Bill Shea has lived many lives in aviation. Among his titles are chief of the California Division of Aeronautics, director of aviation for the Port of Portland in Oregon, founding director of the University of Nebraska at Omaha Institute, chair of the Department of Aviation at the University of North Dakota, and FAA Associate Administrator.
He’s also a musician, artist, and National Aeronautic Association speed record holder.
And every so often, Bill mails me a letter. The envelope, most times, includes a bit of aviation art. I imagine he does this for both my amusement, as well as the letter carriers who will encounter it along its journey from California to Washington.
You see, Bill is always thinking about aviation. Not just morning pancake breakfast runs, but big, global aviation thinking.
For many years, Bill’s letters have included the idea of a National Aviation Commission. And I’ll be honest, since the majority of Bill’s ideas have focused on the international airline segment of aviation, I’ve had a hard time connecting the dots.
And then, the December 2019 issue of Seattle Business hit my mailbox. Inside was a feature titled “Turbulence Over Sea-Tac.” The story outlines the challenges — and opportunities — at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Just three paragraphs into the story, “At about 2,500 acres, Sea-Tac’s footprint is among the smallest of any major airport in the nation. Its three runways are never in use at the same time because of restricted airspace. More than 17% of flights through August of this year [2019] departed more than 15 minutes late, federal data shows.”
Sea-Tac is the epitome of stuffing 10 gallons of stuff into a 5-gallon bucket.
So full is Sea-Tac’s bucket that the state Legislature in 2019 “passed a law mandating a search for a new airport site outside King County — either expanding existing facilities or developing a new one.”
And that’s when the lines connecting the dots started to form a picture. OK, I can be slow on the uptake.
I forwarded a link to the article to Bill. In typical fashion (which is high energy, all the time), Bill sent me another letter with updated thinking about the National Aviation Commission (NAC).
We need a NAC
So what is the NAC? Bill proposes a new, stand-alone, five-member commission that will “report directly to the president and will be accountable for U.S. strategic aviation planning, policy, vision, and promote U.S. aviation around the world.”
A reformed FAA will be moved from U.S. Department of Transportation oversight to the new NAC, Bill suggests.
“U.S. DOT is too busy with surface mode transportation,” he says.
Meanwhile, airports of all sizes in the U.S. continue to become something other than airports at a faster rate than other things become airports, he points out.
Meigs in Chicago is a rather famous example. Santa Monica is the current famous example. Balancing local rights with national needs will always be tough, Bill says, noting a NAC could’ve been useful in these two extreme cases.
Growth and Gridlock
“Airport gridlock and congestion will worsen in the U.S. unless four new international airports are built to accommodate future demand,” states Bill.
A CNN Travel story from September 2019 lists Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as the busiest in 2018 with 107.4 million passengers. Beijing Capital International Airport in China was second with 101 million passengers. Los Angeles, Chicago’s O’Hare, and Dallas/Fort Worth were the only other U.S. airports that made the top 20 busiest airports. Tellingly, “As many as a dozen of the world’s top 30 fastest-growing airports are located in China or India.”
And new commercial airports are opening around the world, especially in Asia and India.
I imagine this international aviation growth has a great deal to do with economic growth in developing parts of the world. It just appears that the rest of the world has the intestinal fortitude to make the hard decisions to take advantage of that global economic growth.
“Critical airport congestion areas are in the Northeast, Chicago area, and the west coast, mega-populated states,” writes Bill. “Pouring millions of dollars into existing airports helps, however new airports are needed if we as a nation want to maintain our present world aviation leadership role. Otherwise mediocrity could result and airport congestion and gridlock will worsen.”
In fact, Bill penned a November 2004 editorial titled, “Without new airport, unfriendly skies for Bay Area,” for the San Francisco Chronicle that said, among other things, “At the three Bay Area terminals, runway availability is limited, and the area can handle only so many flights at any given time. In short, you can’t pour a gallon into a cup.”
Did I mention that Bill has been working this idea for a long time?
Manufacturers – from many to one
“Recall when we had Douglas, Lockheed, Convair, and Boeing building some of the world’s best airliners,” writes Bill.
Today, we have Boeing. And while I believe — and hope — that Boeing will right itself in the face of its current challenges, company officials have a lot on their plate at the moment.
Industry consolidation, especially in hindsight, looks more and more foolish.
