REMARKS FOR
THE HONORABLE MARY PETERS
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
AERO CLUB OF WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JANUARY 14, 2009
12:30 PM
Thank you, Jim (Bennett), for that kind
introduction. I would also like to recognize key members of the Department of
Transportation’s leadership team who are here: General Counsel D.J. Gribbin and
Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell.
And I want to thank you all for that very warm welcome and for inviting me back
to speak at the Aero Club one last time.
The first time I addressed you, we were just getting to know each other. I spoke
then of the priorities I established when President Bush gave me the privilege
of serving as the nation’s Secretary of Transportation: improving safety;
helping our transportation systems perform more efficiently; and finding and
applying 21st century solutions to today’s transportation challenges.
Today, I look around this room and see many wonderful friends and associates
with whom I have forged a deep and lasting working relationship over the past
two-and-a-half years as we have pursued these priorities. And I want to thank
the transportation community at large – and the aviation community in particular
– for the opportunity to work with you and for the many, many things we have
accomplished together.
The best way I can think to describe where we stand is with a football analogy.
We have made significant progress moving the ball down the field, but there is
still more work to do to cross the goal line. Okay, it’s playoff time, and I
confess that I’m enjoying watching the Cardinals surprise everyone.
The Bush Administration has built a remarkable record in aviation, especially
when it comes to safety.
Think about it. Aviation in America is safer today than at any period since that
first flight took off at Kitty Hawk – even with record numbers of passengers and
cargo filling our skies.
Not only is the system safer than ever before, but the pace of improvement has
accelerated sharply, making flying safer today than even the most optimistic
aviation professional would have predicted just a decade ago.
U.S. airlines have gone from 500 fatalities per 100 million people on board in
1959, the FAA’s first full year of operation, to 45 fatalities per 100 million
by the late 1990s. That is a 90 percent reduction.
Many aviation professionals believed the system had essentially reached its
maximum safety level, and that fatalities would begin increasing as a function
of volume. We proved them wrong.
Over the past five years, the rate has fallen to two fatalities per 100 million
people on board. And in the past two years, the U.S. air carrier system has
moved more than 1.6 billion passengers and crew with just one on-board fatality
– and that was on a cargo flight.
In fact, Alan Levin’s USA Today piece on Monday reported that, “For the first
time since the dawn of the jet age, two consecutive years have passed without a
single airline passenger death in a U.S. carrier crash.” In fact, the story
noted that it is more likely for a young child to be elected President in his or
her lifetime than to die on a single jet flight in the U.S.
These results are clear evidence that the FAA's fundamental approach to safety
is keeping our skies safe. And I do not think it is a coincidence that these two
years coincided with Bobby Sturgell’s oversight of the FAA.
Bobby won’t need history to judge his tenure running the FAA, because we have
the results right here in front of us — results that can never be refuted by
those who opposed Bobby’s nomination for their own political purposes. I will
always believe that it was short-sighted of the Senate to deny our nation the
full five-year term that President Bush offered this outstanding public servant.
Voluntary reporting lies at the core of the approach to safety that has produced
these impressive results, and I believe very strongly that it would be a serious
mistake to abandon it. We can, and we are, improving the system to prevent
abuses. But voluntary disclosure is the backbone of a modern safety system.
This is especially true for aviation, where thankfully we have few crashes and
thus little actual forensic information to tell us how to improve safety. So the
information from these voluntary reports – along with actual flight data – is
doubly valuable to identify trends and prevent future accidents.
And yes, there is still work to be done. As good as our record is, the accident
in Denver just before Christmas reminds us that risks remain. But Denver also
provides testimony to the value of the safety standards and technologies that
government and industry have implemented.
When all 115 occupants escaped the burning airplane with no fatalities, many
commentators described it as a “miracle.” Similar comments were made in 2005
when all 311 occupants escaped a burning A340 in Canada.
Had those two accidents occurred 25 years ago, it is likely that several hundred
people would have died. Instead, there were no fatalities. Zero.
That happy outcome was not just random luck or the product of repeated
“miracles.” It was the product of many years of hard work by many people in the
aviation community to improve survivability.
That work included closing 73 recommendations from the National Transportation
Safety Board over the last three years. I am especially proud that three major
items were removed from the NTSB’s “most wanted” list in an acceptable manner.
One of those was the fuel tank safety rule, which will help prevent the kind of
catastrophic explosion that killed 230 people on TWA flight 800. Two images from
the announcement of that rule will forever remain with me – the jigsaw pieces of
the reassembled plane and the tears of gratitude on the faces of the relatives
of the victims.
While improving safety, we also have acted aggressively to clear congestion and
improve the air travel experience. We have added consumer protections for
passengers whose flights are delayed, and increased compensation for lost
luggage and denied boardings.
