#52 Paul Rinaldi, Air Traffic Management: Today's Realities and Tomorrow's Opportunities

[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to The Vertical Space, a podcast at the intersection of technology and flight. We are your hosts, Jim Barry, Peter Shannon and Luka Tomljenovic. And here we look at the most important forces shaping the market of advanced air mobility

[00:00:17] with a particular focus on why and how they matter to those building a business in this very exciting and growing industry. The FAA has a broken acquisition management system. They continue to do the same thing over and over and over again and think they're going

[00:00:35] to get a different result. You name our technology, it's broken across the board. Control is love new technology if new technology is going to help them but they haven't even seen new technology come on board. Perfect example is our information systems in our towers.

[00:00:51] We're talking about very busy facilities using an information system on a 386 computer and I'm not kidding. I mean you have stickers in very busy facilities don't turn this monitor off because if you turn it off the technician doesn't know if he can get it to turn back on.

[00:01:07] They're using floppy disks to update some of our information system. Yes, floppy disks. We're still walking around with paper strips. So when you look at this and you say well there's so much new technology out there

[00:01:19] and you're right there is we're unable to bring it to our facilities because it gets caught up in this procurement acquisition system that is just broken. Hey everyone, welcome back to the vertical space and a talk with Paul Rinaldi, president of Rinaldi Consultants.

[00:01:40] And Paul served as the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, NECA for over 10 years. Listen I couldn't wait for this discussion with Paul and you'll enjoy our talk I think for a few reasons.

[00:01:50] One, I believe how we integrate aircraft, drones and air traxies into the vertical and perhaps the horizontal space will be more challenging than most realize. That is we build things that fly those who haven't spent their time around air traffic tend to minimize the complexity of integration.

[00:02:05] Paul shed some light here. A lot has to be done to improve today's air transportation system. There is low hanging fruit that will allow us to increase flights, reduce delays and reduce flying times. Paul spends a fair amount of time talking about the improvements

[00:02:18] that can be made to today's air traffic system. And three, we can speed the deployment and the use cases of vehicles flying in the vertical space by addressing the reality of the air traffic control and management head on. Being ignorant of or pretending that the challenges don't exist

[00:02:32] or discounting the current system as something we're just going to have to change with AI or tech is minimizing the importance of what's being done today. The emphasis on safety and the opportunities to improve today's system for opportunities of tomorrow.

[00:02:44] Paul spends a lot of time in this area. When we decided to speak about air traffic, we first searched for the best person to give us a foundation. And Paul Rinaldi's name came up more than any other. Paul is the voice of today's reality.

[00:02:57] In his crystal clear messaging, he speaks to the way it is in air traffic. And by fully understanding the current state of air traffic, he helps to pave a way for the opportunities for modernization from technology that was already approved and purchased 10 years ago

[00:03:10] that has yet to be fully implemented like TFDM to technology today that could be improve our system to opportunities for tomorrow as we integrate all things into the vertical space. Paul is also the voice of tomorrow.

[00:03:21] Paul is an extraordinary NACA leader and is a great leader for today's innovations because he also finds common ground to a better solution. Luca even asked Paul why he believes in ideas that are not often tied to labor or unions.

[00:03:33] And it's just one of the traits that makes Paul special. He finds common ground to improve our system. That's his reputation for today's system and for tomorrow's system. I know Paul just a bit, but I've known of Paul for over 20 years

[00:03:45] and I've admired his clarity of thought, his clear messaging, his intelligence and toughness, and his ability to work with anyone and everyone. I will also say that talking to Paul reminds me of the many air traffic

[00:03:56] and traffic optimization experts I know and have known and worked with throughout the years. They like Paul are super competent, direct talking, passionate leaders who understand that safety first is immovable. They have helped to make our air traffic system what it is today

[00:04:10] and will be at the foundation of a better, perhaps more automated system of tomorrow. Paul, thanks for joining us and to our guests. Enjoy this special treat as you listen to Paul Rinaldi as you innovate and innovate air traffic in the vertical space.

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[00:04:58] flying safer and move your platform forward into shared airspace. A strategic and respected senior leader with vast experience in air traffic control, aviation and government. Paul Rinaldi is president of Rinaldi consultants and served as the president of the National Air Traffic Control Association

[00:05:20] for over 10 years, working with stakeholders. Paul led involvement in every developing and testing detail for the next generation air transportation system or next gen and F a led matterization of America's air transportation system to make flying safer, more efficient and more predictable.

[00:05:35] And to the enroute automation, modernization or Iran, the F a air traffic control system designed to enable use of future capabilities to efficiently handled traffic growth and safeguard a more stable and supportable system. Paul testified 17 times before the House and Senate committees

[00:05:51] on a wide range of issues, advocated for the issues most important to NACA and aviation safety and represented NACA in every medium. He is a speaker at industry events and conferences nationally and internationally as they recipient of significant awards,

[00:06:03] serves on the executive council, the AFL CIO and an active member of industry advisory councils and the Boy Scouts of America. Paul Rinaldi, what a great pleasure to have you on the vertical space. Welcome. The honor is mine. I'm happy to be here.

[00:06:17] So, Paul, we on this talk, we want to give a broad perspective on the US air traffic system. And obviously for a lot of our listeners, they are really concerned about the integration of all things flying UAS, EVTEL and the like as it enters the US airspace.

[00:06:40] And there are fewer. In fact, I don't think there's any better person to talk to on this topic than you. So we just want to make sure that you can help educate and inform our listeners on what they're about to experience.

[00:06:55] And we want to be able to get your expertise on how this integration could all occur. So we're really looking forward to this. Now, we've got to ask you the same first question we ask everybody, Paul.

[00:07:07] And my guess is you're going to be able to this is a good one for you. Is there anything that very few in the industry agree with you on? You know, I think that the aviation industry is kind of built

[00:07:19] with a whole bunch of subset groups that have their parochial issues. So whatever issue I would be on or whatever side it would be on an issue, there's always and there's always a coalition you can you can surround yourself with.

[00:07:34] But, you know, there's a lot of issues that are 5050 for sure. Well, you got to give us a little more than that, Paul. So all right, let me poke here a little bit. There will be some who will be listening right now and say, you know,

[00:07:49] you're talking to a person with obviously a distinguished past in many areas. But as a union leader and a great one at that, they may feel that you have a perspective here that may be unjustifiably biased.

[00:08:02] But as people are listening right now, what do you think they may be thinking because of your past in a very strong labor and union past? Where would you say some people listening may say he's going to say some things that may be a little bit controversial?

[00:08:19] That's a fair question. I think thinking that I am your quintessential labor leader, so to speak, you know, like cut from the mold. I'm not. I really focus on win-wins for everybody when I work issues. And sometimes I look at some of the other unions around the country.

[00:08:38] I sat on the AFL-CIO Executive Council for over 12 years, and it's there's not a sometimes there's just not a win-win situation. There's there's no compromise at all. And I get very frustrated with that. So Paul, when you think about some of your recent battles,

[00:08:56] what were some of the examples where your thoughts diverged the most from consensus? Well, I mean, I go back to the 2018 actually even goes back in for the 2016-18 at the reauthorization issue of trying to pull out the ATO, the air traffic organization and forming a structure,

[00:09:17] a separate structure with stable predictable funding. Because, you know, I looked at where we are in our aviation system and I have relationships around the world with the air traffic controllers. I sit on the Global Alliance and I know the UK system pretty well,

[00:09:36] the Canadian system very well. And it just so they were able to adapt to new technology and able to focus on new entrants while we're still struggling to bring any technology on. And I knew that had to be a better way.

