Competition between OEMs & in the aftermarket.
Competition Systems framing pre-pandemic aviation do not adjust well to the paradigm shift in air transportation.
Aircraft production serves two primary markets, military & civil and services two core customer classes - Military and airlines.
The aerospace and defence industry started with a government contract for $50,000 to research the application of flying to for military purposes. The first order for an aircraft was placed by government for $25,000. More than one hundred years later, the industry is valued at nearly one trillion dollars. The methods of production we based on craft labor. Pilots flew 200 to 500 feet above ground so they could navigate by roads and railways. Low visibility & night landings were made using bonfires on the field as lighting. Fatal accidents were routine
The supply chain is made up primarily of aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and tier-suppliers (Suppliers). OEMs and Engine Suppliers account for ~30%, Systems & Component Suppliers ~30%, MROs ~25%, Satellites & Space Suppliers ~10%, Missiles, UAVs and others ~5%. The development of the OEMs & Suppliers can be summarized as follows:1. All the components needed for human flight were under development by 1900 including the internal combustion engine, oil as the base for propulsion energy and aluminum as the material of choice for light weight airframes.
2. Governments were the primary source for funding the investment in the OEMs and Suppliers. Governments paid for R&D and placed aircraft orders. The private sector investment has been in building out the air transportation network.
3. The largest customer base* consists of agencies such as the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1 August 1907 – 18 July 1914), National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) (1915 - 1957), and NASA from 1958 . 4. Agencies such as NACA were mandated to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research because the private sector did not have the resources to do it.
5. NASA was set up in 1958, a year after the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, because the private sector lacked the resources to build out the space industry.
6. NASA continues to be the agency is responsible science and technology related to air and space. It is the primary source for R&D spending and it awards contracts in the space sector.
New entrants into the OEM market face major obstacles.
To understand why it is difficult for start-ups to break into the aerospace industry we need to understand how its structure evolved and became institutionalized & Supplier controlled over time. The development of the OEM and Supplier structure can be summarized as follows:
1. The aerospace industry is defined by those firms that design and build vehicles that fly through our atmosphere and outer space.
2. It has interacted with the bureaucratic apparatus of the nation state in very unique ways.
3. "Aerospace technology permeates travel and tourism, logistics, telecommunications, electronics and computing, advanced materials, civil construction, capital goods manufacture, and defense supply."*
4. The industry has bolstered both the self-image and power of the nation state, and shrunk the effective size of the world, and along the way done some considerable environmental damage.
5. Aerospace has consumed the major amount of government funded research and development across many fields, subsidized innovation in a vast array of component technologies, invented new forms of production, built massive factories paid for by the State, inspired technology-sensitive managerial techniques, supported poorer regional economies, and justified the deeper incursion of national governments into nation state economies.
6. Flying machines were viewed experimental as early as 1896 and as sports vehicles for a decade after 1903.
7. The US Army Signal Corp took delivery of the first flying machine in 1908. The first production licensed was issued to company in France. A second manufacturer entered the market in 1909, and this encouraged entrepreneurs to build and sell aircraft.
8. The first commercial airline was established in Europe in 1909. By 1925 a reported 57 airlines had been established worldwide.
9. In 1910 public concern emerged about rail road operators flagrant breaches of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. Specifically railroads were failing to render adequate service and complaints mounted. The Interstate Commerce Act was amended to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to suspend schedules of rates published by railroads.
10. The poor service problem persisted and after a series of reports and hearings, Congress concluded in 1919 that a permanent regulatory system was needed if private operators were to be successful.
11. The automobile industry and the aircraft industry were taking shape as the dissatisfaction with railroads grew. By 1914 there was hardly an aircraft program that has not benefited from government funded R&D or the benificiary of a government launch order. The tendency of government agencies, with control over defence budgets, is to allocate research funding to the suppliers they have ongoing relationships with, ultimately picking the winners and losers.
12. The poor railroad service problem persisted and after a series of reports and hearings, Congress concluded in 1919 that a permanent regulatory system was needed if private operators were to be successful.
13. During World War One ~64 companies sold ~4,000 flying machines to ~ 6 government customers. Each machine was more or less a bespoke aircraft.
14. French manufacturers built ~2,000 aircraft, German built ~1,000, British companies built ~750, Americans built ~100 and companies in Italy, Austria and Rusia made up the difference.
15. The ligitation history between the Wright Aeronautical Company and the Curtiss Aeroplane Company had slowed US aircraft output. By 1917 it was overshadowing the US government plans to enter the war.
16. Patent pools were an established strategy in industries beset by patent thickets, whereby multiple holders controlled overlapping, interconnected claims.17. US federal government forced the major owners of key aircraft patents, that included the Wrights and Curtiss, to form a patent pool. 18. On the 'recommendation' of the Secretaries of War and Navy, the patent holders formed the Manufacturers' Aircraft Association.19. From that point forward all aircraft builders cross-licensed patents and paid into the pool without fear of infringement suits.
20. The railroad's poor service problem persisted and after a series of reports and hearings, Congress concluded in 1919 that a permanent regulatory system was needed if private operators were to be successful.
21. Though American aircraft output was meager during WWI, the production of engines was significant.
14. This was made possible because the government called up the best engineers, production experts, and manufacturing facilities owned by leading automotive manufacturers, including Ford, Lincoln, Packard, Marmon, and Buick, to built aircraft engines for the war effort.
15. Curtiss built the the OX-5 and OXX-6 engine from a motorbike design. They were the most extensively used American-built engines during the war and in the following decade.
16. The Liberty engine was co-designed by Jesse Vincent of Packard Motor Car and Elbert Hall of Hall-Scott Motor Car.
17. The Liberty used only proven components to ensure workable engines in the shortest time. The Liberty powered the de Havilland DH-4, the Navy-Curtiss NC-4, Fokker T2, Loening Model 23, Douglas World Cruiser, Douglas M-1 Mailplane, and Curtiss H-16 flying boat.
