
done a few times. I think it would be very beneficial for the
Committee and I encourage you to think about putting that on
again.
Mr. Krakowski. We would be delighted to do that.
I would like to report that the other day, I flew my first
LPV approach, which is localizer performance with vertical
guidance, and I had never seen that technology before until I
flew it the other day in one of the FAA airplanes.
I was overwhelmed at the precision and the ease of flying
that approach. And those are becoming more and more available
in the system for general aviation every day.
Mr. Ehlers. Good. I am glad to hear that.
Thank you very much and I yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Richardson.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Having an opportunity for folks listening to say that we
have talked about this for decades, I can agree, because I have
been here for two years and it seems like many of the hearings
I have been to, it has already been several times. So I look
forward to us getting to the end point.
My first question is for Ms. Jenny. Ms. Jenny, I don't know
if you have had an opportunity to read the statement of Mr.
Krakowski, but on page three, he talks about all the
involvement of the board and the vice presidents and the chief
operating officer. And yet in your testimony, you said that it
really lacks the leadership and the focus.
Can you explain to us based upon what system they say that
they have in place, why you feel that that is not sufficient?
Ms. Jenny. First, I should say that I can speak for the
Task Force, and the recommendations in the Task Force, which
again, as I said before, really did stop short of trying to
tell the FAA how to go about implementing the recommendations.
But there was a concern that because the capabilities are
so integrated and so location specific, that it is different
from the way things have been implemented in the past. And to
be able to make sure that all the pieces come together, both
across the FAA and in collaboration with the operators who also
have to invest, that it takes a really key focus and a single
point of accountability and responsibility to do that.
So I think the jury is out at this point. I understand the
FAA is taking all these recommendations in and looking at
these. So we did not address specifically what is in Mr.
Krakowski's testimony.
Ms. Richardson. Mr. Krakowski, would you agree with the
Board's recommendation of needing a single point focus?
Mr. Krakowski. We believe we have that through the
assignment of the Deputy Administrator. This is very different,
what we are proposing here with these Task Force
recommendations, than some of what was talked about with Dr.
Dillingham and Mr. Scovel. These are not big programs being
thrown out there. This Task Force is establishing a new way of
doing business between FAA and the user community because they
have to invest concurrently with us to make this happen. This
is not just us modernizing our system and helping them with
their current aircraft work in it better. They actually have to
be part of this. So we have to look at each other almost every
day going forward to make this happen. So this is going to be
very different for all of us.
Ms. Richardson. Mr. Krakowski, in the Board's
recommendations, which I think there were 27 or 29--Mr. Scovel
had several and Mr. Dillingham had several as well--could you
please supply to the Committee the answers to whether you are
either incorporating those or whether you intend not to and
why. I notice in your testimony you covered a few of them but
you certainly did not cover all of the recommendations that
were provided.
Mr. Krakowski. Yes. There is a lot of detail. First of all,
I absolutely commit to giving you those answers. I would
anticipate having those maturely available some time in January
after we have gone through some of the processes I talked about
earlier at this hearing, working with the RTCA committee to
start prioritizing.
Ms. Richardson. I would just say January or sooner if this
Committee meets prior to that about NextGen.
Mr. Krakowski. Okay.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Then finally, this is the last question, Mr. Krakowski. How
do you see that you are going to prioritize how the airports
will actually receive and begin utilizing NextGen?
Mr. Krakowski. Again, the NextGen Management Board, which
is going to be the governing body of FAA to pull it all
together, has the Airports Associate Administrator on it. It
has all of the key functionalities of FAA. Then, working with
the RTCA Task Force, the ATMAC, and the Subcommittees going
forward, all of that is represented there as well, too.
I think your point is well taken that at times as we have
tried to modernize the system we have done it without
sufficient recognition of the contribution of the airport and
how it operates in the system. When you think of Kennedy
Airport and some of the airports, a lot of the issues which
were appropriately identified in the Task Force reports are
about surface management. How do we taxi aircraft in and out of
the gate areas? How do we avoid clogging up a taxiway because
it is not being managed effectively?
Ms. Richardson. Also in Los Angeles, we also had a recent
incident.
Mr. Krakowski. Yes. Runway incursions--although we have got
good news here, they are way down--that is always going to be--
--
Ms. Richardson. I understand that we still had another one
this week.
Mr. Krakowski. Yes.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentle lady.
We thank this panel for testifying here today. We
appreciate your testimony.
I would note for the Subcommittee Members that the
Subcommittee has asked General Scovel to monitor the
implementation of the recommendations of the Task Force. I
might ask General Scovel when the Subcommittee might expect its
first report from you on the Task Force recommendations?
Mr. Scovel. Sir, we would like a chance to look at FAA's
promised January plan. We may have something to you six months
thereafter.
Mr. Costello. Very good.
Mr. Krakowski, I would just continue to encourage you to
work with Ms. Jenny in implementing the recommendations that
they have made. The Subcommittee certainly intends to monitor
the implementation and to continue to hold hearings concerning
NextGen so that we can be certain that progress is being made
and that we can move forward.
Again, we thank you for being here today and offering your
testimony.
The Chair would now ask the second panel of witnesses to
come forward please. I want to introduce our second panel: Mr.
James C. May, the President and CEO of the Air Transport
Association; Mr. Jens C. Hennig, Vice President of Operations,
General Aviation Manufacturers Association; Mr. Dale Wright,
the Director of Safety and Technology, National Air Traffic
Controllers Association; Mr. Neil Planzer, Vice President,
Strategy at Boeing Air Traffic Management, on behalf of the
Aerospace Industry Association; and Mr. Ed Bolen, who is the
President and CEO of the National Business Aviation
Association.
Again, we would say to the witnesses on this panel that
your full statement will be entered into the record. We would
ask you to summarize your statement.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. May.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES C. MAY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AIR TRANSPORT
ASSOCIATION; JENS C. HENNIG, VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS,
GENERAL AVIATION MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION; DALE WRIGHT,
DIRECTOR OF SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC
CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION; NEIL PLANZER, VICE PRESIDENT-STRATEGY,
BOEING AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT, ON BEHALF OF THE AEROSPACE
INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION; AND ED BOLEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL
BUSINESS AVIATION ASSOCIATION
Mr. May. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Members of
the Committee. The NextGen Task Force, which I think was
admirably led by Captain Steve Dixon of Delta Airlines, did an
outstanding job of setting a course to transition to NextGen.
