Secretary Anthony R. Foxx

Remarks at International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting and World Transport Summit
Miami Beach, FL – June 8, 2015

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thanks, everyone for having me.

And thank you, Doug, for that kind introduction.

I’d also like to thank ICAO Council President Dr. Benard Aliu for being here – and for all the work he’s doing with ICAO to keep global aviation safe.

And it’s wonderful to see my friend Deputy Secretary Mayorkas here.

I’m so happy to be here, kicking off your 71st annual meeting – the first one in the United States in over a decade. It’s a very productive partnership we have together – the administration and the airlines. And this morning, I’m reminded that this wasn’t always the case.

There’s a funny story: Back in the twenties, White House advisors were pressuring Calvin Coolidge to increase spending on military aviation, and he responded like some parents do when their kids ask for the same Christmas presents.

“Why can’t we just buy one plane,” Coolidge wondered, “and have all the pilots take turns?”

(I should point out here that not once in my life did I ever vote for Calvin Coolidge.)

In all seriousness, there may have been a time when governments were skeptics of technology – even a technology as obviously world-changing as the airplane.  But that time is long gone.

As IATA begins its 71st year, the message from the United States government is: We want to encourage your progress and growth. We know how valuable international aviation is to the global economy… and how valuable IATA is to international aviation.

And the reason we know this is because you’ve been proving it for seven decades. 

There’s a coincidence that we’re meeting today in Miami. Because it was here that the world’s first commercial, international flight took off. The airline wasn’t PanAm. Or Delta. Or Air France.

It was called “Chalk’s Flying Services,” founded by Arthur “Pappy” Chalk. Maybe some of you have heard about him. He was a pilot during World War I. He ferried passengers from here to the Bahamas. His office was a chair and a table on Miami Beach under a beach umbrella. He took reservations from a phone that you had to hand crank, which was hanging from a pole. And he facilitated some of the first international trade via plane. And after Prohibition began, his cargo was Al Capone’s bootlegged liquor.

Suffice it to say, things have changed a little bit. 

Today there are over 150 international airlines represented in this room. Today, there will be over 100,000 commercial flights around the world … and some eight million people onboard. Open-skies agreements have made air travel more accessible throughout the world.

This is jobs.  This is economic growth.  This is world trade. And you are the reason for all that. For 70 years, IATA’s member airlines have built a global community that’s more connected, more open, and more developed than previous generations would have ever imagined.

And I think that if you’re a certain age it’s easy to take for granted. When IATA came together, I was still almost 30 years from being born. And it’s hard to fathom a world without international air travel.

Today, in less than one day, an American can board an aircraft, maybe touch down in Paris, and continue on to West Africa to serve in the Peace Corps.  

In less than one day, someone can leave home in another country and come to the United States to study, or to work, or to visit.

I remember back in 1991.  I was in college.  And I enrolled in a study abroad program, and flew to South Africa.

The country was still transitioning out of apartheid.  It was only the year prior when Nelson Mandela had been released from prison.

By seeing that country, I was able to learn more about my own.  And it made me realize the opportunities I had – opportunities I couldn’t have even imagined up until then.  And it inspired me to work even harder in school.

Without that experience, I might not be standing here today.  

Without IATA – and the way you’ve connected the world – I might not be here today.

Our task now is to continue working together to create those connections. Because every time a plane takes flight so does a career… or an idea… or a friendship… or a business.

We have challenges ahead of us. That’s for sure.

Forecasts indicate air travel demand will soar by 25 percent – to more than 1 billion passengers by 2029.

Our airports and infrastructure need repairs. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave America’s aviation system, in particular, a “D” on its last infrastructure report card.

We must encourage new technologies, too.  The FAA is hard at work building NextGen  -- and NextGen is already saving our planes from traveling millions of extra miles, wasting gallons of extra fuel, producing thousands of tons of CO2 and spending  time on the tarmac. But we need to finish the job.

And of course, we need more federal funding and for it to be predictable. As you know, the FAA reauthorization bill expires in September. Without action from Congress, we’ll run out of funding for aviation. We’re working to get a long-term reauthorization billed passed. But we can’t do it alone.

All of these things we must do together. Just as we have done them before.

For 70 years, the international aviation community has changed our world. I look forward to changing it further over the next seventy years.

Thank you.

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