18. Patent pools were an established strategy in industries beset by patent thickets, where holders controlled overlapping claims.
21. By the time the war came to an end seven US companies had built ~22,500 engines in the 400 hp class.
22. Overnight all aircraft orders were cancelled.
23. The governments spawned the first used aircraft market when they sold off surplus aircraft at prices that aircraft manufacturers could not compete with. Most went out of business.
24. The post-war glut of aircraft were used in part to train anyone who wanted to become a pilot, particularly in the USA.
24. Aircraft operators in the USA consentrated on air mail services because the US was one of a few countries with a large ground mail system, that could be adopted to air mail, but it had to be subsidized.
25. Aircraft began to assume their modern shape in the mid 1920s. Biplanes were superceded by Monoplanes. Stressed-skined, enclosed fuselage designs were introduced. Externally braced wings were replaced by cantilevered wings. Pith propellers were fitted to Radial air-cooled engines. Engines and landing gears were housed in cowlings to give aircraft a aerodynamic shape.
27. Air crashes were frequent and often fatal. The aircraft safety issue made it difficult for peope to switch from road and rail to air travel.
28. Early en route controllers tracked the position of aircraft using maps and blackboards and little boat-shaped weights that came to be called "shrimp boats." They had no direct radio link with aircraft, but used telephones to stay in touch with airline dispatchers, airway radio operators, and airport traffic controllers. En route ATC was a federal responsibility, but local governments continued to operate ATC towers.
28. Those US operators that did survive depended on governemnt subsidies and air mail contracts.
29. Countries in Europe built routes to Africa, Asia and South America. Pan Am built a Flying Boat route network to Latin America/Pacific.
30. Beginning 1925, efforts were made to regulate the industry with some success & air force & transportation industry markets emerged.
31. The Kelly Air Mail Act of 1925 gave airmail business to hundreds of small pilot-owned operators that served local airports. The Act enabled investors to create profitable commercial airlines.
32. Aviation industry leaders believed the aircraft could not reach their full commercial potential without federal action to improve and maintain safety standards.
33. The Air Commerce Act was passed in 1926 and mandated the Secretary of Commerce with fostering air commerce, issuing and enforcing air traffic rules, licensing pilots, certifying aircraft, establishing airways, and operating and maintaining aids to air navigation.
34. The precedessor to the FAA, the Aeronautics Branch in the Department of Commerce assumed responsibility for aviation oversight.
32. Gradually, air transport operations in the USA were consolidated and accelerated after Charles Lindberg’s transatlantic flight in1928. Wall Street investors set up holding companies that combined airframe and engine manufacturers, and mail carriers.
33. Airline companies such as Pan Am Airways, Western Air Express, and Ford Air Transport began scheduled commercial passenger service. Boeing, United Airlines, North American Aviation, and the Aviation Corporation combined forming United Aircraft and Transport.
34. The most famous OEMs were the Wright Brothers and Curtiss, who merged in 1929 combining Army Air Force and US Navy orders.
35. The Department of Commerce's role was to improve aviation safety. A number of high profile accidents in the 1930s called the department's oversight responsibilities into question. A 1931 crash that killed all on board, & elicited public calls for greater federal oversight of aviation safety. In 1935, a DC-2 crash with fatalities.
36. Aircraft safety standards improved as wood structures were gradually replaced by metal ones. By the early 30s Boeing, Douglas, and Fokker offered all metal design with payload ranges that enable passenger air services to be profitable. Following some questionable trading practices, the government broke up the holding companies in 1934.
36. By then, the four major domestic airlines that dominated commercial travel for most of the 20th century began operations: United, American, Eastern, and Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA).
37. Pan Am was the main commercial aircraft buyer. The company built a route network to Asia and Latin America, linked by flying boats built by Sikorsky, Douglas and Lockheed.
38. Once the negative effects of the stockmarket crash in 1929 took hold, these holding companies struggled to make profits. By 1930 a total of ~100 airlines were operating worldwide.
41. Also that year the Department of Commerce renamed the Aeronautics Branch the Bureau of Air Commerce
With the Bureau's encouragement, a group of airlines created the first air traffic control centers (Newark, New Jersey; Cleveland, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois) to provide en route air traffic control. The centers were taken over by the Bureau in 1936.
42. Concerned by a lack of federal focus on aviation safety, President Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938. The legislation established the independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), with a three-member Air Safety Board that would conduct accident investigations and recommend ways of preventing accidents.
43. Economic regulation was introduced into the airline system when the government expanded it's own role in civil aviation. The CAA was granted the power to regulate airline fares and decide the routes individual carriers served.
44. In 1940, President Roosevelt split the CAA into two agencies, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which went back to the Department of Commerce, The CAA offshoot retained responsibility for ATC, airman and aircraft certification, safety enforcement, and airway development. The (CAB) was given responsibility for safety rulemaking, accident investigation, and economic regulation of the airlines.
41. The core of the airline industry as we know it today emerged at this time.
43. Other than the government and airlines, the other customer base for aircraft was the General Aviation market. It is made up of individuals and corporations. A significant market developed for on-demand services, aircraft management & corporate flight departments.
44. By early to mid 1930s, around 15 OEMs remained in the market worldwide to service ~100 airlines, the military and General Aviation.
45. By the begining of WWII, the companies that built larger civil aircraft in the prewar years, Boeing, Curtiss, Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed, Martin and North American Aviation, Germany’s Dornier, Focke-Wuland, Junkers and Messerschmitt; Britains Hawker and Supermarine; and Japan's Mitsubishi and Nakajima began building bombers, fighters and reconnaiscance aircraft. The Douglas DC3, the civil and military versions, dominated production. The DC3, expanded into the DC4, 6 and 7 models. Competing aircraft were the Boeing 307 Stratoliner and the Lockheed Constellation.
