NBAA marks continued growth at second anniversary AAM roundtable

The Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA) advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) Round­table recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed its sec­ond anniver­sary with con­tin­ued momen­tum in the leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry areas, and growth in mem­ber­ship.

The AAM Round­table focuss­es on main­tain­ing the US posi­tion as a glob­al leader in avi­a­tion and aero­space, and will work with the bipar­ti­san con­gres­sion­al AAM Cau­cus and the lead­ing autho­ris­ers in Con­gress to advance pro-AAM poli­cies in the FAA reau­tho­ri­sa­tion bill sched­uled to expire at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2023.

“Elec­tric avi­a­tion and AAM rep­re­sent the next gen­er­a­tion of air trans­porta­tion with the first com­mer­cial AAM flight sched­uled to occur in 2025,” said Kristie Gre­co John­son, NBAA’s senior vice pres­i­dent, gov­ern­ment affairs.

“To achieve this dead­line, the FAA must keep pace with air­craft type cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and the promised reg­u­la­to­ry sched­ule. NBAA sub­mit­ted its pri­or­i­ties to con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tees and is work­ing with com­mit­tees of each juris­dic­tion on pri­or­i­ties for FAA reau­tho­ri­sa­tion that will sup­port the launch of this sec­tor with invest­ments and infra­struc­ture and con­gres­sion­al over­sight of the FAA’s upcom­ing Spe­cial Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion.”

NBAA is focussed on ensur­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry process moves for­ward in a time­ly way to reduce com­mer­cial risks and ensure inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness. A key chal­lenge in achiev­ing nec­es­sary mile­stones is the FAA’s abil­i­ty to hire and retain a work­force with the right tech­ni­cal exper­tise.

A Jan­u­ary AAM Round­table meet­ing fea­tured con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate, and high-lev­el FAA and Depart­ment of Ener­gy offi­cials.

In 2022, the NBAA AAM Round­table advo­cat­ed for two key mea­sures that were signed into law. S. 516, the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Coor­di­na­tion and Lead­er­ship Act, requires the Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion to estab­lish an advanced air mobil­i­ty inter­a­gency work­ing group to review and exam­ine fac­tors that will allow the mat­u­ra­tion of the AAM ecosys­tem with­in the US and devel­op an AAM nation­al strat­e­gy.

It also sup­port­ed the Advanced Avi­a­tion Infra­struc­ture Mod­erni­sa­tion Act (AAIM Act) estab­lish­ing US Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (DOT) grants to assist state, local and trib­al gov­ern­ments and oth­er enti­ties in plan­ning infra­struc­ture to sup­port AAM oper­a­tions.

Found­ing mem­bers of NBAA’s AAM Round­table include Joby Avi­a­tion, Lil­i­um, Wisk, BETA Tech­nolo­gies, Super­nal and Hill­wood Avi­a­tion, with Overair join­ing ear­li­er this year.