National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) looks back on first year of its Advanced Air Mobility Roundtable

The Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA) has recent­ly marked the one-year anniver­sary of its Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) Round­table, which has been char­ac­terised by sig­nif­i­cant progress on a num­ber of impor­tant mile­stones for the sec­tor.

NBAA launched the Round­table last year to pro­vide a forum for high-lev­el pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions with sec­tor lead­ers to chart a course for the inte­gra­tion of advanced air mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies into U.S air­space and trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture.

NBAA Pres­i­dent and CEO Ed Bolen, said: “The AAM Round­table has been very suc­cess­ful in con­nect­ing key pol­i­cy mak­ers with this excit­ing indus­try. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our work with gov­ern­ment and busi­ness stake­hold­ers to advance this impor­tant tech­nol­o­gy, which rep­re­sents a trans­for­ma­tion in the on-demand air-mobil­i­ty indus­try NBAA has been proud to cham­pi­on for over sev­en decades.”

Found­ed in 1947 and based in Wash­ing­ton D.C, NBAA is the lead­ing organ­i­sa­tion for com­pa­nies that rely on gen­er­al avi­a­tion air­craft to help make their busi­ness­es more effi­cient, pro­duc­tive and suc­cess­ful.

The asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sents more than 10,000 com­pa­ny and pro­fes­sion­al mem­bers and pro­vides more than 100 prod­ucts and ser­vices to the busi­ness avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing the NBAA Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Con­ven­tion & Exhi­bi­tion (NBAA-BACE), the world’s largest civ­il avi­a­tion trade show.

Hill­wood Avi­a­tion Pres­i­dent and CEO Matt Byrd, AAM Round­table chair, serves on NBAA’s Board of Direc­tors, which works to pro­mote avi­a­tion-relat­ed enter­pris­es, includ­ing those relat­ed to autonomous flight.

He agreed with Bolen’s assess­ment, adding: “The pace of inno­va­tion and change is unfold­ing faster than ever in avi­a­tion, includ­ing the pio­neer­ing devel­op­ments under­way in the AAM sec­tor. NBAA’s AAM Round­table is lead­ing the way in chart­ing a roadmap for the future of this ground­break­ing mode of trans­port.”

NBAA and the AAM Round­table have worked with Con­gress and fed­er­al agen­cies to help address chal­leng­ing infra­struc­ture and oper­a­tional issues.

In Decem­ber, House Avi­a­tion Sub­com­mit­tee Chair Rick Larsen (D‑WA‑2) and Sub­com­mit­tee Rank­ing Mem­ber Gar­ret Graves (R‑LA‑6) intro­duced the Advanced Avi­a­tion Infra­struc­ture Mod­erni­sa­tion Act, or AAIM Act, which would help plan for and devel­op AAM infra­struc­ture, includ­ing ver­ti­ports. NBAA’s advo­ca­cy and close coor­di­na­tion with round­table mem­bers were crit­i­cal to the intro­duc­tion of the AAIM Act, and the bill has already helped edu­cate mem­bers of Con­gress about the poten­tial ben­e­fits of AAM.

NBAA has also been work­ing with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) in sev­er­al impor­tant areas that affect AAM. For exam­ple, the asso­ci­a­tion is coor­di­nat­ing with and pro­vid­ing input to the FAA on draft ver­ti­port guid­ance, and con­ven­ing reg­u­lar meet­ings with lead­er­ship from the FAA Office of Air­ports and AAM Round­table mem­bers.

The group is also work­ing with con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee staff to make sure that AAM is rep­re­sent­ed at Capi­tol Hill hear­ings. In addi­tion, round­table mem­bers are meet­ing with Trans­porta­tion Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion (TSA) offi­cials to edu­cate reg­u­la­tors on nascent AAM oper­a­tions and secu­ri­ty best prac­tices for ini­tial oper­a­tions.

Look­ing ahead to FAA Reau­tho­riza­tion on Octo­ber 1st, 2023, NBAA plans to iden­ti­fy top indus­try issues for the agency to con­sid­er in assem­bling the fund­ing-and-over­sight pack­age; reg­u­lar round­table meet­ings are inform­ing those pri­or­i­ties.

Bolen said: “NBAA is thrilled to be involved in the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of AAM, which will pre­serve and enhance our glob­al lead­er­ship in avi­a­tion while cre­at­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of green jobs for the high­ly skilled U.S. avi­a­tion work­force. We thank our round­table part­ners for all their efforts over the past year, and look for­ward to the excit­ing work ahead.”