46. To turn a profit, all these aircraft depended on massive government orders and subsidies & investment in production infrastructure
47. Developments during '40s included the requirement that auto manufacturers produce aircraft, but only at the request of the government. The OEMs adopted auto assembly mass production methods and the auto manufacturers were given licences to build aircraft and also acted as subcontractors. The role played by the government was to build and equip the factories used to supply the War effort.
48. Allied countries were mostly supplied with US aircraft. European OEMs held a small share of the market, mostly for engines.
49. Entry to the aircraft manufacturing market was choked off from this point forward because being awarded war-time government contracts required the ability to manufacture aircraft on a mass production basis and the demand for civil aircraft dried up, rendering most of these facilities obsolete.
50. The commercial aircraft market rebounded in 1946 but orders fell off dramatically in 1947. Governments had only recently withdrawn from the industry and military orders dropped to a trickle. The major manufacturers lost most of their customer base. As was the case after WWI, the OEMs found themselves struggling to survive.
51. The common denominator within aerospace industries is that companies manufacture platfoms that contain systems in airframes, missiles or spaceframes. (Steckler, 1965).
51. As the competition with the Soviet Union heated up, the US government, wanting the aircraft manufacturing to continue as part of national defence, and provided work that allowed them to retain their skilled workforce.
52. The Air Force provided R&D and production contracts to Lockheed, Douglas, Boeing, GE, Pratt & Whitney and a select number of other companies that had established strong relationship with the military during the war.
53. Contracts were awarded for the design of airframes based on the swept wing technology & for gas turbine engines that powering them.
54. The Cold War period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine to the 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
56. The Cold War created a need for a whole new form of air defence , namely missiles, satelites and spacecraft. They in turn depended on the miniturization of electrical systems, creating a who new aviation electronics industry (avionics).
57. Up until that point, Douglas, Boeing Lockheed and the European OEM were strictly in the business of building airframes and companies such as Pratt & Whitney and Curtiss Wright build engines.
58. Almost immediately, the structure of the aircraft production industry because far more complex with the advent of missile, satelite technologies, and component minuratiziation.
59. The commercial jet aircraft was launched in 1950. BOAC introduced it into service in 1952. The 36-seat Comet flew at 480 mph vs. 180 mph for the DC-3 piston aircraft, in comparison, was about 180 miles per hour. By the mid-1950s, U.S. companies began designing and building their own jet airliners.
59. U.S. companies obtained jet technology from Britian and wing designs from Germany. In many cases the OEMs did not have the technologies to build missiles and spacecraft and lacked access to the investment required to compete in these markets.
60. The government encouraged the OEMs to consolidate the industry. by favoring them with defence contracts. They acquired smaller companies developing the technologies needed to build a new kind of defences based on electronic warfare.
61. The new technologies, missiles, satelites, space ships and electronics required massive R&D investment. The only player with that capacity to fund these emerging industries was the State. Effective 1958 NASA was made responsible for dispursing government R&D funding to the private sector.
62. Critical to the success of the OEMs in this new technology sector was access to NASA for R&D funding and to the military for aircraft orders. In time the surviving OEMs acquired other producers who were winning government R&D contracts.
63. On June 30, 1956, a Trans World Airlines Super Constellation and a United Air Lines DC-7 collided over the Grand Canyon, Arizona, killing all 128 occupants of the two airplanes. The collision occurred while the aircraft were flying under visual flight rules in uncongested airspace. The accident dramatized the fact that, even though U.S. air traffic had more than doubled since the end of World War II, little had been done to mitigate the risk of midair collisions.
63. By the end of the '50s the aircraft industry had reshaped itself as the aerospace industry, characterised by a small number of Prime Contractors , Subcontractors and and a heavily supported research programs funded by NASA and undertaken by government laboratories and major research universities. The contractors received government defence contracts, backed by R&D investments in every aspect of the aerospace and defence industry. The pattern was repeated in all other countries with large defence needs.
30. At the end of the process Aerospace and Defence (A&D) had become one of the largest sector of the global economy.
31. Fast forward 60 years and the global OEM industry segment of the A&D sector was reduced to Airbus, Boeing, two regional aircraft manufacturers and four engine manufacturers, with Russia and China controlling markets that are mostly captive because of State ownership of production and tight control of the air transportation market.On May 21, 1958, Senator A. S. "Mike" Monroney (D-OK) introduced a bill to create an independent Federal Aviation Agency to provide for the safe and efficient use of national airspace. Two months later, on August 23, 1958, the President signed the Federal Aviation Act, which transferred the Civil Aeronautics Authority's functions to a new independent Federal Aviation Agency responsible for civil aviation safety. Although the Federal Aviation Agency technically came into existence with the passage of the act, it actually assumed its functions in stages. Under the provisions of the act, the Federal Aviation Agency would begin operations 60 days after the appointment of the first Federal Aviation Agency Administrator. On November 1, 1958, retired Air Force General Elwood "Pete" Quesada became the first Federal Aviation Agency Administrator. Sixty days later, on December 31, the Federal Aviation Agency began operations.
With no dedicated office space for the Federal Aviation Agency, employees of the growing agency were housed in several widely dispersed buildings around Washington, DC, including some "temporary" buildings of World War II vintage. The Federal Aviation Agency worked to obtain a headquarters building to consolidate employees in one location, and on November 22, 1963, the Federal Aviation Agency's Washington headquarters staff began moving into the newly completed Federal Office Building 10A, at 800 Independence Avenue, SW. Excitement about the new building quickly evaporated on move day as employees heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Texas.
From Agency to Administration.President Johnson, concerned about the lack of a coordinated transportation system, believed a single department was needed to develop and carry out comprehensive transportation policies and programs across all transportation modes. In 1966, Congress authorized the creation of a cabinet department that would combine major federal transportation responsibilities. This new Department of Transportation (DOT) began full operations on April l, 1967. On that day, the Federal Aviation Agency became one of several modal organizations within DOT and received a new name, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). At the same time, CAB's accident investigation function was transferred to the new National Transportation Safety Board.