[00:09:51] So I stood up for some will call me privatization. Paul, it wasn't a privatization issue as much as it was. Let's find a structure that works for this country so we can have the most robust aviation system in a while.

[00:10:05] This topic of privatizing ATC and I'm using privatized in air quotes has come up in our podcast several times now. Why is it such a contentious issue? Can you unpack this a little bit more for our audience? What are the arguments in favor and against?

[00:10:19] Well, if you look around the world, most of the civilized countries that have a robust aviation system have their ANSP, their air navigation service provider, separated from the oversight function of safety function, the rulemaking policy function. And they've pulled away from that so that they can run this

[00:10:39] what I would call a commercial activity of the moving of airplanes through your airspace, you know, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year around the clock and really just focus on the operation.

[00:10:55] Now, it becomes a very hotbed issue, obviously, because we are government employees and there are certain protections with government employees. And certainly, you know, those would think that, you know, some in the AFLC, I won't certainly some in the FAA and some in government

[00:11:13] were pushing back saying it's best to keep this in government. And that might have been true probably in the 80s and the 90s. But when you look at the struggles that we have had of modernizing flat budgets of FAA reauthorization problems, 23 extensions,

[00:11:31] we looked at it for one FAA bill. You start looking at those problems and you go, there's legitimately no way to actually modernize the system and build new facilities. It's just the money is not there. Although it generates a ton of money.

[00:11:47] It's not being used to enhance the system. So Paul, as we think about it, it's a great topic and boy, this was hot a couple of years ago, right? I believe it will be hot again soon. Very good. So why?

[00:11:59] If you look at 2018 where this aviation system was and we could blame COVID on some of the things, but not all of the problems we have. You know, and you'd look at where this system was in 2018 to where

[00:12:10] it is today in 2023 as they're working on a new FAA reauthorization bill and there's no discussion about this. So getting back to actually, I just answered your first question. Who who actually is there a topic that most people don't, you know,

[00:12:24] line up with you on this is probably one of them. I believe there has to be some type of pivot, some type of shift, some type of restructuring of the ATO and the FAA and the funding stream to survive as an aviation system in this country.

[00:12:38] OK, very good. So let's just continue to unpill this just a little bit and we'll do a shift in just a minute. So two things, Paul. One, what has most been affected? We've had, by the way, we've had many guests on this show who are

[00:12:53] very big supporters of what you're saying. Right. What has been most affected from the national airspace system perspective by not privatizing four years ago when this was quite hot? If we privatized or went to, let's say, corporatized

[00:13:09] or a new structure for an A&S P in this country. If we did that, we would have a stream through the trust fund of funding. We would be able to streamline our acquisition system to really buy things off the shelf and start modernizing our facilities,

[00:13:28] maybe even possibly approaching some of these facilities with the airports and getting new towers, getting new radar rooms, certainly getting looking at our in-route environment. These buildings are over 60 years old now. And what are we going to do with them at this point?

[00:13:43] They spend so much money just to keep them up and running. There's no reason to have. I know this is not a hotbed issue. There's no reason to have 21 in-route centers in our country,

[00:13:52] but you're not going to be able to take one out of out of a legislative district. Right. So there are what could we have done better? The people that are anti against us said, look, nobody lost their job during COVID because we were still in government.

[00:14:06] And I go, I don't really buy that as we were running the FAA system because normally the FAA is funded by about 92 to 93 percent through through the trust fund, through the airport and Airways Trust Fund. And that was that was empty.

[00:14:23] They didn't feed it out there on COVID. Obviously people were applying. So the FAA had to be funded 100 percent through a general fund of Congress, in essence, a bailout through the general fund as they did and help the airlines, helped other industries, the restaurants.

[00:14:40] They would have kept their air traffic control system up and running and nobody would have lost their job. So let's say we had corporatized privatized four years ago. What effect would it conceivably have had on advanced air mobility so far

[00:14:54] and what potentially could could would help with going forward? Yeah. So I think the rulemaking would still be in the legacy FAA or in the authority. So they'd still be struggling through the policy and the rulemaking.

[00:15:08] But I think that we would have more of an open attempt to introduce these new vehicles into the system. I find that around the world, while they really bend over backwards for the operation because the app of operation feeds the A&S P

[00:15:23] because there's a user fee and that boy, that's another, you know, that's a hot button for me to talk about a user fee, general aviation and business aviation. But and I'm not saying they should pay a user fee, but I would say

[00:15:34] you have an FAA structure today that spends a lot of time on these new things, whether it is Evie Tals, whether it is drones, whether it's commercial space. And for lack of a better term, they're paying nothing into the aviation system.

[00:15:51] And, you know, the legacy users of the system, whether it's general aviation or or business or commercial are paying into the system. And there seems to be, there has to be a way you can bridge these new entrants to pay their own way.

[00:16:07] And I don't know what that is. And I know that could be a very hot topic, but they have to pay into the system the way everyone else is paying into the system. So they have access to the system.

[00:16:16] And I think that that's a big hang up right there. Luke and Peter, this could be a great topic for a podcast in and of itself. But it's interesting, Paul, you're you're actually advocating that this may be the best time to make that transition,

[00:16:30] you know, to what we were discussing four or five years ago, where some of our guests think it could be dead for the next several years for a variety of reasons. It may even I'm putting words in your mouth now, so stop me if I'm wrong.

[00:16:41] There may even be a better integration of advanced air mobility. However, albeit they may be paying more than what maybe some people are thinking. But there may be a faster integration, not on the regulatory side, but there may be a faster integration.

[00:16:55] In fact, if we were more corporatized or privatized. Yeah, if we were more driven by the service we're providing, I would see that the management group that's running the A&S P would do as much as they possibly could to get these vehicles once certified.

[00:17:09] And once all the legalities are done, get them in there and start the you know, start that flow of revenue coming into the aviation system. Because that's the way you're going to grow. And that's the way you're going to modernize this system.

[00:17:23] And I do believe most people don't think now is the time to look at this. Obviously, you look at the FAA Reauthorization Bill. Nobody's really talking about this. You don't have a champion in the TNI like you did with Chairman Schuster.

[00:17:37] But I will tell you there's nobody that will tell you the system is better today than it was in 2018. And unfortunately, when we get to two, if this is going to be a five year FAA Reauthorization Bill and when we get to 2028

[00:17:50] is the pain of the current system going to hurt more than actually changing to a new system. And that's I think that's when it will happen. It's going to happen. It's just at what pain point are we going to say we've got to do something different?

[00:18:04] Well, right now everybody's just OK. It's not great, but we'll work on making it better. But making it better is not flat budgets. It's not preparing for a shutdown on October 1st that didn't happen. And now, you know, starting programs back up, but very,

[00:18:22] very cautiously knowing that November 17th is coming and we're looking at another shutdown and now there's no speaker of the House. All of these things are very important to the United States. But aviation and modernizing our aviation system should not be held

[00:18:38] hostage to the political wins that are going on. This is an economic engine for our country. It's a jobs machine. And this should not be held as hostage constantly through congressional battles. You know, Paul, as we're hearing your arguments, it appears that you are

[00:18:55] in favor of privatizing the system. And if you had asked me prior to the start of this recording, I would have guessed that with your union background that you would be opposed to something like this. Well, it's interesting. Each union has, you know, they have their own operation,

[00:19:12] their own members, their own understanding. We're a safety function running the safest, most efficient system in the world. They are a traffic control system in the world. It's so diverse. You can't compare us to anybody else.