As important as that accomplishment is, there is a larger
lesson to be learned, however, which is the urgency of
benefitting from NextGen as soon as possible.
The case for modernization is so compelling and so widely
accepted and the need is so great that the introduction of what
we all agree is readily available technology and the procedures
to fully leverage it must become a national priority. To make
that priority a reality, we think the Federal Government at the
highest levels must provide decisive leadership and a
substantial financial commitment.
We know what NextGen can do. The technology is proven. We
know we need NextGen. We know that stakeholders uniformly want
its benefits. We know what has to be done operationally and
financially. We know what we now need is the Federal Government
to assume the mantle of leadership to make NextGen an early
reality.
The Federal role is indispensable if we are to have an
airport and airway system that can responsively meet the air
transportation needs of our Nation. The system does not do that
today. The burden of this failure is about $41 billion annually
on airlines and passengers.
Modernization of the ATC system, however, must be based on
a positive business case. Without that justification, we will
not see the level and pace of investment that will produce the
operational and environmental benefits that are so achievable
from NextGen. Such foregone opportunities are truly
intolerable. We have already witnessed that, for instance, in
the failure to have RNP/RNAV procedures available when SeaTac's
$1 billion third runway opened last December or an RNP/RNAV
procedure engineered in Palm Springs, California that has never
been used because it is inefficient.
The Federal Government holds the keys to making NextGen a
reality sooner rather than later. It must become, as I said, a
national priority to which all necessary resources should be
devoted.
Leadership and full funding can make it happen in several
years, not in the third decade of this century as is assumed
today. Accepting anything less ambitious will needlessly
shortchange our Country. Leadership, I point out, includes
exhibiting the wherewithal to overcome the political
differences that an undertaking of this magnitude will
inevitably create. We need to be candid and acknowledge the
state of affairs. For example, this means we cannot continue to
dither over implementation of FAA's New York airspace redesign
plan. NextGen will not work in New York, or anywhere, if
individual interests frustrate the airspace improvements that
will indisputably benefit us all.
Leadership also includes accountability. Clear metrics must
be established to measure the progress of the Government as it
quickly introduces NextGen. At the same time, we need clear
performance metrics to be established.
Finally, leadership means a serious commitment to
infrastructure investment. That is something we are all
familiar with on the ground. It needs to be applied to
equipping aircraft to take advantage of NextGen technology.
Given the cost of equipage and the length of time it could take
for an individual user to see a payback, such funding is
crucial. This is infrastructure investment that can pay off in
the next few years, and that payoff is within our reach. To
place this into perspective, if Congress and the Administration
were to provide a level of funding comparable, just comparable
to the funding for high speed rail projects in this year's
stimulus legislation, NextGen would be an early reality.
Without this leadership and funding, implementation of
NextGen will drag on and our Nation will suffer even more from
airport and airway congestion. This Task Force has ably
prepared our flight plan. We need to speed up our arrival at
our final destination.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. May, and now
recognizes Mr. Hennig.
Mr. Hennig. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Jens
Hennig and I am the Vice President of Operations for the
General Aviation Manufacturers Association.
This hearing and other Subcommittee hearings earlier this
year have contributed greatly to a better understanding about
the NextGen program, where it stands today, and where it needs
to go tomorrow to achieve the safety, economic capacity, and
environmental benefits we all want to achieve.
The general aviation industry, like others, is struggling
in today's economic environment. GAMA member companies by
themselves have experienced more than 19,000 layoffs since
September of last year, which is almost 14 percent of our
workforce. Despite these tough times, our member companies
continue our history of investing in new products to help
stimulate economic growth and future employment in general
aviation. I was in Orlando just last week at a convention and
down there our member companies continued this tradition by
announcing new availabilities of NextGen capabilities such as
ADS-B OUT, RNP, and data applications.
From GAMA's perspective, there are two overarching points
to be made about the Task Force. The first point is that we
have reached a time where more focus needs to be placed on
delivery rather than planning. The Task Force worked under the
framework that ``it is about implementation''. Success in
implementation now will mean more user confidence as we
implement other transformational parts of the NextGen program.
The second point is industry's involvement in air traffic
control modernization. When we look beyond the horizon of the
Task Force to the implementation of the full concept of
operations for NextGen, the role of industry in its planning,
research, and development remains essential. The Administration
must continue to provide effective mechanisms for industry to
continue to participate.
I will now highlight some of the key recommendations of the
Task Force from a GAMA perspective.
The traditional process of modernizing our airspace was
centered on ground equipment infrastructure. For NextGen, the
term ``aircraft-centric'' is often used. It attempts to
communicate this paradigm shift of moving part of the air
traffic control infrastructure onto the aircraft. Greater
reliance on aircraft avionics, however, makes an efficient
process for avionic certification and FAA operational approvals
even more important.
When we look at streamlining of avionics certification, we
note that significant work has been done over the past several
decades to streamline these processes. However, more needs to
be done for these improvements to be fully realized. We are
pleased to hear Associate Administrator Peggy Gilligan already
is in the process of moving forward with improvements in this
area.
As the RTCA report stresses, better coordination, clearly
defined roles, and accountability between the Aviation Safety
Organizations' different offices is needed.
The Task Force also takes an important step forward by
identifying opportunities to streamline the operational
approval process and focus the FAA resources on essential
safety functions. In this area the Task Force makes some
practical recommendations, including that approval requests be
combined into a single, comprehensive application package and
that a clear path be created for aircraft manufacturers for the
aircraft portion of the approval. Both will achieve better
efficiencies. These improvements also enhance manufacturers'
ability to put new products and capabilities into operation,
which directly ties to our ability to sell equipment, create
and maintain jobs, and compete in the global marketplace.
GAMA has also long advocated for appropriate levels of FAA
resources for certification. We have welcomed the attention of
this Committee about this issue in the past. As we go forward
with NextGen, ensuring that the FAA has adequate levels of
engineering staffing resources to support ever-increasing
levels of certification activity and the process improvements I
have already described will become essential.
I would like to close by discussing the RTCA Task Force
endorsement of financial incentives for aircraft equipage as
one of its overarching recommendations. These incentives become
important when benefits reside not with the individual operator
but with the overall system, another operator, or with the U.S.
