Aviation Changes We Could Believe in

A worker cleans at the high-speed rail terminal at the new Terminal 3 building at Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday Feb. 26, 2008. The huge new terminal, which opened on Feb. 29, was designed to relieve the overloaded airport's other two terminals. It is typical of the huge investments Asian countries are making in their airport infrastructure, unlike the United States. Credit: AP Photo/Greg Baker

When Barack Obama and John McCain officially accept their parties’ nominations for president, neither candidate is likely to say much about aviation. More’s the pity, given the aviation industry’s crucial importance to the nation. But what if Obama and McCain had some help from an aviation-minded outside speechwriter? What would each man say?

Obama speaks first. So, here is the speech Obama won’t give at the Democratic Party convention on Thursday night, Aug. 28, but should:

When I am President of the United States of America, on Day One I will lay out a coherent national transportation policy. One of the most important pieces of that policy will be a new approach to civil aviation.

Aviation ties our nation together commercially and culturally. It ties us to the rest of the world. In recent years those ties have been allowed to fray. This must change.

America’s aviation industry needs an upgrade. We need aviation changes we can believe in.

Change must start with infrastructure. As many of you know, I spent much of my youth in Hawaii and Indonesia. The Asia-Pacific region is booming now, and it is proudly introducing state of the art transportation: bullet trains, expressways, modern airport terminals, even wholly new airports. In Beijing, in Bangkok, in Kuala Lumpur, in Shanghai and Guangzhou, airport infrastructure is world-class.

America is looking more and more Third World. We have inadequate runways, cramped, poorly lit and barely ventilated passenger terminals. We can’t just evict local residents or disregard environmental laws to build airports. But we need to cut red tape, fast-track badly needed upgrades, and give tax incentives to developers willing and able to built smart and build green.

We need to upgrade our creaky air-traffic control system — quickly. With our nimble entrepreneurial culture and Silicon Valley know-how, we can green-light our satellite-based Next Generation system.

Just this past Tuesday, a Federal Aviation Administration computer breakdown resulted in hundreds of delayed or cancelled flights. This must change. We must show our fatigued air traffic controllers — who labor with an old-school radar system — that help is on the way.

We must upgrade the FAA. I will sign legislation that protects agency whistle-blowers who bring attention to too-cozy relationships between inspectors and the airlines they inspect. I will be tough on safety violations, but also proportionate.

The FAA fined Southwest Airlines a record $10.2 million for flying uninspected aircraft this spring, even though local FAA officials looked the other way when they did it. A regulator must not be complicit in violations, and then try to act tough.

Our airlines need capital. They are hurting from record-high fuel prices and other problems. When I am elected, I will raise the amount of allowable foreign ownership from 25 percent to 49 percent and ease rules on cross-border mergers.

We must not fear investment from friendly foreign countries. The British haven’t invaded America since 1812 and the wars with Germany are long over. It would be tragic if the industry that makes globalization possible falls victim to a dark age of jingoistic protectionism.

To those who say this agenda is overly ambitious, that we just can’t do it, I say: Yes, we can.

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