NBAA president Ed Bolen opened the association’s maintenance conference this morning in Hartford, Connecticut, with a reminder of the importance of energizing the business aviation industry to “give back.” For the maintenance community, that extends to attracting a diverse cross-section of the population with scholarships and mentorships and encouraging individuals to fill and nurture their personal “toolboxes.”
“The workforce of the future has got to be prepared for the changes that are happening in our environment,” said Bolen. “And it has to be inclusive.” That also means engaging in outreach to ensure legislators and regulators appreciate the need to “look forward,” he added.
“We need to be able to make sure that safety tomorrow is even better than it is today,” Bolen said. “Now, business aviation is the safest mode of transportation, but we're never going to be complacent about that. We're going to keep working with Washington. We've been very focused on the notice of rulemaking on safety management systems, and how we take an important safety tool, and make sure that it is truly a tool that is scaled for the job.”
Bolen also addressed the need to ensure business aviation’s interests in the arena of sustainability, particularly in Europe but increasingly in the U.S. Business aviation has already improved efficiency by 2 percent a year for the past 10 years, he said. But the industry needs to give voice to its accomplishments in the field, such as its early adoption of winglet design, lighter-weight composites, and GPS navigation.