Government. We believe Government support for equipage is
appropriate as the ATC infrastructure of the past is
increasingly moving to the aircraft. We must all consider
whether it matters in terms of Government funding if the
infrastructure that is funded is built on the ground or in the
air. GAMA stands ready to work with Congress, the
Administration, and other industry stakeholders to further
NextGen through financial incentives for equipage.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership
on this issue and for inviting GAMA to testify before the
Subcommittee. We look forward to continuing to work with the
Committee to ensure the safety, economic, and environmental
opportunities of NextGen are realized.
Thank you. I would be glad to answer any questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes Mr.
Wright.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Dale Wright.
I am the Director of Safety and Technology for the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association and was a professional air
traffic controller for more than 32 years.
NATCA has been deeply involved with RTCA in its work on
NextGen. I personally have served on several work groups
including Task Force 5, whose recommendations we are discussing
this afternoon.
The RTCA's NextGen Task Force is truly a collaborative
environment. RTCA members from all aspects of the aviation
community were given an opportunity to share their perspectives
and expertise. RTCA recognizes the value of NATCA's knowledge
of day-to-day air traffic control operation, the needs of the
system, and the real world implementation of the proposals
being considered. The collaborative nature of the Task Force
helped RTCA to develop recommendations that were thorough and
well-considered. I have a high level of confidence in the
recommendations.
In general, RTCA's recommendations encourage improving and
expanding the use of current technology. NATCA supports these
initiatives which include deploying ASDE-X beyond the OEP 35
and expanding the use of precision runway monitoring and
converging runway display aids. Each of these promotes improved
situational awareness for both pilots and controllers, enabling
the more efficient use of taxiways, runways, and air space.
It must be understood, however, that the RTCA
recommendations are only guidelines. The technological and
procedural details and implementation decisions remain to be
determined by the FAA. The FAA would be well advised to learn a
lesson from RTCA and collaborate with NATCA as they continue to
develop their NextGen plans. Former collaboration between the
FAA and NATCA has been a critical component of success for
modernization projects in the past. We believe it will be
equally vital to the successful development of NextGen.
We applaud the efforts by Administrator Babbitt to foster a
partnership between NATCA and the FAA. But despite the clauses
in the new contract that encourage collaboration through the
efforts of the Administrator, the FAA's willingness to reach
out to or work with NATCA has been inconsistent at best.
Last month, Representative Eddie Kragh spoke before this
Subcommittee about his participation in the New York VFR
Airspace Task Force, which was formed in response to the
accident over the Hudson River. NATCA applauds the FAA for
including NATCA in response to this tragedy. Unfortunately, the
FAA has not taken this approach on other projects equally
critical to aviation safety. The union has been rebuffed in our
attempts to be meaningfully involved in airspace redesign
efforts and ERAM. Just last week we were even refused a formal
briefing on ADS-B despite the centrality of each of these
programs to the FAA's NextGen plans.
While NACTA is pleased to have the opportunity to
participate in the RTCA Task Force, it is a privilege that we
pay a membership fee for and is not a substitute for direct
collaboration with the FAA.
Meaningful collaboration with NATCA will prove critical in
addressing certain outstanding concerns. For example, the RTCA
report dealt extensively with the best equipped, best served
plan for incentivizing equipage. In order for any such plan to
be workable, a controller must be able to determine at a glance
the extent to which each aircraft is NextGen equipped. This
information is not currently displayed on the radar scopes and
most terminal controllers do not have access to flight progress
strips that contain this information. In order for any best
equipped, best served plan to be successful, this information
must be displayed on each controller's scope.
The FAA must not forget that it is ultimately the people
and not the technology that keeps the national airspace system
operating safely and efficiently. This means that every new
technology and procedure must be considered for its human
factor implications. The FAA must also ensure that the human
infrastructure is adequate to support the current and future
traffic levels and the changes that NextGen will bring.
In April of 2009, the Inspector General reported that the
FAA faces an increasing risk of not having enough certified
controllers in its workforce. The air traffic controller
workforce has an understandably high ratio of training and has
suffered a troubling loss of experienced controllers over the
past three years. As we prepare to transition into NextGen,
training and experience are of paramount importance. Glitches
in the implementation are unavoidable so it is critical to have
controllers who are easily able to adapt and maintain safety
during testing and early implementation.
The FAA must also ensure that any significant changes to
technology or procedures be accompanied by comprehensive
training for both pilot and controllers. NATCA is concerned by
the recent precedent set by the FAA with regard to training.
Often changes in operational procedures are implemented without
any kind of meaningful controller training. Instead, a binder
is placed in the operational areas containing memos announcing
the change. Controllers are instructed to read and initial
these announcements. By doing so, the controller assumes the
responsibility for having learned the new rules. This is
unacceptable.
Controllers must be fully briefed on all changes in
technology and procedure and must have the opportunity to ask
questions. If changes are significant, they must have the
opportunity to participate in simulator training.
NATCA remains dedicated to ensuring that the national
airspace system is safe, efficient, and accessible for all
members of the flying public. We look forward to working with
the FAA to improve the national airspace system and to being a
meaningful part of finding solutions to the issues facing
NextGen.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you. I might mention that
NATCA and other stakeholders will, in fact, be at the table
when the reauthorization bill passes and ends up on the
President's desk. There is language both in the House bill and
the Senate bill that mandates that NATCA and other stakeholders
be at the table.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Planzer.
Mr. Planzer. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Petri, thank
you for the opportunity to represent the Aerospace Industries
Association today. Marion Blakey sends her regrets for not
being able to be here today.
The Aerospace Industries Association, of which my company
Boeing is a key member, represents 637,000 high wage, high
skill positions in the United States. The Aerospace Industries
Association's 300 members provide a trade surplus in excess of
$57 billion. The future of the Aerospace Industries Association
and its civilian members critically need NextGen's success. It
is our intent to grow our employment, grow our surplus, and to
continue to apply to America those economic strengths that this
industry provides and has provided over the years.
RTCA did a very difficult task for this Government. At the
request of this Committee the FAA, they did a review of what
could be done in the short and near term. They should be
credited for doing that. When we look at it, it is imperative
to understand that what they did is not an end, but must be
integrated and woven into the tapestry that is the integrated
work plan for NextGen. When you take out of that context a
couple of pieces, you realize that this is a difficult task.