[00:19:23] But when you do your homework and you look around the world and you look where the Canadian system was in the 1990s and you look at the union actually went to pitch a type of corporate structure to come away from

[00:19:40] the government because there was the controllers who weren't getting paid properly. They certainly modernization. There was no new equipment. They were struggling and, you know, they asked for it. And you look at the UK system and the controllers union for it.

[00:19:55] But you asked them today and they'll be like, we would never go back to a new system. This is this is the best system for us, even though they were against it when it happened.

[00:20:04] So I have the luxury of learning from these other labor leaders in air traffic control. Air traffic control is a very unique profession. And I had the luxury of learning from them all. And the one thing they all said to me is be at the table.

[00:20:18] Don't be on the menu. Make sure you're in the room discussing what you need to protect the workforce, protect the operation so that if you're on the outside looking in, you never know what's going to happen. And even though even if the best intentions were from the congressional

[00:20:34] people were done, it doesn't mean they're going to cover the operation because they don't know the operation like air traffic controls know the operation. So yes, most unions would be against something like this.

[00:20:46] But I think when you look at air traffic control unions and you look that most of them have gone to some type of hybrid system away from the oversight regulatory function, you look at that and go, yeah, we get it.

[00:20:58] This is why you would want to do this. Listen, right now where we're shortest we've ever been in certified controllers in 20 years, traffic is growing. We're shrinking the aviation system instead of growing the aviation system around this country. There are so many problems you look at it.

[00:21:15] You have these new users that have been knocking at the door for for years and can't get in and something has to change. It's just you just can't continue. Its status quo is unacceptable. And yes, the FAA bills, they're good bills, but you have this

[00:21:32] overlying issue over the aviation system of aging infrastructure. You have aging platforms that were they were new 25 years ago and technology is evolving so quickly in this government agency can't keep up on the evolution of technology or try to even implement new technology on a real time basis.

[00:21:53] There's a fight constantly to push back on modern facilities or modern technology such as digital towers or some some call those remote towers, the rest of the world is learning to adapt with them and use them. And the technology is fantastic.

[00:22:08] And we're still struggling on how to just we have to shut down all of our programs because Congress has been a shutdown on October 1. It's not sustainable. Who would let's say you're going to organize three people to help lead the charge and get it done in three years?

[00:22:24] Who would three people be towards corporatization? Well, you certainly would have to get the current president of the union, which I know he's he's not he's not a fan of it because he hasn't felt the pain yet.

[00:22:35] He hasn't. But he's starting to with the first shutdown and the next shutdown coming, you would have to get you'd have to get the unions on board for sure. You'd have to get legacy FAA leaders that know the system.

[00:22:49] You know, the Randy Bavitz, the David Grizzles, the Michael Werters and Dan Elwell that have been the most recent leaders of the system in knowing that it's struggling. And then you you'd have to get the airlines for sure.

[00:23:02] And fourth, you'd have to find a way to make business aviation and general aviation comfortable with the idea and that it would be better for them in the long run. And those are the those are the four corners. You kind of have to bring them all together.

[00:23:18] I don't think we're there yet because the pain is not the pain is not officially there yet. It's starting to get there. The airlines are starting to feel the pain. You know, the air traffic control lose in the FAA keeps talking

[00:23:30] about their 3000 behind it, 3000 behind to run legacy system. They're not 3000 behind to allow all these air taxis into the system to start integrating drones into the system to have commercial space launches, you know, on a regular basis, not just on a weekly basis.

[00:23:47] A couple of times a day. All of these things are what the future holds. But the FAA is not there yet. Paul, you've had a unique perspective as a former frontline controller, labor leader, obviously of a large group of aviation professionals, collaborator with FAA leadership and a new

[00:24:04] entrant advisor, which you are today. Given all your experience and how do you pull that experience together when thinking about the best path forward to ensure our national airspace system, which obviously is a national treasure and is extraordinary at what it does continues to

[00:24:20] lead the world in safety, you know, capacity to expand and efficiency. But listen, I'm 100 percent. I love our national aviation system. It has been I mean, it's been so good to me and so I'm so good to my friends and it is a system.

[00:24:36] It is a treasure and we need to we need to really develop this treasure and continue for it to grow. You know, when when Joe be reached out to me, the first thing I thought was why don't I didn't know much about them.

[00:24:50] And when I start looking up that that company and getting to know Joe then and talking to some of their leaders like Bonnie send me in great bowls. I went, yeah, this is the right spot. They have they have the right approach. They have a piloted vehicle.

[00:25:05] They want to integrate in the current system. They want to talk to air traffic controllers. Before that there was a whole bunch of while I was present. There was a whole bunch of companies that were saying, no, we're not going to need air traffic.

[00:25:16] So we're going to self separate. We're going to do all this. No, you need the controllers to to put some type of order semblance and safety into the operation. So Joe be was, you know, to me was was the perfect fit.

[00:25:28] So you've said a couple of things there that we want to peel back just a bit. It's you've talked first of all about people who you talk about piloted vehicles. And my guess is that you feel there's a role for automation in the future.

[00:25:39] But we can talk about that because obviously, Joe be has talked about the potential automation of future. And there are many who would say you're not going to get to the profitability that they're expecting to have without a more complete automation.

[00:25:53] Number two, you talked about talking to controllers and, you know, given the mission of Joe be, you know, they see that mission is very much coexistent with routes that today where people talk to controllers. So my guess is an awful lot of the existing E V tall companies

[00:26:10] that have similar missions that you would equally support. Oh, sure. Absolutely. And listen, I think that I guess when we say piloted vehicles, we should say this is the new term of art that I just learned habit it or inhabit it, right?

[00:26:24] Because you could pilot the vehicle from the ground and that's not what Joe is going to be doing. Joey is going to have an actual pilot, a person sitting in the cockpit flying that vehicle. But there are there are listen, there's a lot of great programs out there.

[00:26:40] There's a lot of technology being involved. There's a lot of things going on with, you know, automation, automated flight. I don't think we're there yet. I think you have to push the envelope so you can get there just like anything else.

[00:26:53] If you just keep fighting it with no, you're never going to get there. So you have to push and think about it. Obviously, you have a big battle with the pilot unions because, you know, they they don't believe in

[00:27:05] don't believe in one person in the cockpit, never mind no person in the cockpit. Right. So that that's one thing you have to you have to overcome and work with and try to coalesce them, so to speak.

[00:27:16] But no, there's a lot of companies out there and doing a lot of great things. But to me, you know, Joey just they were the right fit. Paul, before we have a conversation about the opportunities to innovate and broadly our traffic management, taking a step back

[00:27:30] from advanced air mobility, but just looking at the current state of affairs, you highlighted a few issues as it relates to personnel, the supply challenges, antiquated infrastructure, etc., etc. What other bottlenecks exist? Obvious flaws other than the ones that you mentioned in the air traffic

[00:27:51] management system, in the national airspace system that leads you to believe that we are approaching capacity limits. What are those bottlenecks and what impact are they having on air traffic? Well, that's a great question. And, you know, if you look at currently with the FAA and airlines

[00:28:08] are doing in the New York area and some of the airports on the East Coast that have, you know, a slot program, they're allowing the airlines to pull back on the slots because they just don't have enough controllers to operate at peak performance.

