PUBLIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
BY THE NUMBERS
(As of March 28, 2019)
• 19,857: Total bargaining unit employees represented by NATCA, covering 17
different bargaining units.
• 15,855: Total NATCA members within those 17 bargaining units.
NATCA PRAISES HOUSE T&I COMMITTEE'S PASSAGE OF H.R. 1108
We issued a press release on March 27 praising the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I), which passed by unanimous
consent H.R. 1108, the Aviation Funding Stability Act of 2019. It's a bipartisan bill with
over 140 co-sponsors, and would authorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to
draw from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) ensuring that all programs,
projects, or activities continue uninterrupted so the FAA can carry out its mission in the
event of a future government shutdown.
"Stop-and-go funding crises wreak havoc on the personal lives of air traffic controllers
and other aviation safety professionals, degrade the safety of the National Airspace
System, delay critical modernization and infrastructure projects, and exacerbate the
current controller staffing crisis," President Paul Rinaldi said. "The National Airspace
System is less safe today than it was before the beginning of the last shutdown. We do
not know how long the effects of the shutdown will plague the FAA, and we cannot
identify all of the potential safety implications the shutdown caused."
Read the full release.
Read Air Line Pilots Association, International's (ALPA) press release also supporting
the bill and the vote.
AIREON'S SPACE-BASED ADS-B SYSTEM GOES LIVE OVER THE NORTH
ATLANTIC, MARKING A NEW CHAPTER IN AVIATION HISTORY
We attended Aireon's press conference April 2 in Washington, D.C., where CEO Don
Thoma announced that Aireon is now fully operational with the world's first and only
global space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) aircraft
surveillance and tracking service, providing real-time aircraft visibility anywhere on the
planet. The Aireon system is hosted on board the Iridium satellite constellation,
comprised of 66 low earth orbit satellites.
We are proud to say that the great people at Aireon first began discussing this concept
with us years ago. This type of technology is a key to an ever-changing and ever-
demanding airspace system. It provides surveillance in areas over the oceans and is
used as a backup in case of natural disaster. It also has many other known benefits.
This is another lesson for our National Airspace System as to why we need a long-term
stable, predictable funding stream to provide the best technology and the best service to
users of our airspace.