Labor OrganizesIn January 1968, New York controllers formed an employee organization, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO. Within six months, PATCO had a national membership of over 5,000 controllers. To highlight difficult working conditions and growing national airspace system (NAS) congestion, in July 1968, the PATCO chairman announced "Operation Air Safety," which he described as a campaign to maintain FAA prescribed separation standards between aircraft. A period of discord between management and PATCO culminated in a 1970 "sickout" by 3,000 controllers. Although controllers subsequently gained additional wage and retirement benefits, tensions between the union and management did not ease.
In February 1972, the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) became the exclusive representative for all flight service station specialists, those controllers who supported general aviation pilots. FAA and NAATS concluded an agency-wide collective bargaining agreement on June 1, 1972, the first such contract between FAA and a national labor organization.
Evolving DutiesAlmost from its creation, the agency found itself faced with a number of unexpected challenges. In 1961, for example, the first series of aircraft hijackings in the U.S. occurred. In August of that year, the federal government began employing armed guards, border patrolmen recruited from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, on civilian planes. In September, President Kennedy signed an amendment to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, which made it a crime to hijack an aircraft, interfere with an active flight crew, or carry a dangerous weapon aboard an air carrier aircraft. To help enforce the act, a special corps of FAA safety inspectors began training for duty aboard airline flights. In March 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy swore in FAA's first "peace officers," as special U.S. deputy marshals. These men worked as safety inspectors for the FAA flight standards organization and carried out their role as armed marshals on flights only when specifically requested to do so.
FAA responsibilities increased even more in the late 1960s. An economic boom brought with it growing concerns about pollution and noise. Aviation, on the cutting edge of technological innovation, became an early area of environmental concern for the public, especially as more and more airplanes traversed the NAS. In 1968, Congress vested in FAA's Administrator the power to prescribe aircraft noise standards.
With continued growth in the nation's airspace, it quickly became evident that airport safety and capacity had to be increased to prevent system delays. Between mid-1959 and mid-1969, the number of aircraft operations at FAA's ATC towers had increased by 112 percent. Schedule delays cost the air carriers millions of dollars annually, not to mention the cost to passengers over and above inconvenience and discomfort. The Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970 placed the agency in charge of a new airport aid program funded by a special aviation trust fund and made FAA responsible for safety certification of airports served by air carriers.
Air Traffic Control AutomationRealizing the need for continued ATC system modernization to keep up with technological developments, FAA began modernizing the NAS in the mid-1960s. The civilian ATC system being replaced by NAS En Route Stage A was essentially a manually operated system employing radar, general purpose computers, radio communications, and air traffic controllers. For terminal airspace, the FAA was developing the automated radar traffic control system (ARTS).
To help monitor and even restrict flights moving from one air route traffic control center to another, FAA established the Central Flow Control Facility at its Headquarters. Opened in April 1970, the new facility collected and correlated systemwide air traffic and weather data, detected potential trouble spots, and suggested solutions. On July 29, FAA established the Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center to integrate the functions of the Central Flow Control Facility, Airport Reservation Office, the Air Traffic Service Contingency Command Post, and Central Altitude Reservation Facility.
DeregulationThe Airline Deregulation Act, signed on October 24, 1978, created a highly competitive airline industry. Deregulation increased FAA workload exponentially. The FAA had to certify every new airline, and there were hundreds of applications after deregulation that FAA had to review and approve or disapprove. In the immediate years after the deregulation act, FAA flight standards and other offices focused primarily on the new applicants.
By the time airline deregulation became law, FAA had achieved a semi-automated air traffic control system based on a marriage of radar and computer technology. Despite its effectiveness, however, the air traffic control system required enhancement to keep pace with the increased volumes of traffic that resulted from the new, deregulated environment.
Labor UnrestThe labor contract between FAA and PATCO expired in March 1981. Formal contract negotiations had begun in February, but those ended after 37 negotiating sessions. Informal talks, however, continued until June 17, when PATCO rejected a Reagan Administration contract proposal. After the failure of last minute negotiations, on August 3, approximately 12,300 members of the 15,000-member PATCO went on strike, grounding about 35 percent of the nation's 14,200 daily commercial flights. Approximately four hours after the strike began, President Reagan issued the strikers a firm ultimatum – return to work within 48 hours or face permanent dismissal. After expiration of the grace period, FAA fired approximately 11,400 controllers. Most of those fired appealed the action, and FAA eventually reinstated 440 as a result of their appeals.
The strike and dismissals drastically curtailed FAA's controller workforce. To keep the airways open, approximately 3,000 air traffic controller supervisory personnel worked at controlling traffic. FAA assigned assistants to support the controllers, and accelerated the hiring and training of new air traffic personnel. Military controllers arrived at FAA facilities soon after the strike began, and about 800 were ultimately assigned to the agency.
In the aftermath of the strike, PATCO disbanded and the controllers remained without a union until June 19, 1987, when the National Air Traffic Controllers Association became the exclusive representative of terminal and center controllers.
During this time, FAA electronics technicians unionized. On December 29, 1981, the Professional Airway Systems Specialists (PASS) became the exclusive representative of the technicians. FAA and PASS concluded their first national labor agreement during fiscal year 1984.
Technological InnovationAviation system disruptions in the aftermath of the PATCO strike led many in FAA to come to the realization that the agency needed a systematic, long-term plan for modernization. In January 1982, FAA publicly released the first annual National Airspace System (NAS) Plan, a comprehensive 20-year blueprint for a state-of-the-art traffic control and air navigation system to accommodate projected growth in air travel.
As the modernization program evolved, problems in developing ambitious automation systems prompted a change in strategy. FAA shifted its emphasis from the advanced automation system toward enhancing the ATC system through more manageable, step-by-step improvements through the new Free Flight program. At the same time, the agency worked to speed the application of the Global Positioning System satellite technology to civil aeronautics.