[00:28:23] So in essence, we're talking about growing an aviation system and we're actually shrinking it as we speak. And you look at the challenges that we have with down down the East Coast going to Florida routes from from the Northeast to Florida.

[00:28:37] The challenges we have with the airspace, whether it is a commercial space launch or it's, you know, DoD doing air exercises and the limited airspace that we have and how everything needs to be funneled through there. There has to be more dynamic way of looking at things

[00:28:52] because, you know, we're struggling. Describe this in a little bit more detail, please. The process of allocating slots, the process of managing the flow of aircraft of spacecraft, get us a few layers deeper so that the audience really understands the core of the issue.

[00:29:06] If I may jump in, I think the one thing you said, among many, what was very important is when you consider the slots into New York and the allocation of the slots and you're saying that the airlines are not able to optimize those because of the labor shortage.

[00:29:20] I mean, come on, that's a big deal. Oh, it's a huge deal. And you look at it and and it's not just the airlines saying they can't do it, the FAs asking them not to because the FAs realizing they don't have enough controllers

[00:29:32] to maximize the amount of slots for the airports in New York. A lot of it has to do with New York Traycon, but it's not New York Traycon alone. I mean, many of our facilities are short-staffed. New York Center also has some short-staffed issues

[00:29:46] and some training issues that they're struggling also. You know, when you look at our facilities being around 55 percent, it's really hard to say you're going to run full speed ahead at 55 percent. It's just not it's not possible. Paul, what's the connection between personnel and slot allocation?

[00:30:02] Well, the connection between having your full allocated air traffic controls, let's just say for the shift, you're supposed to have 16 air traffic controllers and you're going to be able to open all 10 positions with those 16 bodies being able to work an hour, an hour and a half or so

[00:30:19] and then giving them a half hour break. And I'm clear to head and get back in there and work a different sector. The connection is now instead of 16, you only have eight. So you can't open up all those 10 positions.

[00:30:30] So now you only open up six positions with those eight bodies. And sometimes only four positions with those eight bodies to make sure they get proper breaks and certainly to make sure you're running a safe, efficient flow.

[00:30:43] But at the end of the day, capacity, you have to decrease the capacity because you don't have the ability to open up all those positions. So Paul here, and so some of our listeners, this is this is a significant deal for again, traditional aviation.

[00:30:58] So there's two things, correct me, Paul, where I'm wrong here. If this is anticipated in advance and the airlines know that there is going to be a shortage of labor, what they're doing is they're pulling back on their

[00:31:10] schedule, whereas they should be able to bring in a lot more flights per hour. If you're talking about 20, 30, 40 percent reduction on the labor side. Are you also talking about a corresponding reduction 20, 30, 40 percent in the schedule for, you know, LaGuardia, JFK and the like? It's a great question.

[00:31:29] And I don't think it's an even, you know, 30 percent less controls or 30 percent less flights. Yeah. What you're looking at is your peaks, you know, you have a rival banks, you have departure banks. Are you able to accommodate a departure bank and being able to open

[00:31:42] up both departure sectors for that airport and both arrival sectors and two finals? Right. So you have to see exactly what your allocation is. The airlines are pulling back on their schedule somewhere around 10 to 15 percent. They're pulling back because the recovery, you know, we've watched

[00:32:00] somebody's severe storms come through, you know, a line of thunderstorms from, you know, Mexico through Canada coming through and, you know, really disrupting aviation. The recovery takes so much longer because you don't have the ability to open up those positions.

[00:32:16] So there's three things going on here, Paul, that could be affected by the shortage. One is a pullback in the schedule if they anticipate an advance. And you're saying that is happening. Number two, during off schedule operations, usually due to weather

[00:32:29] and the like with the delays, when you're not staffed up, there's far greater delays than would be necessary because of the shortage of the controllers. And then number three, the recovery takes a lot longer as well. Those three things are go right hand in hand with the reduction

[00:32:46] of air traffic controls. Oh, you're running at 50 percent. COVID still exists. The flu exists. Things, you know, you work in very tight quarters. You work side by side and touch each other's equipment all the time.

[00:32:59] You know, your keyboards, all you have to do is have, you know, a cold and an air traffic control taking anything stronger than a Tylenol has to get away from the flight surgeon before they even credential to come in to work.

[00:33:12] So all of this just kind of adds up to we've got a problem and we've got to figure out how to fix this problem with the air traffic control shortage. So the pain points that you're describing, and I would love to learn

[00:33:23] what additional things limit throughput in the NAS today. And to what extent the phenomena that you're describing is local to the Northeast as opposed to being relevant to the rest of the country. However, it seems like what you're describing would create an opportunity

[00:33:39] for technology solutions to come in and fix the pain. To what extent is this happening? And how open is the system to new technology? Well, I mean, that's a whole separate podcast in itself. But I'll kind of give you the greatest digest version, I guess, is

[00:33:58] listen, the FAA has a broken acquisition management system. They continue to do the same thing over and over and over again and think they're going to get a different result. And you name our technology, it's broken across the board.

[00:34:13] What controllers love new technology, if new technology is going to help them. But they haven't even seen new technology come on board. Perfect example is our information systems in our towers. We're talking about very busy facilities using an information system on a 386 computer. And I'm not kidding.

[00:34:33] I mean, you have stickers in very busy facilities. Don't turn this monitor off because if you turn it off, the technician doesn't know if he can get it to turn back on. They're using floppy disks to update some of our information system. Yes, floppy disk.

[00:34:48] We're still walking around with paper strips. So when you look at this and you say, well, there's so much new technology out there on your right, there is. We're unable to bring it to our facilities because it gets caught up

[00:35:00] in this procurement acquisition system that is just broken. I mean, if you just look at the terminal flight data management system alone, right, that's supposed to bring us electronic flight strips in our facilities. It's supposed to give us traffic flow information.

[00:35:16] It's supposed to be collaborative decision for surface decisions to be made. It's supposed to consolidate all these systems together again, too big of a program. And oh, it's going to be the greatest thing we have. There's controllers that are working on it.

[00:35:29] They went from that's going to be an 89 facilities deployed by 2022 starting the deployment and being done by 2027. OK, COVID happened. So let's take the COVID time out of there. But right now I think we're looking somewhere in the 30s.

[00:35:47] If it gets deployed, you know, 2035 and keep in mind that'll be a 20 year old piece of technology that they built. And more importantly, instead of 89 facilities because of contract overruns, you're now down to like 40 something facilities. And by the time you start deploying it,

[00:36:04] there'll be somewhere around maybe 10 or 15 facilities. If someone doesn't come in and go, oh my gosh, we just spent a billion, a billion five on this program and it's piece of junk. We have to we have to scrap it and start over again.

[00:36:17] Paul, that was example I just gave you has happened time and time and time again on many, many, many programs. And it just continues to go there. And I don't blame Congress for going, well, we got to give the F8 more money because the system is broken.