When you look at RNP, Required Navigational Performance--a
number of people have mentioned it today--you realize that we
are measuring our success by activity. In order for NextGen to
be successful, in order for the FAA to be successful, in order
for us to proceed the way this Committee wants us to go, we
need to start to measure outcome, not activity. A thousand new
RNP procedures that do not reduce flight time, do not increase
the safety of the system, do not reduce environmental
emissions, and do not have city-paired times decreasing are
really of very little value. I could say the same thing about
ADS-B and other pieces. So we understand that the outcome that
is necessary is what we are looking for, not the activity.
Let me take a moment to share with you a personal story. In
1957, as a very young child, my parents gave me the opportunity
to visit my sister in Boston. I lived in New York. I remember
it vividly because it was the first time I traveled by myself
and my first time on an airplane. My dad drove me out to
Idlewild Airport, which is now John F. Kennedy Airport, and
they put me on a Capital Airlines DC-3. That airplane cruised
at 160 miles per hour and that blessed trip that I remember so
well took an hour and ten minutes from New York to Boston. We
do that same trip today in a Boeing 737-800. It cruises at 595
miles an hour, yet the time between those cities has gone from
an hour and ten minutes to an hour and forty-five minutes,
almost 50 percent more. The last time I looked, those cities
had not moved. So we know that the system has created a
problem.
We need to measure our outcomes and that will drive the
Agency and the industry to give this Committee what it wants.
City-pair times need to be reduced. Safety needs to be
increased. Runways need to be built where they are needed.
Runway occupancy times are critical to understand how this
system will expand capacity.
If all we do is efficiency, then we will not have the
increased the capacity that my company and the Aerospace
Industries Association is trying to foster in order to create
what this Nation needs in value positions, high income, and
high salaried jobs for this country. We are one of the few
areas left that generates the kind of trade surplus that we do.
I think it is critical that those metrics move in as part of
the measurement of our success.
Everybody is talking about the great job that we have done.
If we had done this two years ago, and you did, we would have
heard a lot of the same answers. So the question for us moving
forward is how do we need to change things so that we are not
here in two, three, four, or five years. I would like to offer
up on behalf of our constituency that metrics are the key point
to that.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. I will enjoy any
questions you may ask us.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes Mr.
Bolen.
Mr. Bolen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
you, Ranking Member Petri, and this entire Subcommittee for
holding this hearing today. For decades the United States has
been able to say that it has the largest, the safest, the most
efficient, and the most diverse air transportation system in
the world. NextGen is about being able to say that same thing
for decades to come.
General aviation has always been at the forefront of trying
to promote system modernization. General aviation was among the
first early adopters of GPS, which we all know will be the
basic navigation technology in NextGen. We have been early and
strong proponents of ADS-B, which we recognize will be the
surveillance technology of NextGen. In fact, general aviation
pushed to have ADS-B test programs in Alaska and at the Atlanta
Olympics. We have pushed system capacity by supporting reduced
vertical separation minima within the United States within this
decade. And general aviation was on the commission that
actually recommended what we are now calling NextGen.
As Jens Hennig pointed out, these are tough times for the
general aviation industry. This past year has been among the
worst we have ever endured. Nevertheless, we remain totally
committed to NextGen. I believe that RTCA's Task Force 5 is a
significant step toward making NextGen a reality. Among other
things, RTCA's Task Force 5 has strategies for accelerating the
timeframe for NextGen and strategies for incentivizing
equipage. It brings home the fact that in order for us to
receive real benefits from NextGen, we will need a critical
mass of airplanes to be equipped. And it points out,
significantly, that equipage not only means what the Government
needs to do but what operators need to do as well.
Another significant point from Task Force 5 is it truly
brought the industry to the table. Mr. Chairman, in your
opening comments you talked about the fact that general
aviation, the airlines, the controllers, the airport community,
we were all there. And as Dr. Sinha mentioned, it was not just
the operational people or the technical people. Financial
people were there as well.
Significantly, Task Force 5 does not rely on breakthrough
technologies or breakthrough research. It builds on
technologies that we already understand. We know how to get
this done. I think it is also important that the timeframes
that have been put forward by RTCA are very aggressive. They
push us all beyond our comfort zone, but they are all
achievable. They are within reason.
Now, at NBAA, we have a working definition of NextGen. We
say that NextGen is the procedures, the policies, and the
technologies necessary to expand system capacity, to reduce
delays, to enhance safety, and to reduce our environmental
footprint by improving situational awareness, allowing more
direct routing, and having precise spacing.
We believe that to date the Joint Planning and Development
Office has set the magnetic North for NextGen. We believe that
the RTCA Task Force 5 recommendations give us those immediate
steps to get us on our way. We support the recommendations. We
are wanting to work with you on a close, collaborative basis to
make NextGen a reality.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. We thank you, Mr. Bolen.
Mr. May, since you and I have discussed this more than once
in person and in your testimony you say that we know what
NextGen can do and the that technology is proven, for the
record do you want to elaborate on that?
Mr. May. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that the
definition of NextGen that Mr. Bolen just delivered would be
one shared by everyone at this table and certainly by ATA. It
is the ability to have the processes and procedures to deploy
the digital satellite technology that we need to begin to
safely space our planes more closely together, to fly more
efficient routes, and to save fuel.
I have a couple of counter examples to that. One of our
carriers, Southwest Airlines, has invested over $175 million in
RNAV/RNP procedures. They fly to 68 airports. There are roughly
68 or 69 RNP procedures at those airports with 410 runway ends.
Of those, maybe six are actually efficient. The rest of it is
wasted work on behalf of those that are engineering those
procedures. I talked about the runway in Seattle--a $1 billion
investment, but it did not have RNP/RNAV procedures for Alaska
Airlines and all the rest that want to be able to use that.
So what you have heard here consistently and from almost
every witness is that technology is available. Deploy it. The
procedures, however, need to be worthwhile. We need to have
them save fuel, have more direct routings, and have more
efficient landings and take-offs. We need all of those things
to be performance metrics, as Neil Planzer just talked about,
to work into the system. That is what is going to be critical
to us. Otherwise, all this investment is not going to be worth
much of anything.
Finally, we need leadership at the very highest levels of
this Government to determine that this is the Eisenhower era
National Highway Reform project of our era. Air traffic control
needs to be that kind of a priority. We cannot let politics
stand in the way whatever we do.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Mr. Bolen, you indicated that you
support the recommendations of the Task Force. You state in
your testimony that utilizing existing equipment on aircraft
today has produced little or no return on investment. I think I
know what you mean by that statement. But for the record, would
you elaborate?