In February 1991, FAA replaced the NAS Plan with the more comprehensive Capital Investment Plan. The new plan incorporated the NAS plan projects and included higher levels of automation as well as new radar, communications, and weather forecasting systems.
FAA also addressed a wide variety of technical issues as the rapid evolution of aeronautics continued. The Aviation Safety Research Act of 1988, for example, mandated greater emphasis on long-range research planning and on study of such issues as aging aircraft structures and human factors affecting safety. FAA engineers and scientists also investigated areas such as human performance in aeronautical tasks, improvement of runways, and the effects of corrosion on aircraft structures.
Organizational RestructuringIn November 1995, DOT transferred the commercial space transportation office to the FAA. Originally established within DOT in 1984, the new FAA office regulated the U.S. commercial launch industry, licensed commercial launch operations to ensure public health and safety and the safety of property, and protected national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch operations. It also issued licenses for commercial launches of orbital and suborbital rockets.
The fiscal year 1996 DOT appropriations bill, signed in November 1995, included important provisions for FAA personnel and procurement reform. FAA began the mandated reforms by first creating a new acquisition management system designed to reduce the time and cost of acquiring systems and services. FAA then placed all employees into a new personnel system intended to speed recruitment and reward outstanding employees, while dealing effectively with substandard performance. While the agency was no longer subject to certain Office of Personnel Management rules, its employees continued to enjoy a range of legal protections that applied to other federal workers.
In June 1998, FAA began testing a new compensation plan called core compensation, which replaced the traditional grade and step base pay method with a structure of pay bands, the value of which were determined by comparison with similar jobs in government and private industry. The program also linked compensation with performance. On April 23, 2000, FAA transferred approximately 6,500 employees into the core compensation system.
On September 11, 2001, nineteen radical Islamic extremists with the group al Qaeda penetrated security at three major airports, seized four U.S. domestic airliners, and turned three of the aircraft into missiles that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers on the fourth plane fought the hijackers, causing the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field. To prevent any further hijackings, FAA immediately put a ground stop on all traffic for the first time in U.S. aviation history. In the overnight hours of September 11, members of FAA's Flight Standards Service developed an initial lead identifying the names of potential hijackers and provided those names to the FBI. The tragic events of this day radically changed the FAA. On November 19, 2001, the president signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which among other provisions, established a new agency responsible for aviation security – the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), within DOT. FAA remained responsible for aviation security until February 13, 2002, when TSA took over those responsibilities. The November 2002, passage of the Homeland Security Act moved TSA into the new Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.
Creation of FAA's Air Traffic Organization (ATO)In April 2000, President Clinton signed into law the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, which contained a provision mandating the appointment of a chief operating officer. In a December executive order, the president directed FAA to create a performance-based organization that focused solely on efficient operation of the ATC system.
In June 2003, FAA selected its first ATO Chief Operating Officer (COO), Russell Chew. With the COO in place, FAA went forward with a major reorganization of its air traffic and research and acquisition organizations. On November 18, 2003, the Secretary of Transportation announced initial details of the new ATO business structure. The ATO consolidated FAA's air traffic services, research and acquisitions, and Free Flight Program activities into a smaller, more efficient organization with a strict focus on providing the best service for the best value to the aviation industry and the traveling public.
The ATO officially began operations on February 8, 2004. It consisted of five major service units: En Route & Oceanic; Terminal; Flight Services; System Operations; and, Technical Operations. Also included within the organization's top level are five staff-level business groups: Safety; Communications; Operations Planning; Finance; and Acquisition and Business Services. In 2008, the ATO consolidated the service units and staff offices into four business units, each led by a senior vice president.
In line with other agency efforts to improve efficiency, in December 2005, the COO restructured ATO administrative and support functions in the field. In June 2006, he instituted a new ATO Service Center structure. Three service centers replaced the nine service area offices within En Route, Terminal, and Technical Operations. Each of the service centers was made up of five functional groups: administrative services, business services, safety assurance, system support, and planning and requirements. A sixth group, engineering services, was a shared resource and remained in place in the existing locations.
With the ATO structure in place, the agency's first COO resigned from FAA on February 23, 2007. Administrator Marion Blakey assigned COO responsibilities to Deputy Administrator Robert Sturgell as collateral duties until a new COO came on board. On October 1, 2007, Administrator Blakey hired the agency's second COO, Hank Krakowski.
The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen)The Vision 100 – Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act, signed into law in December 2003, endorsed the concept of a Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). The following month, the DOT Secretary announced plans for a new, multi-year, multi-agency effort to develop an air transportation system for the year 2025 and beyond. He subsequently established a Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) at the FAA comprised of representatives from FAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Commerce, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to create and carry out an integrated plan for NextGen. On December 15, 2004, DOT unveiled the Integrated Plan for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, which laid out goals, objectives, and requirements necessary to create the NextGen system.
Enhancing CapacityWhen constraints in en route airspace and the airspace surrounding U.S. airports began to result in flight delays and schedule disruptions, FAA began to look for immediate solutions while continuing NextGen activities. To improve capacity, FAA began implementing a number of new concepts. The Required Navigation Performance (RNP) concept, for example, would take advantage of new onboard technologies for precision guidance to help transition the NAS from reliance on airways running over ground-based navigation aids to a point-to-point navigation concept. FAA also implemented the use of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM), which reduced the minimum vertical separation between aircraft from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet for all properly equipped aircraft flying between 29,000 feet and 41,000 feet. This increased the routes and altitudes available and allowed more efficient routings that would save time and fuel.
