A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/654612
Finally, Inspire. I'm inspired by the story of Fatima Shafi. Growing up in Pakistan in the 1990's, she dealt with cultural beliefs that limited possibilities for w omen. She pursued a degree in engineering, and then joined the Pakistani Air Force. Every step along the way, she faced disrespect and intimidation from those who felt that women should not pursue these things. Despite her training, she wasn't allowed to w ork on planes, because there was no precedent for women to do that. But she was persistent. In 2008, she came to America, where she could pursue her dreams more freely. She went to flight school, and became a pilot for ExpressJet in 2012. There are also se veral women who are making big contributions in aviation around the world, such as Sarinee Sangsprasit, President of AEROTHAI; Roberta Neri, CEO of ENAV (Italy's air navigation service provider); Micilia Albertus - Verboom, Director General of the Dutch Cari bbean air navigation service provider, and Dr. Fang Liu, the recently appointed Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Dr. Liu is the first woman ever to be appointed to this position. These women are leading efforts to make in ternational aviation safer and more efficient. I also want to acknowledge ATO Vice Presidents, Nancy Kalinowski and Lynn Ray, who have contributed so much to aviation throughout their careers. I want to thank them, and acknowledge all of the contributions women make every day in support of our mission in the ATO and the FAA. I encourage you to reach out to people of all walks of life, including girls and young women, and let them know about career opportunities in aviation. You can look into supporting outr each efforts conducted by the FAA's Aviation and Space Education office, Human Resources, or the ATO's Diversity office. (March 11, 2016) Navigating the Future Hi everyone. As you know, one of our NextGen near - term priorities is to increase the availabili ty and use of Performance Based Navigation (PBN). In support of this priority, we held the Airspace Services Industry Summit last week. We met with more than 100 people, including participants from FAA, NATCA, numerous airlines and the National Business Ai rcraft Association. We discussed some of the progress that's been made. In 2015, we completed 68 PBN single - site projects and two Metroplex projects (NorCal and Washington D . C . ), delivering a total of 543 PBN procedures throughout the NAS. We have 11 activ e or completed Metroplex initiatives across the country: Northern and Southern California, Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas - Fort Worth, Houston, Detroit - Cleveland, Washington D . C . , Charlotte, Atlanta, and South Florida. These PBN procedures are improving throughp ut, reducing track miles flown and reducing aircraft fuel burn and emissions. We discussed ways to improve community outreach. In some communities, we are having some challenges with noise and changes to flight patterns. We strive to put the flight paths o ver areas with little or no population like water when possible. We're working to have more meetings with the public early in the implementation process, so we're in a better position to try and address their concerns. We also talked about the need for air ports and the aviation industry to be involved in community outreach. We addressed many other questions like: Are we achieving expected benefits and if so at what cost? Are the timelines set for the Metroplex program working? And are we measuring the impac ts and benefits in the best way? Controllers discussed how certain procedures were enhancing safety, and also raised concerns about workload and task complexity. Airspace users had a chance to offer input on procedure designs, discuss operational benefits they were experiencing, and also raise concerns about any airspace or procedure inefficiencies that were affecting them.