[00:36:34] That's why if you give them more money, you're not going to get better results. That's the biggest problem. TFTM I think was awarded about 10 years ago. And it was one of the programs with the most clear, significant and measurable value to the system.

[00:36:48] And you're saying it's potentially delayed. A lot of it's delayed several more years. Delayed several more years. You know, I don't I think they started to deploy it in one facility and as major problems and they're going back to drawing board.

[00:37:01] It's it really is it's problematic when the rest of the A&S P is that I described that went, you know, some type of corporate structure would buy something right off the shelf and put it in there. I mean, the Canadian exceeds program is around the world

[00:37:15] and seems to work wonders for controllers and watched controllers work it and it's wonderful. But in our facilities and brand new towers that they built to have electronic flight strips, they had to put printers on underneath the counter so that's flight strips will come out

[00:37:30] so that the ground control can hand the local control of flight strip. It's it's bizarre that we're still doing this. They're still handing off paper flight strips and there's in those little chalks from position to position. Wow. Wow. Sometimes they can't use those little chalks because they

[00:37:47] they made the countertop some places like the brand new San Francisco Tower. They made the countertop so small so they can't use the so the controller has just the paper lined up in front of it. And if something happens, someone sneezes, you never know.

[00:38:02] Right. I mean, it's just it's absurd what's going on there. And yet these controllers day in and day out to an amazing job of running the amount of traffic they run and a safety system that they run. And it is hurtling over.

[00:38:17] There's no technology helping them at all. So Paul, given your understanding of this, the process, what do you see as the technologies that are kind of the lowest hanging fruit that could alleviate the current pain and that could actually get through an adoption process?

[00:38:33] Well, the interesting thing now I think the FAA that people talk about fix on fail, the FAA is that fix on fail mode on most of their legacy systems. You know, there's no maintenance going on. And it's even worse than that.

[00:38:47] It's it's not even fixed on fail because if it fails, how much of an impact negative impact will it have on the mass? And we have equipment that's down that they just will get around to it. We don't have the parts. We got it.

[00:39:00] We have to try to cannibalize parts from other other systems to try to rebuild it. So when we look at the new technology out there and you look at the Canadian system and the Skysoft and Skyguide, the Switzerland system, they have an AI function

[00:39:16] that actually can give the controllers a tool of conflict resolution. And, you know, before the it's even airborne, right? I mean, you could resolve these issues and you just go, you know, we're not close to getting there when we can't even get, you know, an electronic flight strip.

[00:39:31] So that there's technology out there. But to say low hanging fruit of technology, we just need to stabilize our current technology. And, you know, when we talk about new entrants, how in the world are they going to fit into this, you know, current technology? Because it's it's antiquated.

[00:39:47] And Paul, do you see the future of air traffic control communications remaining as voice? Or do you see, you know, even the limited use of data links today expanding alongside that in some way? What is that going to happen? And if so, what does that path look like?

[00:40:06] Well, I would love to see it happen. All of these things that we talk about bring a new technology on and training controllers on this new technology takes bodies, right? And in many of our facilities, we don't have extra bodies sitting around

[00:40:20] to then go come off the boards and go into training for a week or so to learn new data links and how to do these new procedures. We just don't have the ability to do that without hurting the operation.

[00:40:32] So we're hyper focused on the operation first, for obvious reasons, the safety of the system and certainly the efficiency of it. That's first and foremost. So the monetization comes after, but you have to you have to get the controller ranks up to where they need to be there.

[00:40:48] They're so far behind of our current system. And you talk about the new entrance, we need so many more controllers. And I know the secretary said something about three thousand more controls. I think I think three thousand more controls is just to get us

[00:41:01] healthy enough to run the current system and modernize the current system, not the new legacy engines. I may be naive in asking this question, but I'm trying to get to the root of why the acquisition process is so broken.

[00:41:16] People must be looking around and recognizing the floppy disks and three to six PCs and monitors that you can turn off. They must look at this and have the same realization as we on this podcast. So where is the leadership here?

[00:41:33] And how do we continue growing the system with this kind of acquisition system in place? What needs to happen for some things to change? Well, that's one of the reasons I stood up for, we'll just call it privatization is because I know a private entity that's being funded

[00:41:50] through a system would not allow this to happen. They would actually develop a different procurement and acquisition system and be able to bring equipment online. So if you look at Nav Canada is roughly around before COVID, they were roughly around 24 or 30 months of development, testing

[00:42:11] and deploying new equipment. We're we're in years, if we're lucky, if we get to it, right? If it actually deployed. So in 1996, here's the ironic thing is in the FAA Reauthorization Bill of 1996, they did a revamp of the procurement

[00:42:32] acquisition system for the FAA because if you remember back then, you know, Al Gore stood up with vacuum tubes and said, we have to we have to advance our aviation system. We have to do this in a more streamlined way.

[00:42:44] And then, you know, I applaud them in 1996, they identified that they needed a new, you know, management acquisition system that we're going to develop on. But all they did is just mirror what they already had in government just made layers on top of layers.

[00:42:57] You know, we're, you know, 28 years down the road or 27 years down the road and you're looking go, it really didn't. They have the capability of doing it. They just don't do it. You want to talk about low hanging fruit before go change this,

[00:43:11] go do something different, build and don't have to build everything. You could buy off the shelf. There's companies that are building this around the world and it's working and you could get it to fit into our system.

[00:43:23] On the topic of low hanging fruit, I've also heard that there is upwards of maybe low double digit percent improvements in the efficiency of the system that we could realize by just streamlining air traffic management and the flow of aircraft, either with

[00:43:40] optimal cruise altitudes or constant descends, more streamlined approach and departure paths. Why is that so difficult to achieve? I think you really come down to deploying new procedures and equipment, take spotty's. We did some of it, natural flex changes around the country

[00:43:59] used to be in one of them. We did optimal descent profiles. We did a lot of that and some is still in place, but it's just that's just a little step in the right direction. Part of the performance based navigation and R&F, you know, part

[00:44:13] of that as an equipage issue as well. Absolutely. Why wouldn't the FAA share the data for third parties to carry some of that burden? Well, I think that you've met the FAA and it is. I always say the FAA has got really good people at the top,

[00:44:31] the leaders and then the operational people are fantastic. The controls are amazing. Technicians are amazing. They make whatever it is, they find a way to make it work. From the operation to the top, there's 15, 16 layers of people that have to make their professional value the owned.

[00:44:52] And there is a, it's a constant roadblock. I used to say this 15 nodes before you can get to a yes, you got to drive through the nodes to get to the yes. I'm going to try to turn this beast in another direction and

[00:45:02] it's not going to be easy. I will say with potential Michael Whitaker at the helm, I think things are going to improve. And I know you think well, Mike is well, Paul, but let's do this. Let's assume that some of the issues that we've talked

[00:45:17] about today either re-stabilized or, you know, we get more controllers and let's say there's a level of corporatization that you're really happy with, Paul. And so let's assume that's taken place to some degree. And we have all of these new entrants that are coming into

[00:45:31] the system and will come into the system. And let's say you're the czar of advanced air mobility. What would you implement that would help to ensure the smooth and efficient integration of drones and eVTALs into the space? What's kind of telling me your top of mind thoughts?