Safety First, Last, and AlwaysBetween 2001 and 2007, aviation witnessed one of its safest periods for scheduled air carriers. Not counting the terrorist activities of September 11, 2001, there were only three fatal accidents in 2001; none in 2002; two in 2003; one in 2004; three in 2005; two in 2006; and none in 2007. Fatal accidents became rare events with only .01 accidents per 100,000 flight hours or .018 accidents per 100,000 departures.
ConclusionThanks to the work of FAA, over the past 50 years, aviation has become central to the way we live and do business, linking people from coast to coast and connecting America to the world. In fact, FAA has created the safest, most reliable, most efficient, and most productive air transportation system in the world.
To ensure aviation's future viability, FAA is now working with its federal and industry partners to develop a flexible aerospace system that fully responds to the changing needs of businesses and customers in the 21st century. The strength of the NextGen system depends on lower costs, improved service, greater capacity, and smarter security measures. That is why FAA has defined a vision of the future that integrates achievements in safety, security, efficiency, and environmental compatibility.
With no dedicated office space for the Federal Aviation Agency, employees of the growing agency were housed in several widely dispersed buildings around Washington, DC, including some "temporary" buildings of World War II vintage. The Federal Aviation Agency worked to obtain a headquarters building to consolidate employees in one location, and on November 22, 1963, the Federal Aviation Agency's Washington headquarters staff began moving into the newly completed Federal Office Building 10A, at 800 Independence Avenue, SW. Excitement about the new building quickly evaporated on move day as employees heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Texas.
From Agency to Administration.President Johnson, concerned about the lack of a coordinated transportation system, believed a single department was needed to develop and carry out comprehensive transportation policies and programs across all transportation modes. In 1966, Congress authorized the creation of a cabinet department that would combine major federal transportation responsibilities. This new Department of Transportation (DOT) began full operations on April l, 1967. On that day, the Federal Aviation Agency became one of several modal organizations within DOT and received a new name, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). At the same time, CAB's accident investigation function was transferred to the new National Transportation Safety Board.
Labor OrganizesIn January 1968, New York controllers formed an employee organization, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO. Within six months, PATCO had a national membership of over 5,000 controllers. To highlight difficult working conditions and growing national airspace system (NAS) congestion, in July 1968, the PATCO chairman announced "Operation Air Safety," which he described as a campaign to maintain FAA prescribed separation standards between aircraft. A period of discord between management and PATCO culminated in a 1970 "sickout" by 3,000 controllers. Although controllers subsequently gained additional wage and retirement benefits, tensions between the union and management did not ease.
In February 1972, the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) became the exclusive representative for all flight service station specialists, those controllers who supported general aviation pilots. FAA and NAATS concluded an agency-wide collective bargaining agreement on June 1, 1972, the first such contract between FAA and a national labor organization.
Evolving DutiesAlmost from its creation, the agency found itself faced with a number of unexpected challenges. In 1961, for example, the first series of aircraft hijackings in the U.S. occurred. In August of that year, the federal government began employing armed guards, border patrolmen recruited from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, on civilian planes. In September, President Kennedy signed an amendment to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, which made it a crime to hijack an aircraft, interfere with an active flight crew, or carry a dangerous weapon aboard an air carrier aircraft. To help enforce the act, a special corps of FAA safety inspectors began training for duty aboard airline flights. In March 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy swore in FAA's first "peace officers," as special U.S. deputy marshals. These men worked as safety inspectors for the FAA flight standards organization and carried out their role as armed marshals on flights only when specifically requested to do so.
FAA responsibilities increased even more in the late 1960s. An economic boom brought with it growing concerns about pollution and noise. Aviation, on the cutting edge of technological innovation, became an early area of environmental concern for the public, especially as more and more airplanes traversed the NAS. In 1968, Congress vested in FAA's Administrator the power to prescribe aircraft noise standards.
With continued growth in the nation's airspace, it quickly became evident that airport safety and capacity had to be increased to prevent system delays. Between mid-1959 and mid-1969, the number of aircraft operations at FAA's ATC towers had increased by 112 percent. Schedule delays cost the air carriers millions of dollars annually, not to mention the cost to passengers over and above inconvenience and discomfort. The Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970 placed the agency in charge of a new airport aid program funded by a special aviation trust fund and made FAA responsible for safety certification of airports served by air carriers.
Air Traffic Control AutomationRealizing the need for continued ATC system modernization to keep up with technological developments, FAA began modernizing the NAS in the mid-1960s. The civilian ATC system being replaced by NAS En Route Stage A was essentially a manually operated system employing radar, general purpose computers, radio communications, and air traffic controllers. For terminal airspace, the FAA was developing the automated radar traffic control system (ARTS).
To help monitor and even restrict flights moving from one air route traffic control center to another, FAA established the Central Flow Control Facility at its Headquarters. Opened in April 1970, the new facility collected and correlated systemwide air traffic and weather data, detected potential trouble spots, and suggested solutions. On July 29, FAA established the Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center to integrate the functions of the Central Flow Control Facility, Airport Reservation Office, the Air Traffic Service Contingency Command Post, and Central Altitude Reservation Facility.
DeregulationThe Airline Deregulation Act, signed on October 24, 1978, created a highly competitive airline industry. Deregulation increased FAA workload exponentially. The FAA had to certify every new airline, and there were hundreds of applications after deregulation that FAA had to review and approve or disapprove. In the immediate years after the deregulation act, FAA flight standards and other offices focused primarily on the new applicants.
By the time airline deregulation became law, FAA had achieved a semi-automated air traffic control system based on a marriage of radar and computer technology. Despite its effectiveness, however, the air traffic control system required enhancement to keep pace with the increased volumes of traffic that resulted from the new, deregulated environment.
