Coming out of the Covid pandemic, the FAA has had to reevaluate itself and “take a focus back on our core mission” as it works to wade through the lengthy certification, registration, and other services backlogs, said Jodi Baker, the FAA’s deputy associate administrator for aviation safety. Speaking to the attendees of the National Air Transportation Association Air Charter Summit this morning, Baker noted that the agency realized that “there's more activity and we can't keep managing work the same way we always have.”
The FAA has been evaluating how it could leverage its workforce and prioritize, she said, conceding that there were efficiencies needed and lessons learned from the pandemic environment when people worked remotely. While she said that while the remote work in itself wasn’t an issue, collaboration and meeting management needed improvement.
However, Baker stressed, “We’ve taken lots of actions really, some things we're particularly proud of,” and said the agency is seeing results already, particularly in the backlog times with the registry.
Caitlin Locke, acting deputy executive director of the Flight Standards Service, agreed, noting that the registry time was at 191 days—“which was unacceptable”—and today is at 46 days with a goal of reaching 30 days by September.
“We didn’t really do anything that crazy,” to get there, but focused on how the agency could make the situation better, Locke said. This included looking at small improvements, bringing in more employees, and training people so they could make bigger changes. Similarly, in certification of new applicants—whether Part 135, Part 145, or even drones—the FAA has had to make changes, she said. The agency is getting about two to three applicants a day, where it has been resourced for one new certification a day. This resulted in a “staggeringly large list” that exceeded 750 applications and was translating to "two or even three years to even initiate the certification process,” Locke said. “Not being able to give the industry the certainty on when they can even begin the process to get the certificate they need to operate is an untenable situation.”
There is not one way to resolve this but, again, “a lot of little things we could do,” she said. Last week, the agency was able to centralize a process for drone applicants for agricultural purposes. By doing that, that agency was able to process 200 applicants, which frees up resources for other applications. This helps the rest of the industry and the drone industry, which in turn alleviates the pressure on the shortage of agricultural pilots.
Locke and Baker are part of a packed agenda for the Air Charter Summit. The day opened with panelists touching upon a range of topics from the Transportation Security Industry’s new manifest requirements to concerns about objections to the use of Part 380.
Shannetta Griffin, the FAA associate administrator of airports, provided an overview of the preparations her office is making to prepare for new entrants and also discussed concerns about manufacturer refusals to share certain intellectual property, making such preparations difficult.
Also speaking was Tony Schneider, executive director of air traffic for the Safety Oversite Service, who warned that the runway incursions typically spike in spring and summer months and urged that operators take that into consideration in their safety management.