FAA Proposes $354,500 Civil Penalty Against US Airways

Williams Trophy Luncheon

Thank you, David [Whitestone], and thank you to the Washington Airports Task Force for giving me the opportunity to participate in this celebration.

Make no mistake about this: Gary Kelly and Southwest Airlines are serious. Over the last year and a half, I’ve been making a steady drumbeat for NextGen. Southwest Airlines was in gear for NextGen long before I got here. I can say without hesitation that Southwest Airlines is a leader when it comes to NextGen.

You can see it in their business operation. They aren’t content with the status quo. They recognize that NextGen is the front door to opportunity; that it’s the key to operating successfully and profitably in a system that doesn’t look like the one from 10 or 20 years ago.

Gary Kelly and Southwest Airlines and several airlines are saying, “This is not your father’s NAS,” and they’re 100 percent right. NextGen transitions us from an air traffic control focus to a more holistic approach – a system focus that makes full use of all of the technology that’s out there today and will provide benefits from technology that’s yet to come.

And this didn’t “just happen.” Back in 2008, Southwest committed to NextGen full-bore. This business decision was driven by a difficult economic environment, the high price of gas and competition. When you cut your fuel costs, you boost the bottom line. That’s not high level math, that’s street-smart maneuvering. Southwest committed to upgrade its 737 fleet with required navigational performance capabilities – RNP. They committed to train their aircrews for the performance based navigation operations made possible by NextGen.

This wasn’t a decision for the faint of heart. They’ve equipped all of their aircraft to be performance based navigation capable. That was $175 million. They’ve trained 6,000 pilots to fly the approaches. In about a month, pilot training should be complete and their pilots will be approved to conduct RNP routes and approaches that require authorization. As part of its internal training plan leading toward operational approval for RNP use, Southwest has a self-imposed requirement to log approximately 3,200 RNAV GPS approaches.

Southwest Airlines actively supports the FAA in the development and implementation of RNP procedures across the nation, either in the role as lead carrier or as a participant with other operators. Last year, 59 RNP procedures that required special authorization for participating aircrafts and aircrews were published for 15 airports, including 10 served by Southwest. Eventually, these types of procedures will be developed and implemented through a continued collaborative effort, at airports across the country.

So that’s a mouthful of numbers and acronyms, but what it means is that Southwest Airlines and Gary Kelly understands that the system of tomorrow is hinged on the equipment, and they have no intention of waiting until tomorrow comes to get the new stuff into their cockpits. When they hear “best equipped, best served,” they don’t want to be in that line, they want to be at the front of it.

None of this is free, and I’ll be the first to admit that if you look back, the FAA has been slow on our promise to deliver the goods. But with NextGen, we are, and let me say without equivocation that Southwest and Gary Kelly are putting their airline in the optimum position to cash in on it and providing incentive for others to match them.

With both leadership and vision, not only did Southwest commit to this effort financially, but they also did so from a company culture standpoint. From the start, Gary Kelly and Southwest took great pains to educate and motivate their entire work force on the wide-ranging benefits to be gained from becoming a performance-based navigation airline; benefits not only to the company, but to the country as a whole. I’m talking about reduced airspace congestion, more efficient air travel, reduced emissions and a reduced dependency on oil.

The savings adds up to real money. Performance based navigation means shorter, more direct routes. Southwest figures that for a single minute of time saved on each flight, the annual savings quickly add up to 156,000 metric tons in emissions per year. And $25 million in fuel savings per year. Seconds count.

At the end of all this, Southwest Airlines will have transformed itself from an airline navigating solely by fixed ground-based navigation aids to one flying satellite-based precise, optimally designed routes that will allow for reduced flight times and contribute to a more efficient national airspace system benefiting the entire U.S. population.

I’ve been flying in this system for going on five decades now, and I appreciate what Southwest has done. They, and several of their competitors, have shown real leadership in pushing for new technology and the efficiencies that it brings. That’s forward thinking.

And this kind of approach doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It only happens when an airline like Southwest says, “This is where we need to go, and this is how we’re going to get there.” And then they do it. Congratulations.