“How did Washington, D.C., let this happen? Who was asleep at the switch?” asks Bill.
Where’d they go?
“Mergermania has reduced the number of U.S. legacy carriers to four: American, United, Southwest, and Delta,” continues Bill. “While smaller airlines like JetBlue, Alaska, Frontier, and others fill the gaps, foreign carriers sense some vulnerability in the U.S. market and aim to increase their service in the U.S.”
Don’t forget GA
Lest you think Bill is only focused on Part 121 airline operations, think again.
“General Aviation must be expanded in the U.S.,” writes Bill. “Small airports are critical to the well-being of the country.”
But those are arguments we know well.
Bottom line, we need airports. And the best way to create more airports is with a commission that will be “accountable for U.S. strategic aviation planning, policy, vision and promote U.S. aviation around the world,” as Bill suggests. We need an entity that will help connect the dots.
As Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Maybe, just maybe, the National Aviation Commission is an idea whose time has come.
What say you?
I agree with Rob W and Kathryn Creedy. While the notion of a NAC seems like a smart move, it just adds still another layer of bureaucracy to an already out of focus Administration. It’s time for the FAA–itself– to take the bull by the horns and come up with short, medium and long range plans for aviation. I’ve read where “promulgation of aviation” is no longer in their Mission Statement. I don’t know if that’s true, or not, but it ought to be. One thing that COULD make a difference would be to break the FAA away from DOT (an existing extra layer of bureaucracy) and make FAA a Cabinet level position. IF it’s truly that important, then give it the ability to act on its own. A parallel example would be the recent establishment of the Space Force breaking that function away from the USAF
The FAA “deep state”, embedded ATS biases, and it’s very troubling contractor relationships are just much too entangled for FAA to ever solve this by itself. A temporary high level (Presidential sponsored) Commission is likely the only way out of this mess. Just for one example, one very important special relationship sole source consultant contractor organization is getting millions per year, for decades, that has been central in misguiding FAA’s ATS technical development. That needs to stop. GA lobby organizations are also part of the problem, not understanding the real solutions needed to assure GA airspace access and utility at an affordable cost. The big GA lobby organizations foolishly supported absolutely terrible long term FAA technical development policies, that will eventually cause massive stagnation of ATS, retain costs at unsustainable high levels, eventually deny GA and drone airspace access, and in turn crush GA (e.g., the presently misused, dysfunctional, and massively over-expensive ADS-B, ….long obsolete, unnecessary, and expensive WAAS, ….and massively airspace wasting LPV, instead of just using vastly more efficient and lower cost RNP and GBAS/GLS, ….still with no effective GA data links or ADS-C). No way is ADS-B or NextGen’s pending $40B failure going to be solved by FAA itself, no matter who may be named as Administrator, or how capable a new Administrator might be. That’s why Commissions from the 1920s, through Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower had to resort to Aviation Commissions. Without them, we would never have never had either NASA or FAA back when they were still effective organizations, let alone the current ATS system which was itself defined by such a Commission (Ben Alexander’s ATCAC). So now, a Presidential level (temporary) Aviation Commission is now needed more than ever to sort out all this FAA, ATS, and global airspace system mess, let alone to fix the regulatory part (e.g., rationalizing aviation medicals). If not, the future of any GA below the big expensive bizjets still flying, is dismal, if not even toast.
I would love to see a State Aviation Authority here in New Jersey. We are a ‘home rule’ state. The local governments can thwart the natural growth of an airport so that it might serve the needs of the larger community. Our state Department of Transportation spends far too little on safety improvements and any logical capacity enhancement. Whereas Commissions can hold meetings and make nice recommendations, Authorities are literally authorized to raise funds through the sale of bonds and recover fees from airport operators to pay off those investments. I think I will be waiting a very long time for that to happen in the most densely populated state in the union. Pity. The future is passing by just over our heads.
In regards to the over crowding of the commercial airports, the airlines ‘hub and spoke” system is a problem as well. More years ago than I wish to remember I would travel around the Great Lakes area on North Central and later Republic airlines. We never had to go into Detroit Metro or Chicago o’Hare. The flights would go to the smaller cities and county airports and those beautiful Convairs never held up traffic at the big “hub” airports.
They say you can’t go back,but, is not part of the promise of ADS-B to allow separation without radar coverage and more direct routing? Perhaps if ,as we are told,a “flying Uber” is to be seriously considered a return to the regional airlines could be as well.