And we have taken more than 30 different actions over the past year to break the
bottleneck in New York that is causing delays to ripple throughout the entire
system.
These include airspace redesign and operational improvements as well as new caps
on hourly operations at JFK and Newark.
Things are better – not as good as they should be, but better. Planes are taking
off and arriving on time more often, and passengers are spending less time
sitting at the gates or on runways.
Even in New York, where all three area airports had more flights this summer
than last summer, delays – especially those long taxi-out delays – were down.
Delays of more than an hour fell by 17 percent, and the worst delays – those
over two hours – are down by 35 percent.
Still, LaGuardia, remains the worst of the worst among major airports for
on-time arrivals, and in the bottom five for arrivals. So we have been working
with carriers to find additional ways to improve things at this delay-prone
airport. Analysis shows that if we can cut out just four flights an hour during
peak periods, we could reduce delays by up to 41 percent, saving $178 million a
year in delay-related costs.
So today, I am announcing a final order that will allow airlines to voluntarily
reduce their scheduled operations at LaGuardia to assist with reducing the
hourly cap from 75 to 71 operations per hour. Airlines will need to identify
returned capacity by February 2, 2009, and stop using those slots by May 31,
2009.
In my opinion, the best way to deal with delays is to provide incentives for
airlines to make more efficient use of airports and airspace. So we initiated a
serious discussion of ways the market can help spread flights out during the day
and move them away from times and airports that lack the capacity to handle
them.
To increase capacity, we have invested almost $50 billion in airports, runways,
and aviation technology. On a single day last month, I helped open new runways
at Dulles, at Chicago O’Hare, and at Seattle-Tacoma International. Combined,
these runways will allow for an additional 330,000 take offs and landings every
year. All told, since 2000, the Bush Administration has added 14 runways at
America’s busiest airports.
Modernizing our airports and air traffic control has been a priority for the
President, and the NextGen system should be an important part of his legacy.
It was here at the Aero Club in 2004 that Secretary Mineta launched the
ground-breaking effort to modernize air-traffic control from radars and radios
to satellite-based navigation and communication.
Although it will fall to those who follow to take NextGen over the goal line, it
already is beginning to transform the way Americans fly. Component technologies
and procedures are being deployed, while the Florida test bed is ready to show
how the technologies work together to save time and fuel and increase safety on
flights along the East Coast.
Which brings me to the challenges ahead. In many ways, where we stand on the
aviation side with NextGen today is very much like where the surface side stood
with the Interstate Highway System before the Clay Commission report.
We have a fairly clear vision of what a modern, satellite-based system should
look like. We know we must deploy a new air traffic control system from shore to
shore and plane to plane. What we lack is a funding plan to get it deployed. And
coming up with that plan is all the more difficult because there are so many
players involved.
As an industry, aviation can claim some impressive successes – recovering from
9-11, surviving the oil price spike, and producing an unparalleled safety
record.
But the failure to put differences aside and come together has stalled a new
authorization and threatens the future of NextGen.
This will be my last major speech as Secretary of Transportation. By this time
next week, America will have a new President. My top staff and I have been
working very closely with the transition staff to ensure a smooth hand-off to
the new team.
Secretary-designate LaHood will face a somewhat historic opportunity to reshape
transportation policy and fix fundamental problems on his watch – through the
stimulus package and through reauthorization of both the aviation and surface
transportation programs. He will be challenged to find a way to make the world’s
safest aviation system safer still and to find an effective long-term funding
mechanism for aviation.
It is likely the next Secretary – and I believe President-elect Obama has made
an excellent choice – is going to suggest things that make everyone
uncomfortable.
That is the nature of change. Even when the problems with the status quo are as
obvious as they are with aviation today, the natural instinct is to stick with
the devil you know.
The status quo may be comfortable, but it is not capable of supporting the
modern aviation system. It will not solve congestion. And it will not allow
NextGen to take off.
Change must indeed be the watchword in transportation if we are going to move
forward. So I am asking that you help the new Secretary understand your business
but also understand that he has to respond to a broader constituency.
I have every confidence in American aviation. I have since I was a little girl,
spending my birthday at Sky Harbor airport watching the planes taking off. There
is just something magical about seeing something that big, something that heavy,
become airborne.
Now, the time has come for the industry that unlocked the secret of powered
flight… that came back from the brink after 9-11… the industry that drove safety
numbers below anything the experts believed possible and produced the leanest
airline network in the world… it is time for you to combine forces to produce
the most advanced air traffic control system in the world and keep America first
in flight.
I will be rooting for your success. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for
welcoming me into this magical industry during my time as Secretary of
Transportation. It has truly been the experience of a lifetime.
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