Mr. Bolen. Well, this gets to some of the GPS technologies
which are available today and I think were illustrated in a
compelling manner by Mr. Planzer as he talked. We, in fact,
have a generation of airplanes in some cases that are being
retired with the equipment onboard that has never really been
utilized. We want to have an opportunity to use all of the
available technologies we have today to create as much system
capacity and as much efficiency as possible. Doing that is
simply a matter of having policies and procedures that
facilitate that.
That is why NextGen is not a big bang. It was talked
earlier about how it is a build a little, test a little. It is
a collection of policies, procedures, and technologies all
working together. That is why there is so much we can do. It is
not flipping a switch on something new. It is about making lots
of little steps that collectively are going to be
transformative in nature.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the
Ranking Member, Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much. I just have limited time. I
wonder if I could ask Mr. Planzer to expand a little bit on
talking about benchmarks and trying to work in a more
collaborative way. Start with how we can break the problem down
and start moving forward. You talked about trying to not
measure or benchmark inputs but to look at outputs.
I can remember as a kid riding the old 400. It was called
the 400 in the midwest because it went 400 miles in 400
minutes. The high speed rail we are talking about today is not
going to achieve that goal either. So partly, I guess, it is
more congestion and a variety of factors.
But in any event, one other aspect to this, there is a
whole parallel rollout of NextGen in military aircraft. They
have 13,000 planes. When we talk about collaborative efforts, I
am sure there are some things we could learn if we could get
the Task Force working with the--you work with the Pentagon.
Boeing makes planes for military as well as civilian use. A lot
of the equipment overlaps. Some problems are different but
there are certain things that we could learn from ourselves, in
effect, in benchmarking or in moving this modernization process
forward. Could you in any way explain how we could help to
measure and encourage step-by-step progress in this area,
knowing that airlines have to make money and so if we do a
benchmark we would want to do it in a way that encourages, does
not just tell them, but encourages them and makes it in their
interest to move that part of it forward.
Mr. Planzer. Congressman Petri, I will try to do that. I
would like to say that I served for six years as a senior
executive at the Department of Defense managing air traffic
control, and also served in the Air Force as a much younger
man. So I do have some understanding of it. I would offer you a
couple of things.
Number one is, NextGen is not part of a civilian
modernization. It is the modernization of a Federal air traffic
control system. The reason we say it is Federal is because it
serves both the civil and the military. Defenders and first
responders are critically important to the growth of NextGen.
And NextGen must show the value of a transformed system to
those organizations. The function of the JPDO that should
continue would be an integrated management of good Government
integration for those two pieces. The outcomes, it is not even
outputs, it is outcomes that you want to measure, are those
things that are consequential to both. We know that the Air
Force, the Air Mobility Command that operates the tankers and
the lifters for our defense are critically operated very
similar to the members that Mr. May represents. It is a
Government use of airplanes on a schedule and has some ability
to move forward. The outcome that they will want to measure is
no different. The equipage that they have to put onboard is no
different. The difference is it is a direct funding from the
taxpayer in order for us to do that.
So when we look at outcomes, we want to measure those
outcomes to what the industry, civil, the military, and first
responders have to do. The FAA had a program called Network
Enabled Operations that was demonstrating how to integrate
those. One of the key functions, we have spent a lot of
treasury developing a system-wide information management system
that is the backbone of the DOD's defense structure. We are not
fully utilizing that in the civilian world. And when I look at
the SWIM process, system-wide information management that the
civil side is doing, I am concerned that we are not pulling in
all that expertise that the DOD owns and we have paid for over
the past several decades.
A weak system-wide information management system that does
not connect to the military or to DHS but only works on a
limited basis within the civilian market is, in my opinion,
speaking for myself, a mistake. So system-wide information
management is a key component of NextGen that is siloed out and
is not currently being developed. We should lean on the
military and DHS and bring them in closer, and they have to
trust the civilian world will meet their needs as well as those
of the civilian enterprise.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member. We now
recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Boswell.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think
we all agree that everybody at this table is extremely
important as we move this along. I just cannot imagine that
anybody would not want everyone there. And sometimes over the
last couple of years I have heard the discussions going on
regarding, well, maybe not the controllers. I do not buy into
that at all. I just think it is extremely important, at least
when I am pushing the throttle, that those people who are
monitoring, watching, working the mechanism, talking to me and
everybody else of the 80,000 flights per day, or whatever it
is, are extremely important. So I would just like to address
this question to you, Mr. Wright, if I could. Do you feel--let
me put it this way. The GAO has found that literally millions
of dollars could be saved by getting stockholders involved.
Will the new contract signed by the FAA and the air traffic
controllers help foster the collaborative cooperation necessary
to help build a better air traffic control system? Are you
involved?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Boswell. I do believe that the
new contract will foster that relationship. As you know, I am
sure the Committee remembers back, the GAO did report in 2004
having experts and technical people on their light controllers
to save like $500 million in STARS. As a matter of fact, I
would like to submit two excerpts from that report from 2004 as
part of my testimony. ANACA wants to be involved. We really
appreciate the opportunity of the RTCA to be involved. We stand
ready to be involved with the FAA. Our new contract has two
articles for that, one specifically for NextGen, Article ll4,
and we hope that things will change and we will be invited to
be participating at the front end.
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Mr. Boswell. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just think we must
insist this happens. I would be glad to work with you in any
way I can, because I talk to a lot of people who are the
drivers, the suppliers, the pilots, and you do, too, and I
cannot imagine doing this safely without having the controllers
involved in the discussion, in the hands-on of what they have
to do, calling upon their expertise and experience that they
have accumulated. Pretty much like Mr. Planzer was talking
about. It is extremely valuable. It would be absolutely
unacceptable not to include that in every step of the way.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
panel. It has been a very good panel. You have stated your
positions very clearly. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions. I
think we have all benefitted from the testimony we have heard
from these gentlemen. The only suggestion I could make is that
we should have a few gentle ladies on the panel, too. But I
want to thank everyone for being here. It has been very
helpful. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and we will take that up
with staff.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from
California, Ms. Richardson.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. May, could you
give us any real world examples of your carriers' experience
with NextGen technologies, like RNAV or RNP?
Mr. May. RNAV/RNP. I actually just gave an example. I think
you were out of the room attending to other business. But a
very quick example is Palm Springs, California, not far from
your area of California, where they put in a RNAV/RNP procedure
but it was longer and more cumbersome than the traditional ILS
procedures going into that airport. So they spent all the money
to develop the engineering and it is not being used. That is
just one quick example. There are many others.