[00:45:49] So eVTALs, for sure, I've given this guidance certainly to Joby and anyone else that has asked you got to crawl, then you can walk, then you can fly. Right? You have to do it slow. And do you think you're going to be 70 eVTALs out of LAX on

[00:46:08] an hour? And that's how you that's the business plan. That's going to take years to get there, right? You have to control is have to build trust. The passengers have to build trust of these vehicles. And certainly, yeah, you have to understand the value to it.

[00:46:22] I think you have to use the legacy routes that we have. I mean, that's something that I've been really focused on and focusing on talking to air traffic control and developing that trust between the controllers and the pilots of these vehicles.

[00:46:36] And then I think once you develop that trust, then you can increase pretty quickly. I would think for eVTALs, it's it's an easier path to eVTALs with a pilot with drones. It's pretty fascinating, right? I would look at more of segregation for drones than

[00:46:54] I would integration because we don't have enough controls to work from a blade of grass up. I just don't. I mean, I know there are those zealous that said we will control everything from a, you know, a blade of grass up.

[00:47:07] And why would you want to do that? We don't have the technology. We certainly don't have the equipment. We don't have the bodies. So it's more of a segregation when I when it looks at, you know, drones beyond line of sight and it's more of knowing

[00:47:23] exactly where that drone can be in state. The drone staying at the commercial airspace and commercial airspace, staying at aircraft, staying out of the drones airspace, right? The interesting thing is someone asked me one day and I know, I know this might be a breach too

[00:47:38] far to think about now, but maybe there is a bifurcated system that everything that you need to run your current legacy system and your approach patch your your airport areas, your certainly your departure paths and everything from, you know, 700 feet above.

[00:47:56] You need to run your legacy system that stays within the current legacy system. And somehow the technology companies that have the ability build another ATM for the other systems to bifurcate that out. Now granted, that is futuristic, but I don't see

[00:48:13] this current legacy system getting there and they have been patient. They've been super patient to integrate and I just don't see integration as much as segregation. To me, the idea of segregating the airspace is a step backwards, especially given that drone operations at scale will not be managed

[00:48:31] by controllers. It will have to have significant levels of automation and safety layers on top. Having a system that is not fully integrated, where you can really take advantage of these new capabilities drones offer, that seems like a bit of a disappointing future, at least in my mind.

[00:48:51] Yeah, I mean, listen, you're certainly allowed to look at it as a disappointing future, but I think it's it's it's access to airspace you don't have right now. And it's the ability to segregate and start doing whether it's drone, whatever the if it's deliveries or technology, whatever the

[00:49:05] drone is doing. You're right, the controllers aren't going to be able to keep up with them. But if you're going to integrate it into airspace that controls controlling airspace and responsible for this vehicle that's flying around and they don't know what

[00:49:17] they're doing, I don't see how that ever integrates. Yeah, well, I'm mainly talking about the low flying drones. So the interesting thing with 400 feet, when I say that's segregation to me, just stay away from the arrival departure pads at the airport, stay away

[00:49:33] from the airport control area with that. And if you are bringing that drone into a controlled airspace, you would talk to a control of the remote pilot or whatever that is, that this vehicle has come in and making it going to be like right

[00:49:46] at the signature over your departure over your arrival runway. Then you would know what the aircraft is doing or that vehicle's doing. But if you're talking 400 feet below, that's what I talk about. We're not the controllers aren't in that airspace. We're not separating 400 feet below.

[00:50:00] I'm not worried about someone flying their kite or a blade of grass or just above the roof of my house. I'm on the arrival path of Dallas, that aircraft comes over 1500 feet. I'm not worried about 400 feet below, right? If I'm worried about that

[00:50:15] aircraft. So to me, I think we're kind of saying the same thing. I'm using a word that you don't like though when I say segregated, but segregation to me gives you an operation. Would that same thinking apply to controlled airspace that extends

[00:50:28] now to the surface around some of the major airports that also are overlapping and covering large areas of cities? That airspace is controlled on the way down to the ground. So flying a drone 400 feet, the controller community would be OK with that.

[00:50:43] Well, that would be where you would have to integrate, right? That would be where there would have to be some type of communication, whether electronic or verbal communication going back and forth for the for the controller that you know, let's just talk about the

[00:50:56] heliports over the hot sun, right? You know that those controls that they're controlling on, you know, they're going down into the heliport and they pop the S4 clearance and they pop back up their VFR. But you need to know that there is other vehicles flying in

[00:51:10] there, automated vehicles. And there needs to be some type of separation. Certainly some type of they can be responsible for calling traffic if they are, they're going to need to be able to display that on their scope. And it's, you know, that is that is a work increase

[00:51:26] for the air traffic controller. Now, all these things have to be answered as you can do that. What's a realistic and practical path to execute on this integration, considering that the scale of these operations far surpass anything that controllers have seen today in existing aviation?

[00:51:42] You know, would controllers really want to see those under radar scopes and talk to the remote controller that might be supervising 30 of these aircraft at the same time? That seems like a very clumsy way to integrate unless we bring in new technology. So what is this new technology

[00:51:57] that you see that could really help streamline this? Well, yeah, you would need new technology for sure. You would need more air traffic control as if we're going to actually if we have to separate our current aircraft or through that 30 drones that are that

[00:52:12] if we had to separate through that, that would be that would be a lot of work for just one control. And never mind have 100 of these things flying around. So the technology is going to have to be able to be able to separate from known aircraft, other aircraft.

[00:52:26] But the controller is also if the responsibility is going to be on the controller for that, you know, even tell all of that helicopter to land on an heliport and knowing that that is a heavily used drone path. I mean, I don't even know if

[00:52:38] it would be depicted on the radar scope that the controllers have. Very interesting. So somehow there would have to be some kind of either change in the responsibility for the controller or there'd have to be and or there'd have to be some kind of technology for self

[00:52:53] separation, as you've described in order for in this controlled airspace down to, you know, below 400 AGL in order for those drones to be able to integrate in this area, which for some their business case is dependent on it. You're saying there has to be

[00:53:09] some kind of significant changes that have to take place. Not just some. There has to be a major paradigm shift, the separation responsibilities, certainly for the controllers responsibility for those aircraft. If they currently that control has to has to call known traffic and you're going to call

[00:53:28] it traffic for 30 drones. That's just not possible. Do you think that UTM is a good way to solve this problem? I think UTM is a good way to approach this issue and this problem. I certainly think that that's why I talk about and I know you didn't like

[00:53:43] the word of segregating, right? If you stop by segregating out the path and the path could be segregating, you're not going to go close to the heliport. You're going to be on a different path away from the heliport and the controls are going to be

[00:53:55] able to guide, give clearances to these helicopters and these e-vitals to go to this rotor port or heliport and the drones won't be there because you're bifurcated out of the airspace, segregated out of the airspace. What I mean, that could just be arrival quarters

[00:54:11] and departure quarters as I spoke before. When you start integrating all of these vehicles are 400 feet and vehicles, they actually have to land through them. Yeah, that's technology that I have not seen yet and certainly technology that I don't think the FAA has

[00:54:27] as the ability to deploy at this time. We saw some of these issues raised and addressed in the BB loss arc from a year or two ago and the preliminary recommendations that they presented. If you're familiar with that, what were your thoughts on that approach and specifically

[00:54:47] the idea that the UAS if they could be aware of where the general aviation and other crewed aircraft were through, for instance, ADS-B and listening to that that they would take responsibility themselves for avoiding those aircraft and you would put that on the shoulders

[00:55:07] of the UAS to get out of the way when one of those aircraft is in the airspace coming down below 400 feet. Would that reduce the workload? Would that be a tenable approach for further technology development? Do you think or is is there a different direction

[00:55:23] that people should be going? Actually, I think that that's actually a tenable approach. This country has no appetite for aviation crashes, zero. Millions of people could die on the road every year. We could have, you know, train accidents all the time. And it's just

[00:55:39] that's like an accepted risk. You have one of these drones that are supposed to self-separate between the helicopter and collides. That could be the end of the drone community because of Congress interfering. So if that technology exists or to me, that is

[00:55:56] I think you would be better off segregating yourself out of there than trying to integrate in that path. But that's just my opinion. But I do know that something happens. You get sucked into a jet engine or something and it's catastrophic, got to bid.