Labor UnrestThe labor contract between FAA and PATCO expired in March 1981. Formal contract negotiations had begun in February, but those ended after 37 negotiating sessions. Informal talks, however, continued until June 17, when PATCO rejected a Reagan Administration contract proposal. After the failure of last minute negotiations, on August 3, approximately 12,300 members of the 15,000-member PATCO went on strike, grounding about 35 percent of the nation's 14,200 daily commercial flights. Approximately four hours after the strike began, President Reagan issued the strikers a firm ultimatum – return to work within 48 hours or face permanent dismissal. After expiration of the grace period, FAA fired approximately 11,400 controllers. Most of those fired appealed the action, and FAA eventually reinstated 440 as a result of their appeals.
The strike and dismissals drastically curtailed FAA's controller workforce. To keep the airways open, approximately 3,000 air traffic controller supervisory personnel worked at controlling traffic. FAA assigned assistants to support the controllers, and accelerated the hiring and training of new air traffic personnel. Military controllers arrived at FAA facilities soon after the strike began, and about 800 were ultimately assigned to the agency.
In the aftermath of the strike, PATCO disbanded and the controllers remained without a union until June 19, 1987, when the National Air Traffic Controllers Association became the exclusive representative of terminal and center controllers.
During this time, FAA electronics technicians unionized. On December 29, 1981, the Professional Airway Systems Specialists (PASS) became the exclusive representative of the technicians. FAA and PASS concluded their first national labor agreement during fiscal year 1984.
Technological InnovationAviation system disruptions in the aftermath of the PATCO strike led many in FAA to come to the realization that the agency needed a systematic, long-term plan for modernization. In January 1982, FAA publicly released the first annual National Airspace System (NAS) Plan, a comprehensive 20-year blueprint for a state-of-the-art traffic control and air navigation system to accommodate projected growth in air travel.
As the modernization program evolved, problems in developing ambitious automation systems prompted a change in strategy. FAA shifted its emphasis from the advanced automation system toward enhancing the ATC system through more manageable, step-by-step improvements through the new Free Flight program. At the same time, the agency worked to speed the application of the Global Positioning System satellite technology to civil aeronautics.
In February 1991, FAA replaced the NAS Plan with the more comprehensive Capital Investment Plan. The new plan incorporated the NAS plan projects and included higher levels of automation as well as new radar, communications, and weather forecasting systems.
FAA also addressed a wide variety of technical issues as the rapid evolution of aeronautics continued. The Aviation Safety Research Act of 1988, for example, mandated greater emphasis on long-range research planning and on study of such issues as aging aircraft structures and human factors affecting safety. FAA engineers and scientists also investigated areas such as human performance in aeronautical tasks, improvement of runways, and the effects of corrosion on aircraft structures.
Organizational RestructuringIn November 1995, DOT transferred the commercial space transportation office to the FAA. Originally established within DOT in 1984, the new FAA office regulated the U.S. commercial launch industry, licensed commercial launch operations to ensure public health and safety and the safety of property, and protected national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch operations. It also issued licenses for commercial launches of orbital and suborbital rockets.
The fiscal year 1996 DOT appropriations bill, signed in November 1995, included important provisions for FAA personnel and procurement reform. FAA began the mandated reforms by first creating a new acquisition management system designed to reduce the time and cost of acquiring systems and services. FAA then placed all employees into a new personnel system intended to speed recruitment and reward outstanding employees, while dealing effectively with substandard performance. While the agency was no longer subject to certain Office of Personnel Management rules, its employees continued to enjoy a range of legal protections that applied to other federal workers.
In June 1998, FAA began testing a new compensation plan called core compensation, which replaced the traditional grade and step base pay method with a structure of pay bands, the value of which were determined by comparison with similar jobs in government and private industry. The program also linked compensation with performance. On April 23, 2000, FAA transferred approximately 6,500 employees into the core compensation system.
On September 11, 2001, nineteen radical Islamic extremists with the group al Qaeda penetrated security at three major airports, seized four U.S. domestic airliners, and turned three of the aircraft into missiles that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers on the fourth plane fought the hijackers, causing the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field. To prevent any further hijackings, FAA immediately put a ground stop on all traffic for the first time in U.S. aviation history. In the overnight hours of September 11, members of FAA's Flight Standards Service developed an initial lead identifying the names of potential hijackers and provided those names to the FBI. The tragic events of this day radically changed the FAA. On November 19, 2001, the president signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which among other provisions, established a new agency responsible for aviation security – the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), within DOT. FAA remained responsible for aviation security until February 13, 2002, when TSA took over those responsibilities. The November 2002, passage of the Homeland Security Act moved TSA into the new Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.
Creation of FAA's Air Traffic Organization (ATO)In April 2000, President Clinton signed into law the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, which contained a provision mandating the appointment of a chief operating officer. In a December executive order, the president directed FAA to create a performance-based organization that focused solely on efficient operation of the ATC system.
In June 2003, FAA selected its first ATO Chief Operating Officer (COO), Russell Chew. With the COO in place, FAA went forward with a major reorganization of its air traffic and research and acquisition organizations. On November 18, 2003, the Secretary of Transportation announced initial details of the new ATO business structure. The ATO consolidated FAA's air traffic services, research and acquisitions, and Free Flight Program activities into a smaller, more efficient organization with a strict focus on providing the best service for the best value to the aviation industry and the traveling public.
The ATO officially began operations on February 8, 2004. It consisted of five major service units: En Route & Oceanic; Terminal; Flight Services; System Operations; and, Technical Operations. Also included within the organization's top level are five staff-level business groups: Safety; Communications; Operations Planning; Finance; and Acquisition and Business Services. In 2008, the ATO consolidated the service units and staff offices into four business units, each led by a senior vice president.
In line with other agency efforts to improve efficiency, in December 2005, the COO restructured ATO administrative and support functions in the field. In June 2006, he instituted a new ATO Service Center structure. Three service centers replaced the nine service area offices within En Route, Terminal, and Technical Operations. Each of the service centers was made up of five functional groups: administrative services, business services, safety assurance, system support, and planning and requirements. A sixth group, engineering services, was a shared resource and remained in place in the existing locations.
