FAA nominates Phil Washington as Next Administrator

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) has nom­i­nat­ed Phillip Wash­ing­ton as its next admin­is­tra­tor, not­ing the val­ue of hav­ing a con­firmed admin­is­tra­tor for pro­vid­ing con­sis­tent lead­er­ship at the agency.

Wash­ing­ton has served as CEO of Den­ver Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (DEN), Colorado’s largest com­mer­cial air­port and the coun­try’s third-largest air­port by pas­sen­ger count, since July 2021.

In 2009, Wash­ing­ton was named CEO of the Den­ver Region­al Trans­porta­tion Dis­trict after serv­ing as the pub­lic trans­porta­tion service’s assis­tant gen­er­al man­ag­er since 1999.

He lat­er led the Los Ange­les Coun­ty Met­ro­pol­i­tan Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty (Metro) from March 2015 to May 2021, over­see­ing an agency of 11,000 employ­ees charged with trans­port­ing 1.2 mil­lion board­ing bus and rail pas­sen­gers dai­ly.

Under Washington’s lead­er­ship, in 2021 Metro was named to the Diver­si­ty­Inc Top 50 Employ­er com­pe­ti­tion for the first time in the agency’s his­to­ry.

He has also been hon­ored with the Los Ange­les Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s Eddy Award for out­stand­ing lead­er­ship in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and the Coro Crys­tal Eagle Award for lead­er­ship.

If con­firmed by the US Sen­ate, Wash­ing­ton would lead an agency of 45,000 peo­ple with an annu­al bud­get of $24 bil­lion. Cap­tain Bil­ly Nolen served as the FAA’s Act­ing Admin­is­tra­tor since April, fol­low­ing the retire­ment of pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tor Steve Dick­son.

The Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA) has wel­comed the nom­i­na­tion of Phil Wash­ing­ton. NBAA pres­i­dent and CEO Ed Bolen said: “We are pleased the admin­is­tra­tion has moved expe­di­tious­ly to offer a nom­i­nee for FAA admin­is­tra­tor.”

Wash­ing­ton is a 24-year vet­er­an of the US Army, retir­ing from active duty with the rank of Com­mand Sergeant Major. He is a dis­abled vet­er­an and was award­ed the Defense Supe­ri­or Ser­vice Medal, recog­nis­ing supe­ri­or mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice in a posi­tion of sig­nif­i­cant respon­si­bil­i­ty.

In 2020 and 2021, Wash­ing­ton co-chaired the Biden/Harris Infra­struc­ture Pol­i­cy Com­mit­tee and lat­er led the Biden/Harris Trans­porta­tion Tran­si­tion Teams. He holds a B.A. in Busi­ness from Colum­bia Col­lege, an M.A. in Man­age­ment from Web­ster Uni­ver­si­ty and is a grad­u­ate of the Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Kennedy School for Senior Exec­u­tives in State and Local Gov­ern­ment.

In March 2021, Joby Avi­a­tion appoint­ed for­mer FAA deputy and act­ing admin­is­tra­tor Dan Elwell to its Advi­so­ry Board, hav­ing been respon­si­ble for the safe­ty and effi­cien­cy of the world’s sin­gle largest aero­space sys­tem with over­sight of its multi­bil­lion-dol­lar NextGen air traf­fic con­trol mod­erni­sa­tion pro­gramme.

In July 2020, The FAA released its Con­cept of Oper­a­tions (ConOps) v1.0 for Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM), which describes the envi­sioned oper­a­tional envi­ron­ment that sup­ports the expect­ed growth of flight oper­a­tions in and around urban areas.