[00:56:13] There's no appetite for that at all in this country. UTM becomes UTM awfully quickly when there's a situation between a drone and an accrued aircraft. Before we stray off this topic, you know, when we look at the airspace structure around major airports, whether they are

[00:56:30] Class Bravo, Class Charlie airports, the controlled airspace extends down to the surface, you know, maybe five or seven or more miles away from the airport is a path to raising the floor of the controlled airspace to 400 feet. Is that a path potentially forward

[00:56:45] to where they're segregating or making ATC happy to, you know, to bring that circle in a little closer? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, this probably a path that kind of streamlined that. You got to remember that a lot of that stuff was the upside down winning cake,

[00:56:59] what I call it, right? The small circle around the airport than the bigger Traycon circle as you get higher and higher and then it's all controlled airspace. That was before I was born, basically, right? So you think about that a lot of it is for the missed approach

[00:57:15] or the emergency that is going on. A lot of it is set up to, you know, around, you know, metropolitan airports where you have police activity, police helicopters and certainly, you know, medivacs. All of that is set up for that airspace. Is it something they could look at?

[00:57:33] Yes, absolutely. Is there a technology that can streamline that? I do believe there is, but we go back to that same path with the FAA modernizing new system. The legacy systems currently right now, you know, I doubt you could put anything on it with, you know,

[00:57:48] of modern technology at this point. There have been companies that have talked about flying vehicles just above the water. And let's say they take off from Boston and they go to New York and let's say they're 20 feet above the deck. Do those have to be controlled by

[00:58:04] the FAA? It depends on the airspace that it's in. And sometimes, you know, I mean, we don't control crop dusters that are dusting crops in the Midwest or over your farm. If this is just it's just, you know, a hundred two and a feet over the ocean.

[00:58:22] You're not supposed to fly over, you know, if ships are out there, you should be flying over those. But that's not really controlled by us. Banatos that you're when you're at the beach and you see them and they're at 500 feet or so above the beach.

[00:58:35] We're really not controlling them. They're just going on a VFR circle, the FFR pod that they're out there. So it's conceivable that these vehicles that are crude and carrying whatever a handful of passengers and they have scheduled routes over water, let's say again,

[00:58:50] they're 20 to 50 feet above the deck. It's entirely conceivable that they wouldn't need to be controlled by air traffic. I've never heard of these vehicles. I'd like to see one. It sounds pretty cool. Yeah, it's conceivable. It's conceivable that it could just, you know, just be

[00:59:05] 100 feet above the water where the air traffic, as long as you stayed out of the arrival of the departure port or as you segregated away from, you know, for whatever reason you came through the Long Island Sound and got close to the La Partia arrival port or

[00:59:19] yeah, that's when the control is going to want to know about you. Given all the complexities of navigating the national air space system and in particular the air traffic management air traffic control system, is this an appealing market for startups and a chuckle, actually.

[00:59:37] It's not you're describing it as not really appealing because the significant barriers to entry, the system complexities that tend to favor established players. Would you agree with this? And, you know, otherwise or more broadly, what would you suggest entrepreneurs go and innovate in as it relates

[00:59:56] to the NAS? I should specify I'm talking about innovations to make air traffic management better, not the new entrance, not the vehicles, not the drones themselves, but innovations in ATM. Innovations of ATM, I believe that is the link we're going to need to integrate these

[01:00:14] new users and whether we talk about the drones or bringing in a whole new system. I believe that is what is needed. Now, can it be deployed within the current structure of the FAA? That's challenging. That is truly challenging. But as I talked about it earlier,

[01:00:31] you're gonna have the FAA structures going to have to change. I hope it's in my lifetime, but I do believe that the pain is growing to a point that they're going to have to figure something out. Our facilities are aging. They can't replace them.

[01:00:46] The equipment is is beyond fix on fail. It's it's it fails. What's the impact of not having it? So I think you need a you need a structural change to the FAA and then these thought ups could come in and really help build

[01:01:02] a new air traffic control system is what you really need. What common mistakes do you observe with entrepreneurs that are trying to sell solutions into the ATC community? The common mistake is I think the brilliant entrepreneurism and very successful in other arenas

[01:01:18] and they may have a pilot license, but they just don't understand the layers, the intricate layers that titanium stone pipes within the FAA. They don't understand how government is not really enhancing aviation and how the system is is really stagnant. I think they may come

[01:01:38] from another line of business when like, yeah, well, we've got this great idea. We're going to try it. Well, the thing is that no failure is not an option in the aviation system. Right? We can't reboot our cell phone while we're working, you know, 30 aircraft

[01:01:52] on final for dollars. It has to be 100 percent of the time and it has to be a redundancy in the backup. And I think that I think sometimes these, you know, these entrepreneurs come in and they think it's just well, it's just a tech thing

[01:02:04] that we're going to do. It's not a tech thing. It's, you know, it's multi-layered. I do want to call it a couple of things, Paul, to echo what you're saying and to answer a little bit of Lucas questions as well. Listen, there is incredible automation that's taken place,

[01:02:19] you know, throughout the years that have made the controllers, for example, a lot more efficient. And there's a lot of automation right now that's waiting to be implemented that has already been approved, that some of which has been funded in continuous funding, which would come from

[01:02:33] corporatization would have a huge impact. And these are all massive advancements, you know, for example, even the departure metering that would come from TFDM. These are all massive improvements that would happen to the system. The ability to innovate is there. And these were some of these

[01:02:48] advancements, even at TFDM came from very small companies that are great ideas that they implemented these ideas and they were had significant reductions and off to out times and being able to assimilate into the you know, into the system. So there's clearly a lot of

[01:03:03] opportunities to be able to automate the system. That's even with just today's traditional aviation. Paula's advocating is there could be better ways to be able to ensure more consistent funding to be able to integrate these technologies into the system. So I think what you're first

[01:03:18] saying is let's get that done right. And as a result, we'll see huge advancements to today's crude system. Then that same process, I think Luca would help could be used to be able to advance these other technologies that would help with advanced air mobility.

[01:03:33] And I like what you're saying, Paul also is let's face it. And anything that's crude today that's flying passengers like a Joby and as long as they're flying the routes that they're talking about flying, they're just going to be considered another airplane. Now they will clearly clog up

[01:03:47] anything that's coming. You know, if there if it's come busy corridor today, it's going to make it even busier. That's why a lot of the Joby's archers and others are talking about flying routes, some of which that are not as busy today. But let's face it, a lot

[01:04:00] of them are talking about flying from LaGuardia down to New York City. And you know, some of those are awfully busy routes. But what you're saying is that's a little bit of the low hanging fruit of air traffic management today with the integration of a.m.

