FAA Flight Plan Performance Report
Flight Plan Performance Report
FAA Flight Plan 3rd Quarter Performance Report — June 2008
What is the Flight Plan?
It is the FAA's strategic plan for fiscal year (FY) 2008 through FY 2012. Our mission is to provide the safest and most efficient aerospace system in the world. The Flight Plan provides the foundation for achieving this mission based on four goal areas: Increased Safety, Greater Capacity, International Leadership, and Organizational Excellence. Our 2008 – 2012 Flight Plan (PDF) is available on the FAA website.
How do we tie pay to performance?
As a pay-for-performance agency, the FAA uses a performance-based system for compensating our executives and over 80 percent of our employees. Pay is adjusted each year based on the agency’s success in meeting the Flight Plan corporate performance targets. All employee performance plans are linked directly back to these targets. A full performance payout requires the FAA to meet at least 90 percent, or 26 out of 29, of the Flight Plan performance targets.
How are we doing?
By the end of the third quarter we are meeting 24 of our 29 targets, or 83 percent. This is an improvement from last quarter at 76 percent. This quarter finished with 24 green targets, 3 yellow targets, and 2 red targets. Yellow status means we are at risk of not meeting the target or missing a significant milestone. Red status means we cannot meet the target or have missed a significant milestone.
For the Increased Safety goal area, the Alaska Accidents target is red at the end of 3rd quarter. To date this year, there are a total of 64 accidents, 10 over our not-to-exceed target of 54 accidents. We have increased focus on this area by working with Medallion (Aviation Safety Action Program) to improve training and awareness in Alaska. We are beginning to see a reversal of the current accident trend, and are optimistic we can end the fiscal year in the green. Operational Errors is also red, and expected to remain red for the remainder of the year. The quarter ended with year-to-date rate of 2.44, missing the target of not to exceed 2.15.
In the Greater Capacity goal area, the target for NAS On-Time Arrivals remains yellow. We ended the quarter with an 86.46 percent on-time arrival rate measured against our goal of 88 percent. Based on the trend data, this target will be hard to meet and is expected to turn red at fiscal year-end.
In the International Leadership goal area, the Aviation Safety Leadership goal is yellow. However, we are working closely with overseas aviation authorities and based on July and August activities, remain confident that this will turn green by year-end.
For the Organizational Excellence goal area, we have improved considerably over last quarter with only one yellow target. The Clean Audit target is purposely kept yellow as a cautionary measure. The measure is written to include that no material weaknesses be identified. In FY 2007, we received a material weakness due to issues with asset capitalization. A concerted effort has been made this year to resolve these issues, but we will continue to keep this yellow until we receive the final FY08 results in September.
Where are we going?
Our focus continues to be on safety. We continue to strive to improve what is already the safest period in aviation history. To do this, we remain committed to being accountable for the goals we have set for the FAA. We continue to track our progress and challenge ourselves to perform at an even higher level. I invite you return in three months to review our year-end accomplishments in meeting the Flight Plan performance targets.
Robert A. Sturgell
Acting Administrator