Ms. Richardson. Has that information been shared with Mr.
Krakowski?
Mr. May. It has been. Believe me, many times.
Ms. Richardson. And what was the response, or have you
gotten a response?
Mr. May. I think they are in the process, as he testified
and I sat here and listened to him this morning, of coming up
with new plans to redirect RNAV/RNP. But I think another
classic example is the airport in Seattle. A brand new runway,
nobody put in a RNAV/RNP procedure. And it can't be just an
overlay of an existing ILS procedure. It has to be more
efficient or it is not worth doing. It has to save us fuel, it
has to allow us to fly more direct routes.
Ms. Richardson. Are you at the table with these
discussions? Are you included and one of the stakeholders of
some of this review?
Mr. May. I co-chair the IMC, which is part of the industry
advisory group for the JPDO. We have active involvement. One of
our key management pilots led Task Force 5, or co-led Task
Force 5. So we have some very significant involvement and we
hope to have even more.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Could you supply to this Committee if
for any reason you are not satisfied with the response from Mr.
Krakowski.
Mr. May. No.
Ms. Richardson. Could you supply to this Committee----
Mr. May. I will be happy to reply to the Committee but I
think Mr. Krakowski--this was done prior to his being onboard.
So I think the direction he is headed is a much more productive
and positive one.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Well, let us know if that changes.
Mr. May. Thank you.
Ms. Richardson. Also Mr. May, in your testimony on page two
you said that leadership also includes accountability and that
clear metrics must be established to measure progress of the
Government as it quickly introduces NextGen. Do you feel that
is happening?
Mr. May. I think it needs to happen. I think the Chairman
talked to Inspector General Scovel about making sure there were
metrics involved and they were being adhered to. I think those
are performance metrics that the FAA has to live up to. The
other performance metrics are the ones that my good friend Mr.
Planzer talked about, which is if you put these procedures in
place, if you spend the money to invest in new technology, is
it going to be better technology, more productive technology,
are we going to cut down on our carbon footprint, are we going
to burn less fuel, are we going to cut minutes from our travel
schedules. And if you do not have those kind of performance
metrics, then a lot of this is wasted effort.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. If there are any others other than
what you just stated that is on the record, feel free to supply
them to the Committee. And I would say again, if you feel you
are not being heard or responses being taken into
consideration, please let us know before they come back, which
I think Mr. Scovel was saying could be as late as June of next
year.
Mr. May. We are not shy.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Thank you, sir. And then finally, I
have a minute, Mr. Wright, like my colleague Mr. Boswell, I am
a little concerned that it seems to me the last time we had
this particular evaluation of NextGen there was the talk of the
involvement of the Air Traffic Controllers. So am I
understanding you correctly that there has been no better
progress of the involvement?
Mr. Wright. We still do not have any what we would call
project representatives for NextGen. Myself and the other
person that work in safety and technology attend most of the
meetings in town with RTCA and industry. At the FAA, we have
met with Ms. Cox, the Senior Vice President, a couple of times.
We have discussed what reps are needed but there has been no
progress made toward actually selecting representatives. So we
are still not involved with the representatives at that level.
Ms. Richardson. Okay. Then I would like to concur with my
colleague, Mr. Chairman. If you would consider, maybe we could
do a letter or something urging their involvement once and for
all. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentle lady. Let me
mention that NATCA was involved with the Task Force but has not
been with the working group, has not been consulted. And that
is addressed in the reauthorization bill. We actually direct
the FAA that it is mandatory to have the stakeholders,
including NATCA, at the table in all of the discussions, not
only in the design but in the implementation of NextGen.
And let me mention as well to another one of your points,
it has been one of the problems with NextGen, in my judgement,
that in the past the FAA has not gone out and consulted with or
gotten commitments from stakeholders. And this is the first
time to my knowledge where we have through this Task Force,
because of the demands of many in the industry and this
Subcommittee, the hearings that we have held and the
roundtables and the meetings that we have had with the FAA,
this is the first time that it has been done in a comprehensive
way through this Task Force.
And now that the recommendations are made, it is up to the
FAA to figure out how they are going to implement these
recommendations, and it will be up to us and the Inspector
General, as the Subcommittee has asked him to monitor the
implementation of these recommendations and to report to us,
and we will be holding further hearings on NextGen where we
will bring the FAA back to the table as well as the Inspector
General to monitor the implementation and also to make certain
that the stakeholders involved are in fact being heard. So the
Chair thanks the gentle lady.
The Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from the District
of Columbia, Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, and thank you very much
for this important hearing, Mr. Chairman. This question can be
answered perhaps by any of you but particularly Mr. Hennig and
Mr. Wright might want to respond. It has to do with related
work in which I am involved on the Homeland Security Committee.
I am interested in what you are doing in relationship to
technology of course, which is one of the driving forces here
as far as the Government is concerned. I worked on the part of
a bill that passed that Committee that establishes a working
group to try to conform the large aircraft protocols to fit
general aviation.
I am also very much aware particularly in the case of
general aviation, who we are talking about We are talking about
small operators, small businesses. Certainly you, Mr. Hennig,
are aware that we have virtually destroyed general aviation in
the Nation's Capital. It is almost inconceivable that there
would be any capital even of some tiny country that did not
feel it could defend itself well enough to let aircraft
carrying business people and dignitaries come in. Indeed,
within days general aviation was up in New York City. That is
where 9/11 occurred. That is where most of the chatter is
about, not the Nation's Capital. That is where they have
skyscrapers which are easy targets. They are up. And you can
call us up but, of course, we are no such thing.
I am interested in whether you think the technology with
which you are working provides adequate security for general
aviation instead of what we have today? An operator has to have
an armed marshal. There are very few of them. This is not their
day job. So you cannot even get one. If you want a small plane
that has four seats, well there goes one of them to this armed
guard. And then you still cannot come in here. You have to go
to some gateway airport. And if you are willing to do all of
that, you have got to make sure you have done paperwork by the
ton to get into Washington, D.C. Do we have the technology to
get rid of that and to resurrect or to let general aviation
become a part of doing business with the Nation's Capital
today?