[01:04:16] Go ahead, Paul. Yeah, that fits into the current system today. That is, you know, aircraft controls are working helicopters from the heliport at LaGuardia to the downtown heliport. I mean, that's that's that is a routine thing. If it's an electric vehicle and has the same characteristics,

[01:04:31] it vertically lifts and you know, goes about its way. That's how you crawl into the system. And when I talked about, you know, crawl walk then fly. That's how you do that before you get into this whole jet and move in an EVTAL going to wherever they want.

[01:04:45] You crawl by staying in a legacy system, heliport to heliport or vertical to vertical. And that's how you get there when I talk about, you know, these new startups and yes, TFDM had a bright future. And I was just looking up. I mean, 2016 was the first

[01:05:02] time we really were focused on that, you know, that the contract has been awarded. We're excited for it. You know, this is and it's not that, you know, Light Oast doesn't have the capability of this technology. Did they do it? Just just, you know, strangled by the FAA's

[01:05:18] layers of government bureaucratic process that it just can't get out of its way. When we looked at when I talk about now Canada, 2016, if they started doing something by mid 2018, they would start to be deployed in facilities. And that's real time technology getting into facilities.

[01:05:36] And you wouldn't have to say, well, then COVID happened. You'd be done by the time COVID happened. And now we're looking 2031 to maybe 10 facilities as opposed to 89 facilities and which facilities are going to do because some of them are too big to test. It's those type of things.

[01:05:53] I mean, we can go on and on. We could talk about time based metering. We could talk about, you know, all of the things we've tried to implement and gone down. I mean, just like I said, our information systems, the system, the current structure of the system is

[01:06:07] not allowing us to bring in new technology. You would think that how tough can an information system be? How tough could it be? Like a big fancy iPad with, you know, all of the uploaded information of the notums and runways that are closed and approaches in use

[01:06:24] and approach plates. It shouldn't be that hard. I mean, if you were able to do it on a floppy disk, you should be able to do it on a modern piece of equipment, a modern computer. But it is a struggle. It's a constant struggle.

[01:06:35] We're in a current crisis mode of shrinking the national airspace system. And if you look at the current way the F.A. brings on air travel controls and I'm going to go on a little tangy gear, but everybody has to go through Oklahoma City.

[01:06:48] They go through Oklahoma City 1800 seats. That's what they have for the year. That's their plus limitation. 18 and spread out throughout the year 1800 bodies. They got out of those 1800 because it is a screen. You lose about 50 percent. So you're coming out with 900 that are coming through

[01:07:05] that got through the first phase between placement and OJTI on the job training in facilities placement, meaning I could be from Hawaii and they placed me in New York Center because New York Center is most needed. And you know, I just say,

[01:07:19] listen, I want to go back to Hawaii or I quit and you see you see individuals quitting because of the placement from across the country. So between placement and OJTI you leave another 15 to 20 percent. Let's just say for mathematical purposes three years after

[01:07:36] you hire them there in their facilities they're fully certified. You have 700 after three years that are fully certified. The F.A. is attrition is going to be but this year alone is going to be around eight to 900. So you're losing ground, right? You're already losing ground.

[01:07:51] It's going to get worse before it gets better in a situation. So the F.A. has you've got to figure out and this was a question that Michael Whitaker answered in hearing. The F.A. has to figure an alternate way of hiring. We have these universities,

[01:08:03] great universities, Emory Riddle, UND, Vaughn College, Butler Community, Beaver Community College that have had air traffic control programs for years. This has to be a way that the F.A. can go and certify these programs, make sure that while they're in school that a background check is complete,

[01:08:21] a medical is complete. And then if they certify and pass this program and then the F.A. can give them an end certification test, then place them right in the facilities. The idea, the air traffic controllers that are at the facility, they want to make

[01:08:36] sure that they're getting somebody that knows the basics and understands it and is actually willing to do the job and they'll train them and teach them. But if they continue to do business of hiring strictly through the Oklahoma City Academy the same way, they're going to have the

[01:08:52] same results in five years from now. We're going to be talking about we still have a controller shortage. We still we're in the process of reducing capacity through our national airspace system and we have drones that are knocking on the door and EVTELs are knocking on the door.

[01:09:05] The commercial space wants to launch every day. The basic function of not having enough controllers prevents all of that from happening because if you don't have enough controllers, you don't have the ability to train and implement and develop new equipment. And then you just

[01:09:19] you're stagnant. I mean, if there's one thing I believe you with, you have to figure out a way to hire more than 1800 controllers to use these colleges as an ability four year degree coming out of Emory Riddle. I'm sure they'll be able to share the Oklahoma

[01:09:33] screen with Emory Riddle and be able to get them right into the facility. We used to do something like this in the late 90s early 2000 with the Mark School that was in Minnesota and it had tremendous success. 80% success rate throughout, you know, they classes of 32 go in and 28

[01:09:52] come out and they go to an enroute environment and 80 to 90% of them are certifying within two years. That's how you're going to get healthy. You're not going to get healthy by just saying everybody needs to go to Oklahoma City. It's going to be difficult to

[01:10:04] be able to get, for example, Mike Whitaker's attention on advanced air mobility if these current slots that are allotted for LaGuardia are suboptimized because of too fewer controllers. You know, that's something where the airlines are I'm sure very much up in arms. It's something

[01:10:20] that we can have to address. So that's the third podcast that may come from this discussion. So listen, I think it's so important for our advanced air mobility world to understand from a guy as substantial as you Paul, to understand the reality of air traffic control. We've

[01:10:36] talked more about air traffic control today and as well as that of air traffic management and this is the kind of system that we there is a reason why it's so safe. But this is the kind of system that they're going to have to face as we

[01:10:48] talk about bringing in more vehicles, whether be EV tall or whether be drones. And this is the reality of what it's like. And clearly, there are all kinds of opportunity for improvements in technology production as there's been in the last 30 years of the world going forward. But this

[01:11:04] is the reality of the system that we're dealing with. Paul, is there any you've already told what you'd like to leave as it relates to the focus on the shortages of controllers? Is there anything else you'd like to leave with the group? That's I mean, when we talk

[01:11:16] about modernization, we talk about new entrants, we've got to fix the controller shortage first. And once that's key to everything else, because you know, the important thing is FAA managers come through the air traffic control ranks. So they're short, we're short controllers, they're short supervisors, they're

[01:11:34] short managers, they're short people in the program. They're short people that they don't know the system. And unfortunately, throughout FAA headquarters, they have put people in place that really don't they're a temporary and they really don't understand the system because they haven't come through these

[01:11:49] ranks because the ranks are very short staff. So they have to address that that's that's the funnel or that's the base that has to be addressed so that you can move people through the ranks that know the system so that you can modernize the system

[01:12:02] and you can have new entrants. Paul, it's a real pleasure to have you on. Thanks for having me. You've done for our system and we appreciate your presence on our podcast. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right, that's a wrap for today. Thank you for listening

[01:12:18] to the Vertical Space podcast. Reach out if there are topics that you would like us to discuss. And goodbye until the next episode. Unless mentioned, this podcast is in no way endorsing or promoting any person and or company mentioned and all opinions within the podcast are solely

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