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NBAA applauds US House of Representatives on passing a bill to accelerate Advanced Air Mobility

The Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA) has applaud­ed the action tak­en in the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on two key pieces of avi­a­tion leg­is­la­tion.

The first — known as the Advanced Avi­a­tion Infra­struc­ture Mod­erni­sa­tion Act (AAIM Act) — focused on accel­er­at­ing the growth of advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM), which autho­ris­es fund­ing to build crit­i­cal new infra­struc­ture. This will be done by lever­ag­ing exist­ing ver­ti­ports and oth­er pub­lic trans­porta­tion facil­i­ties to sup­port AAM oper­a­tions.

The pro­pos­al, HR 6270, was first intro­duced last Decem­ber by T&I Avi­a­tion Sub­com­mit­tee Chair­man Rick Larsen, Rank­ing Avi­a­tion Sub­com­mit­tee Mem­ber Gar­ret Graves and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dina Titus. 

The bipar­ti­san mea­sure was imme­di­ate­ly met with strong sup­port from NBAA and NBAA’s AAM Round­table, a group of high-lev­el sec­tor lead­ers chart­ing a course for inte­gra­tion of the pio­neer­ing tech­nolo­gies into the nation’s air­space and infra­struc­ture.

The sec­ond bill estab­lish­es a Nation­al Cen­ter for the Advance­ment of Avi­a­tion, which will bring togeth­er stake­hold­ers from across the mil­i­tary and pri­vate sec­tors, in part to pro­vide STEM-focused resources to high school and col­le­giate cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ers.

Both bills were reviewed and approved by the House Trans­porta­tion and Infra­struc­ture (T&I) Com­mit­tee, a key step in the con­gres­sion­al leg­isla­tive process. Both will now move to the House floor for delib­er­a­tion. 

NBAA Pres­i­dent and CEO Ed Bolen said: “We thank Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Larsen, Graves and Titus for their lead­er­ship in intro­duc­ing this impor­tant leg­is­la­tion, and their House col­leagues for their strong sup­port for the advance­ment of these pio­neer­ing on-demand avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.”

Bolen added: “NBAA is total­ly com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing the devel­op­ment of our industry’s future work­force and we look for­ward to doing all we can to ensure pas­sage of this leg­is­la­tion.”

In a tweet announc­ing the pass­ing of the bill, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen, who is Chair of the Avi­a­tion Sub­com­mit­tee and Com­mit­tee on Trans­porta­tion and Infra­struc­ture, also thanked a host of com­pa­nies involved in the efforts. These includ­ed the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety, Nation­al Air Trans­porta­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (GAMA) and the Com­mu­ni­ty Air Mobil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive (CAMI).

In late March, the US Sen­ate passed the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Coor­di­na­tion and Lead­er­ship Act, which estab­lish­es an inter-agency work­ing group to more effec­tive­ly engage the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in fur­ther­ing the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) sec­tor. 

In May last year, the NBAA formed a new Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty round­table, with found­ing mem­bers includ­ing eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ers Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, Joby Avi­a­tion, Lil­i­um and Wisk, to act as a forum for high-lev­el pol­i­cy plan­ning with sec­tor lead­ers, and to chart a course for the inte­gra­tion of AAM tech­nolo­gies into US air­space and infra­struc­ture. 

Oth­er found­ing mem­bers include Super­nal and Hill­wood Avi­a­tion.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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