Washington, DCNBAA calls for stronger safety partnerships to maintain |
As Senate leaders reviewed recent aviation incidents, NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen emphasized stronger government-industry collaboration to improve safety and maintain US aviation leadership.
“Safety is the foundation of business aviation, and informs every operational decision we make,” Bolen said in written testimony submitted for a hearing held today by the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space and Innovation entitled, Close Calls: Improving Safety Across the NAS.
“The recent ‘close calls,’ both in the air and on the ground, underscore the need for continued vigilance and investment in safety for all operations.”
As part of that redoubled safety focus, Bolen emphasized the importance of government-industry collaboration, citing partnerships between the Federal Aviation Administration and stakeholders that have identified the root causes of incidents, and measurably driven down accident rates.
For example, two such partnerships - FAA’s Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) program and Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) program - have both harnessed data to help operators identify underlying causes for incidents and prevent their recurrence.
Those and other data-based initiatives have been augmented by joint action teams and working groups that bring government and industry together to address safety concerns, such as the FAA Surface Safety Group and the Runway Safety Council, both of which have NBAA representation.
The success of those collective efforts points to the need for industry to have “a more formal voice in shaping outcomes,” Bolen added. “Currently, stakeholders serve merely as volunteer observers, lacking any voting authority. This marginalization is concerning, particularly as the FAA occasionally implements arbitrary procedural changes without sufficient transparency.”
As one key remedial step, Bolen called for greater FAA process transparency and the development of industry feedback mechanisms as part of the agency’s new Safety Management System office, and to establish a formalized means for stakeholder guidance into the agency’s work on airspace redesign.
Bolen also highlighted the industry’s record of partnering with government in the adoption of technologies for enhancing safety in his call for FAA leaders to smooth the path for equipage of inexpensive portable technologies for automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) In/Out.
Similarly, he noted the need for congressional funding authorization to equip airport ground vehicles with ADS-B as part of the FAA’s expansion of the Surface Awareness Initiative to provide air traffic controllers with real-time tracking of aircraft and vehicles in the airport environment.
“In business aviation our mantra is ‘safety first, safety always,’” Bolen added. “We stand ready to work alongside this committee, Congress and the FAA to take decisive action, ensure operator input is integrated into system changes, and maintain the US as the global leader in aviation safety.”
BlueSky Business Aviation News | 25th June 2026 | Issue #848