The answer is absolutely YES. We have long needed a temporarily established Presidential level defined Aviation and Space Commission outside of FAA, to return FAA and the ATS to a more rational, effective, and affordable course, to serve the nation’s present and future needs.
FAA has been failing in it’s mission for decades. NextGen (and now ADS-B, as FAA has corrupted the original excellent idea) as it is now configured, is dysfunctional and is heading straight for a $40B failure. NextGen isn’t going to solve the nation’s air transport needs, or GA or drone airspace access needs at affordable cost, or military security needs, at all. Even FAA’s oversight needs reform, from air transport counterproductive safety criteria, to failing roles with OEMs, to senseless policy for drones, to obsolete medical criteria, to inefficient use of Airspace. That’s even true down to the very latest new threatened “Enforcement policy” for ADS-B, which is another seriously misguided effort, at the start.
So now, it is long past time for a new Presidential Level Commission, led and staffed OUTSIDE OF FAA, to set FAA, ATS, and airports on a sound long term future course, just like back in the 60s with the ATCAC, and post “Grand Canyon” accident Curtis Commission (back in the ’50s, that led to FAA’s formation), and other landmark aviation Commissions back to the ’20s. FAA CANNOT FIX ITSELF, nor can DOT fix FAA. There are just too many political impediments, just like the BRAC issue in DoD.
Steve Dickson has the potential to be an excellent FAA Administrator, perhaps even one of the best ever, ….but he’s going to need massive help from the outside of FAA and DOT to make the needed changes. A Presidential level Commission, with a clear well defined charter, and sunset deadline, is the right place to start.
PS. Bill did much good in his FAA tenure. He was a wise and welcome contributor.
I agree with the current comments. LOCAL politicians are the roadblock to airport development certainly not the federal government. When Hillwood Development proposed an airport to be owned by the city of Ft. Worth, that was placed in an unincorporated and undeveloped part of a separate county from Ft. Worth, the city agreed. It, however, took years of approvals, with little objection, to get the airport built. This was a true private/public development project. Can you imagine what the likelihood of a new airport to be built anywhere is without local political support?
Now, guess what happened after the airport was built? Neighborhoods and businesses popped up all around the airport. This airport is only a cargo and general aviation airport with no commercial service. It can be done, but not in heavily populated areas. Airports in those areas are doomed because city councils are beholding to real estate developers looking to make money on the valuable airport landing.
What’s that old adage? They’re not making any more land?
Whatever the problem may be, I’m pretty sure another “commission” is not the solution. The FAA already has a literal seat at the table, the only agency under a Department that does so. (The President’s cabinet only has Department Heads, DOT, DOE, DOD, State, etc…Aviation is so important to the economy, that it is the only exception to the rule. The FAA is the only “administration” that has direct representation on the cabinet.)
What Bill is proposing would take that away-inserting another layer between the FAA and the President is not the way to get it done. Making 5 appointees so powerful over such a huge sector doesn’t make much sense in my book.
At best, the idea of yet another layer of bureaucracy would make things even less efficient. At worst, it could make things more corrupt.
We have had many such commissions in my tenure in the aviation industry. The point of these commissions is two-fold. Instead of making the hard decisions now, let’s commission a study which kicks the can down the road and leaves the decision-making to someone else. Second, let’s develop a strategic report that will give us the political will to get things done. Except, the former is what happens and the latter never happens. A strategic report always results and gets a lot of press but then is stored to gather dust on a shelf because no one has the political wherewithal to make any changes.
So, I applaud Bill in his strategic thinking but politicians — who must make things happen — rarely care about strategy even when it comes to the national competitiveness of American. Now, if you can develop a way to pay for such developments as suggested by Bill, without the politicians. You might get somewhere but then there is the NIMBY crowd which inevitably attracts the politicians who stall everything. I agree with Bill, BTW.
There are many aviation initiatives that a NAC could tackle but it is really up to the private sector to get it done because relying of the government is completely useless by design from those who want less government. Unfortunately, the gov controls aviation so there you are, depressingly back to the status quo. Now, if you can get the mighty AOPA and NBAA to lobby for such a scheme and then lobby again to actually move the needle, you might get somewhere BUT I doubt it. Cheers — Kathryn