It seems the only hope for any new administration to quickly address aviation turmoil, especially the lagging NextGen deployment, is for the industry to convince the Executive Branch that aviation is a force multiplier to the economy in activity and jobs. The American Association of Airport Executives is already pushing for airport funding to be part of any stimulus package since airport construction equals high quality construction jobs.
“Eleven percent of GNP comes from air transportation and if that goes down five percent we have a big problem,” said Boeing’s Neil Planzer. “It is the perfect infrastructure to be an engine to redevelop the GNP. It is critical to transportation and the GNP and it will be critical for the administration to understand that. It will need to develop a strategy of what it can do in the first 100 days and the first four years. The next administration can pull out tons of costs from the system but it requires boldness of thought and action that we have been lacking in recent memory.”