Mr. Hennig. Thank you Congresswoman Norton. Let me start by
saying thank you for your support related to the Large Aircraft
Security Program. We have seen great progress with the TSA over
the past six months since May. They have sat down with industry
in various settings and tried to work towards a practical
solution. We are being told we are going to see a new version,
a new proposal coming out of the agency towards the end of this
year or the beginning of the new year that incorporates this
feedback that we have been able to provide back to the TSA
through the type of work group that you identified.
When it comes to the District of Columbia, obviously there
is still a lot more work that needs to be done. Anybody that
flies here in the airspace knows about the issues that exist.
TSA and the other agencies involved, Secret Service and others,
sees the District as a very unique set of airspace. When we
work with TSA the one technology solution that we have really
come to identify as a long term solution is that the agency is
really interested in knowing more about the aircraft that are
up there flying. There are some immediate solutions that are
already out there. We have a system called ACARS that we are
working loosely to try to test. It is a partnership actually
between my colleague Ed Bolen and the TSA to look at the
opportunities to just provide information back to the TSA on a
security perspective on what is going on in the cockpit. That
is one solution.
Near term, I think a lot of the solutions we have for
security are, unfortunately, procedure oriented. There are
people managing those procedures. It is the controllers playing
an important role. So.
Mr. Bolen. If I could follow up on that. You are exactly
right that we say Reagan National is open for business, but it
is not. Prior to 9/ll we would have 30,000 operations per year
at Reagan National Airport. Today we have about 300. Which
means that we have effectively eliminated 99 percent of the
general aviation operations at Reagan National Airport with
these restrictions. I think we are having some progress being
made with the TSA along those lines.
With regard to NextGen technologies, I will say that the
backbone of the NextGen surveillance technology is ADS-B. ADS-B
will allow us to know more about the identity and the intent of
all airplanes. So in that respect, there is a NextGen component
that could be enormously helpful at promoting operations.
Because at some point we have got to move beyond these
restrictions that are in place. They are effectively killing
general aviation.
Mr. Wright. And as to the controller perspective, we have
the equipment now. It is just the rules that prevent the
general aviation. As a pilot, I would much rather fly my plane
to D.C. than drive it about every week. It would save me a ton
of time if they could do that.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I think these comments are
very important and the feedback that you give us about how TSA
may be looking more closely at, if I may say so, this Gen but
certainly NextGen to try to get us back in the real 21st
century world of general aviation. I thank you for your work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentle lady and now
recognizes the distinguished Chairman of the full Committee,
Chairman Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. May, you have some very thoughtful
comments, questions in your written testimony, unfortunately I
was not able to hear your oral delivery. I had some other
Committee work. You say the technology is proven. But there are
many parts. NextGen is not one technology, it is many parts.
Which parts are proven?
Mr. May. I think RNAV/RNP is proven. I think a lot of the
elements of data com are proven.
Mr. Oberstar. To the satisfaction of your carriers, is that
what you are saying?
Mr. May. Yes, sir. And it is not the technology of RNAV/
RNP. That was developed, as you better than anyone else knows,
during the Capstone project in Alaska by Alaska Airlines and
others. So the technology is there but it does not do any good
to have that technology if it is not correctly applied, number
one. If it is simply overlaid over ILS procedures, it is not
going to be efficient. It has to give us meaningful, measurable
results that cut down on our carbon footprint, that save us
fuel, that save us time.
That is what makes the business case and it does not exist
right now. We have to have a full collaborative coordination
with Dale and the rest of the folks at NATCA so that we know
that if you are going to institute fan departures out of
Philadelphia or JFK in New York, some of the most complicated
airspace in the world, that the controllers are actually
onboard with the policies and the procedures set by FAA.
Mr. Oberstar. That is what I am getting at. There are
pieces of NextGen that are tested, proven, some operable. What
are those parts that are going to be, what are those aspects of
NextGen that are going to be the most valuable to commercial
aviation? Continuous glide path, for example, climb out
procedures, not having to do the step down, and are there
pieces that will have time and fuel saving benefits for air
carriers that can be implemented independently without
sequencing them into the whole structure that FAA has laid out?
Mr. May. Mr. Chairman, I do not think that they can. I
think that it is a function of not just the pure nature of the
technology of ADS-B, for instance, or RNAV/RNP, but the use of
that technology, the procedures that are involved, the pilot
training, the controller training, how they are deployed.
So if we are going to have real positive benefits in New
York, for instance, it is going to start with New York airspace
redesign and then it is going to have to have NextGen deployed
in New York. It is one of the recommendations of Task Force 5
that it be in a metroplex like New York.
We think they have identified the technologies. I think
they have also identified the hurdles that we have to get over,
which is we have got to have FAA give us performance metrics
and we have to have reliability that we have a fully
functioning system that involves the air traffic controllers,
our pilots, others to make it work.
ATA's position has been from the get-go, and we shared
this, at his request, with Dr. Larry Summers in the NEC and the
Administration, that I think the best way to jump start this
process is to fund the equipage for all aircraft, GA as well as
military as well as civilian, so that we do not force the
controllers to deal with mixed equipage as we go into a lot of
these places. But at the end of the day, it is a three-or four-
legged stool that involves controllers, it involves policies
and procedures, and it also involves having performance
metrics.
Mr. Oberstar. I am glad you had that encounter, let us say,
with Dr. Summers. But do not hold your breath. I do not.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Oberstar. This is a $40 billion program, $20 billion is
going to have to be born by industry itself.
Mr. May. That is right.
Mr. Oberstar. Your response was very important that you
cannot just break out pieces that are the most beneficial;
there is some sort of sequencing that has to happen as FAA has
laid it out in order for industry to get these real world
benefits that we all want and are hoping for. But when you say
redesign, not yet again, the New York airspace.
Mr. May. Sir, it has not been redesigned yet.
Mr. Oberstar. That is the point. There have been at least
five redesigns that I am aware of, that I have lived through
that have never been implemented.
Mr. May. Right. But it is one of the many precursors to
deploying NextGen technology in the New York metropolitan
market.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Wright, are you controllers being
included in the early phase of design and engineering? You have
probably answered this. I know Mr. Costello is very keen on
this issue, as I am, have been. But do you see your members
being included in the earliest design and engineering phases of
these various elements of NextGen?
Mr. Wright. No, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. No?
Mr. Wright. No.
Mr. Oberstar. They have not learned?
