DAVID FIELD WASHINGTON
Jane Garvey ended her five-year term as Federal Aviation Administrator much as she began it - dealing with menacing aviation gridlock, a delayed air traffic control (ATC) overhaul and an airline industry demanding change
In interviews and speeches before her early August departure, she returned to the threat of gridlock and insufficient infrastructure, warning of returning congestion unless the government acted. "We know those numbers are going to come back. We want to be ready," she says.
Garvey adds that the FAA had initiated new ATC procedures to help avoid some of the delays that marred summer 2000 airline performance. Indeed, it was so bad that some in the US Congress threatened re-regulation. Now, new software systems allow controllers to anticipate thunderstorm paths and re-route aircraft around weather, rather than make them wait to take off. The FAA also opened new routes through Canada and via airspace over the Atlantic coast once restricted to military flights.
While the ambitious Free Flight revamping of the ATC system may still be incomplete, Garvey can lay claim to a major achievement - developing a highly functional working relationship with the rarely satisfied and often disgruntled controller workforce.
At a National Air Traffic Controllers union meeting in her last weeks in office, Garvey received a clearly spontaneous standing ovation when president John Carr said he would ask the White House to allow Garvey to stay on. Carr praised "her amazing diplomatic skills" in dealing with the union and conflicting aviation interest groups.
President Bush's choice to succeed Garvey is Marion Blakey, who has served as the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board for about a year. Blakey was an airports consultant, lobbyist and highway safety advocate.
She awaits Senate confirmation, where a key committee chairman has already welcomed her nomination. Blakey will deal with repercussions from the 11 September terrorist attacks even though Congress has taken responsibility for airline security away from the FAA and given it to the new Transportation Security Administration. Garvey has also left other difficult issues, including whether the FAA should charge airlines more for peak-hour services, or auction take-off and landing slots at congested airports.
Asked what she plans to do after leaving, Garvey answered with a simple monosyllable: "Less." And her last act as administrator echoed her opening days. As director of Boston Logan Inter-national Airport in the early 1990s, she went to Washington faced with the 25-year-long fight to expand Logan. On her last business day in Washington, Garvey approved the airport's much debated sixth runway.
Source: Airline Business