With the ATO structure in place, the agency's first COO resigned from FAA on February 23, 2007. Administrator Marion Blakey assigned COO responsibilities to Deputy Administrator Robert Sturgell as collateral duties until a new COO came on board. On October 1, 2007, Administrator Blakey hired the agency's second COO, Hank Krakowski.
The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen)The Vision 100 – Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act, signed into law in December 2003, endorsed the concept of a Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). The following month, the DOT Secretary announced plans for a new, multi-year, multi-agency effort to develop an air transportation system for the year 2025 and beyond. He subsequently established a Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) at the FAA comprised of representatives from FAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Commerce, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to create and carry out an integrated plan for NextGen. On December 15, 2004, DOT unveiled the Integrated Plan for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, which laid out goals, objectives, and requirements necessary to create the NextGen system.
Enhancing CapacityWhen constraints in en route airspace and the airspace surrounding U.S. airports began to result in flight delays and schedule disruptions, FAA began to look for immediate solutions while continuing NextGen activities. To improve capacity, FAA began implementing a number of new concepts. The Required Navigation Performance (RNP) concept, for example, would take advantage of new onboard technologies for precision guidance to help transition the NAS from reliance on airways running over ground-based navigation aids to a point-to-point navigation concept. FAA also implemented the use of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM), which reduced the minimum vertical separation between aircraft from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet for all properly equipped aircraft flying between 29,000 feet and 41,000 feet. This increased the routes and altitudes available and allowed more efficient routings that would save time and fuel.
Safety First, Last, and AlwaysBetween 2001 and 2007, aviation witnessed one of its safest periods for scheduled air carriers. Not counting the terrorist activities of September 11, 2001, there were only three fatal accidents in 2001; none in 2002; two in 2003; one in 2004; three in 2005; two in 2006; and none in 2007. Fatal accidents became rare events with only .01 accidents per 100,000 flight hours or .018 accidents per 100,000 departures.
ConclusionThanks to the work of FAA, over the past 50 years, aviation has become central to the way we live and do business, linking people from coast to coast and connecting America to the world. In fact, FAA has created the safest, most reliable, most efficient, and most productive air transportation system in the world.
To ensure aviation's future viability, FAA is now working with its federal and industry partners to develop a flexible aerospace system that fully responds to the changing needs of businesses and customers in the 21st century. The strength of the NextGen system depends on lower costs, improved service, greater capacity, and smarter security measures. That is why FAA has defined a vision of the future that integrates achievements in safety, security, efficiency, and environmental compatibility.
* Glenn E. Bugos, The Prologue Group.
** The core Aerospace industry customer base has consisted of the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1 August 1907 – 18 July 1914), National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) (3 March 1915 - 1957), Aviation Section, Signal Corps (18 July 1914 – 20 May 1918), Division of Military Aeronautics (20 May 1918 – 24 May 1918), Air Service, U.S. Army (24 May 1918 – 2 July 1926), U.S. Army Air Corps (2 July 1926 – 20 June 1941), U.S. Army Air Forces (20 June 1941 – 17 September 1947) and NASA (1 October 1958 to date).
Investor in Net Zero aircraft production have many obstacles to overcome.
Investors wanting to participate in Net-Zero aircraft production business have many risk factors to consider. Limited access to government R&D funding and military aircraft orders, lack of military, commercial and general aviation customer bases, the cost of building production infrastructure, lack of skilled labor, lack of risk capital, challenges upscaling concept designs, the regulatory oversight of prototype testing, pandemic damage to the travel & tourism market, Black Swan events, social & political unrest, all play a role in defining the shape of the aerospace and defence industry. The airline and lessor decisions that go into who wins aircraft orders, who will benefit from the replacement fleet decisions, when the buy, sell, lease, and decarbonization decisions are made, strongly favor the incumbents, Airbus, Boeing, CFMI, GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce.
The pattern in the A&D industry for more than 100 years is that the Prime Contractors are best positioned to survive the down turn. If they perceive a threat from start-up manufacturers, the likehood is that they will buy them out and cast their Net-Zero designs to the sideline!
Shannon Aero's response is to develop a knowledge base that keeps pace with developments and to provide our clients with guidance as to the threats and rewards on investing in commercial aircraft in the net-zero age.
Change-maker response to Net-Zero aircraft fleet transition!
Our first acquisition used for applied research and re-purposing, based on the circular economy, reuse and remake, carbon emissions savings, was replacing the large cargo door as illustrated in the MD82 freighter below.
Owning, operating, managing, financing/leasing & maintaining aircraft, has many challenges. The Shannon Aero team has the professional expertise in financing, operations and technical capabilities to manage the transition to a decarbonized regional airline or airport.
Value Chain enhancement.
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We understand UNFCCC and ICAO's Corsia requirements for SAF fuel, emissions reduction and carbon credit monitization.
We have unique expertise in equipment decarbonization, additive manufacturing & reuse of super alloys, earth metals & carbon fibers.
These measures will upgrade each client's value chain and lower costs.
Aircraft Trading ! What our clients say
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Invitation:
The effort to prevent permantent damage to the air transport market is a worldwide effort. For five years, we have engaged with airlines, airports, MRO's banks, lessors, suppliers & vendors to define what is being done, & what can be done, to solve the aircraft CO2e emissions problem. We engage with researchers, aircraft designers, materials technologists and research institutions, & share our knowlege with our clients.
Applied research
A major objective for Shannon Aero is to use forward thinking that brings with it an element of risk.
We will approach educational and research institutions to make aircraft available as test platforms for SAF fuel as a replacement for fossil fuel and for testing of super alloys, earth metals, carbon fiber reuse and using additive manufacturing tooling.
Media, "Civil Society Groups" and Communities:
The link will take you to the first project supported by Shannon Aero. The video speaks for itself.
We are available to the Media for aviation matters, the pandemic, climate change & "Black Swan" events. And the implications for current and future progress of the worlds' air transport market.
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