Story ID: 
FAA's Safe Air Charter Campaign Reaches Millions
By: Kerry Lynch
Caption: FAA officials are estimating that the educational campaign on illegal charter has now reached 10 million people, and said the pandemic helped the outreach.
Word Count: 551
Working with industry advocates, the FAA’s safe air charter team has reached nearly 10 million people through its educational campaign about the dangers of illegal charter, agency officials said last week.
Speaking during the National Air Transportation Association Air Charter Summit outside Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Paul D’Allura, assistant manager of the special emphasis investigations team (SEIT) for the FAA, explained that the Covid pandemic, “as bad as it was, helped us do that.”
The team formed in 2019 through a collaborative effort and has undertaken a range of informational initiatives to help the flying public be aware of illegal charters, as well as help the agency and the industry at large sort between the “careless, clueless, and criminal.”
D’Allura noted that with the pandemic, “We've learned that through technology, we can have audiences of thousands through social media and other methods…Internationally, our outreach has allowed us to [go into] many places. I don't think we could have ever done that in the past.”
Don Riley, operations safety instructor at the FAA SEIT, added, “We’re very passionate about this.” He also noted that the team has hosted multiple live webinars focusing on operators, pilots, and passengers.
He stressed the importance of reaching the passengers. “The passengers are the hardest people to reach because they're basically looking for the cheapest air transportation,” Riley said. “They're not aviation savvy for the most part and they don't even know that they need to ask questions. So it makes our job, this educational outreach, very difficult to try to find different ways to reach the passengers.”
Among its activities, the team has been meeting with civil aviation authorities globally to explain the issues and recruit help in spreading the message, he added. It has now reached almost all of the civil aviation authorities in South America and the Caribbean and is working with officials in the Middle East. Next up will be Central America and Africa, which he noted will be a major undertaking given the number of countries on the continent.
In addition, the team has worked with the Department of Transportation to reach air charter brokers. As they are the ones putting people in the back of the airplane, it’s critical they understand what’s legal and what's not, he added. “That’s a pretty big deal.”
In other areas, the team has been reaching out to universities to help rising aviators understand what’s not legal and avoid falling into a situation unintentionally.
“We have found that the times are changing in the airline industry and in the corporate world with a pilot shortage,” Riley said. “People are getting very creative in the way that they're trying to build time and we're finding them running afoul of regulations by doing so. So rather than hammering these young people trying to build a career, we're trying to get ahead of that and educate them.”