Mr. Wright. We have asked to be involved. A lot of the
airspace redesign things were back when we were involved and
now they are sort of cherry picking what they want. But like
Mr. May said, you cannot take part of it. It all has to go
together. And we have not been involved in that, no, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. It cost several hundred million dollars to
redo pieces of STARS because when the FAA directed Raytheon,
the contractor, to make certain changes, they went and made the
changes. And then they brought in the controllers after and
they said oh, no, these are the wrong changes, these are wrong
things to do, and they had to go back and do it all over again.
Now, it is not the contractor doing this. It is the FAA not
engaging controllers who are the point of contact in the very
earliest stages of design and engineering of these very complex
systems. I am disappointed to hear you, not disappointed you
are saying it, disappointed they are not doing it.
Mr. Wright. Yes, sir. We asked for a formal briefing on the
implementation of ADS-B, what is really the cornerstone of
NextGen, and they----
Mr. Oberstar. Maybe you could ask Mr. Planzer why they are
not doing it. He was there at FAA when a lot of this was
happening. You probably do not want to ask him, but I can.
Neil, what is happening over there? Have they not learned
anything?
Mr. Planzer. This Committee over the past decade has
offered up gifts to the Executive Branch at the FAA to proceed
with implementation. And it seems to me the cycle in the
organization is several years before that gift that is offered
up is understood and accepted. So I would offer to you, sir,
when I was in charge of requirements at the FAA 15 years ago,
we had liaisons from NATCA in every part and parcel. There are
lots of reasons they do not have them today. But the reality
is, I would argue on this issue with Dale, that you need to
have that integration woven through the fabric. It is not
there. The reason I push metrics, the metrics forces you to
understand that it will achieve those outcomes by how you are
going to have to operate. You cannot legislate good management.
You can legislate good metrics.
Mr. Oberstar. You can legislate good structure of
organization. What do you mean by metrics? That is a rather
loosely used term to cover a wide variety of things that people
suspect someone else understands what they are saying when they
say metrics.
Mr. Planzer. The example I used, sir, was require
navigational performance, RNP, where we have put out thousands
of overlays and the metrics that was used to measure it was how
many of these have we put out.
Mr. Oberstar. You mean the measurement unit?
Mr. Planzer. That is the measurement. It is the wrong
measurement. The measurement should be has the procedures
reduced the use of fuel, has it reduced emission, has it
reduced city-pair time, has it improved safety. Those are the
types of outcomes you want to measure.
Another measure that seems to be controversial that I will
represent from my own point of view is does it reduce the unit
cost of operations for the FAA. If you look at those metrics,
they will force you as an employee--I get metrics measurements
every day and I can look at them and know how I am going to be
evaluated, and I operate the organizational structure to meet
those outcomes, not the activity.
For us at this table, activity is not success, only the
positive outcome. That is what I mean by the right
measurements. So if I know, you used the Raytheon example which
I am familiar with, I would offer to you that if my outcome was
on time deployment, with agreement from the employees to
utilize this equipment and a comfort level and I did not do it
the way you described, then I would be in trouble. So it forces
me to have as that metric a relationship with the union. I am
not going to argue whether what they want is not right, I am
not going to argue whether the contractor is not right, but it
forces me to have a compromise and also forces Dale to
understand that that metric is there.
Mr. Oberstar. That is a very much appreciated candid
answer. Mr. Bolen, do you think general aviation is going to
benefit?
Mr. Bolen. I do think general aviation will benefit and a
couple of reasons----
Mr. Oberstar. You did not have very many hopeful signs in
your testimony about this, the costs but not a whole lot of
benefits for general aviation, including not being able to
operate out of National Airport. What did you say, 300 flights?
Mr. Bolen. Three hundred flights, yes.
Mr. Oberstar. Maybe if we changed the name of the airport
you would be able to get in more frequently.
Mr. Bolen. I will leave that to you, sir.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Oberstar. Very wise answer.
Mr. Bolen. The thought behind moving toward NextGen is that
it will increase system capacity. That is very important to
general aviation because what we have seen is that anytime
there is congestion at airports or in airspace we effectively
get squeezed out. If you go back and look at Midway Airport, it
was an outstanding general aviation airport. It no longer is.
We have seen the same thing in San Jose. We have seen the same
thing in Manchester. We have seen it at Fort Lauderdale. We end
up at secondary airports, tertiary airports getting pushed
further and further out.
Our hope is that if we expand system capacity we will be
able to participate in that capacity and we will be able to
have access to airports and air space. The way it is today, we
are effectively 4 percent of the traffic at the 10 busiest
airports. We would like an opportunity to have greater access.
We also see clearly that there is an opportunity to have safety
improved throughout the system, precision access at a number of
general aviation airports where we do not have it today, and we
see fuel system savings across the board. So we are supportive
of the move to NextGen.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, all of you can be very helpful by
walking 200 meters across the front of the Capitol and telling
the Senate to move the aviation bill. We passed it twice
through the House and it sits over there just like the dead
letter office. It is just frustrating to me beyond expression
of my exasperation. If we do not get that bill passed and the
authorization in place for the funding increases that you need
to make these investments, then we are not going to achieve all
these benefits that you are talking about. Well, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, keep up the heat on them. Mr. Petri, keep up
the heat on them.
Mr. Costello. Chairman Oberstar, thank you. And just for
the record, I call the other body the black hole. Everything
that goes over there disappears and never comes back.
Mr. Oberstar. That is right. And no light even comes out of
the galactic black hole, not even light. We are not even
getting that out of the other body.
Mr. Ehlers. Mr. Chairman, as a physicist, I guess I object
to denigrating that as a black hole. With a black hole you get
energy out. In this case we get nothing.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Ehlers, thank you. With your scientific
mind you can help us. You are right, we should not denigrate
black holes by likening them to the Senate.
Mr. Costello. Maybe we should start calling it the Bermuda
Triangle.
Any other Members have questions for this panel? If not,
gentlemen, let me thank you for offering your testimony here
today. It has been very helpful. Let me assure you, as I did
the first panel, that we will continue to monitor the progress
of NextGen and will make certain, as he always does, that
General Scovel will be reporting to our Subcommittee. We will
keep the heat on the FAA to try and move this process forward
and do it in a responsible manner. And I would reiterate what
Chairman Oberstar said, to please pick up the telephone or walk
across the Capitol to the other body and encourage them to pass
the reauthorization bill. We have been told several times how
close they are to taking the bill up in Committee and reporting
it to the floor. But we have not seen any progress or action as
of this date. Again, we thank you for your testimony.
The Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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