The PNBAA is dedicated to supporting and furthering the business of aviation and recognizes our members’ time is valuable. Providing timely, informative and constructive communications and events is critical to ensuring we continually bring member benefits. The following highlights our achievements to this end over the past few years:
PNBAA works with other groups to keep on top of news and issues. Co-hosts have included the NBAA, Aviation International News (AIN Alerts), Alliance for Aviation Across America, and Pacific Rim Schedulers and Dispatchers Association. Topics have included FAA Reauthorization; Emergency Revocation of Air Carrier Certificates; Transportation Security Administration’s Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP); Safety Management Systems (SMS) resources; and dissemination of industry-specific news items.
The Annual BBQ is a free and family-oriented example of PNBAA’s appreciation. Held during Seafair week at Boeing Field and when the Blue Angels’ and other air-show performers’ practice, PNBAA provides hamburgers, hotdogs, beverages and other picnic fixings for more than 200 attendees.
Every September PNBAA hosts its charity golf event. Helping to keep the industry healthy, this outing targets aviation-focused benefactors including Aviation High School and the Civil Air Patrol. Members and sponsors have the opportunity to have fun and participate in supporting a worthy cause. In 2009, the event raised $3,000 for the Aviation High School (http://www.aviationhs.org/).
Giving membership an opportunity to learn and share best practices is facilitated through this annual, day-long event that showcases international recognized, aerospace safety experts talking about the industry’s current and future safety issues and opportunities. This event has sold-out annually.
“Lessons Learned: The AMI / TAG Experience” (co-hosted with Pacific NW Schedulers and Dispatchers Association [PRSDA]):
For the 1st time publicly the events that have forever shaped the future of the air charter / management industry were memorialized when former AMI Jet Charter CEO Chuck McLeran described the October 2007 suspension and emergency revocation of AMI’s FAA Air Carrier Certificate. He joined an expert panel including Susan Santo, former TAG Aviation Legal Counsel; David Lehman, former FAA inspector, Gary Garofalo, Aviation Regulatory and Commercial Transaction Attorney, to discuss lessons learned with an international audience of nearly 200 attendees. Other speakers included Kevin Austin, Aero Law Group; Matthew Sheble, former executive at JetDirect Aviation (current COO of Flight Partners Group), and Roger McMullin, former Chairman of TAG Aviation Holding, S.A.
International Emergency Response Planning
Jeff Agur of the VanAllen Group, a recognized leader in ERP services, was the MC for a panel discussion on the 2006 GOL / ExcelAire midair disaster that claimed the lives of 154 people in Brazil. Presenters included David Rimmer, ExcelAire executive and passenger on board the Embraer Legacy 600 that clipped the wing of GOL’s Boeing 737. Topics discussed included international law, public relations, insurance and lessons learned.
“Aviation Medicine and Your Medical”
Dr’s Larry Greenblatt, FAA AME, and Michael Jones, FAA’s Regional Flight Surgeon, discussed medical certificate issues including maintaining and regaining your medical for pilots as well as general and sports wellness for all.
FAA Re-registration
In May 2009 and again in July 2010, PNBAA has coordinated with NBAA, AOPA, etc to issue industry’s comments to the FAA on their proposed re-registration NPRM. Members received email blasts on the subject filled with helpful information and resources for next steps. Excerpts follow:
“Last week, the FAA finalized its long-anticipated rule on continuous registration of aircraft. This Rule directly affects each and every PNBAA member and we urge all of our members to get familiar with this Rule right away.”
“NBAA Urges Aircraft Owners to Verify FAA Registration Information – A new re-registration requirement that will go into effect later this year may cause problems for some aircraft owners if their address information in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Registry is out of date. Aircraft owners are required to report a new address to the FAA within 30 days of the change. The FAA estimates that almost 45,000 aircraft are known to have bad addresses. Because the FAA will mail re-registration notifications to the addresses in the FAA Registry, NBAA urges all aircraft owners to proactively verify that their address in the FAA Registry is correct. If any update needs to be made, aircraft owners can do that directly with the FAA or through qualified aviation counsel for more complex registrations (e.g., owner trusts). FAA Registry data can be checked on the FAA web site via the following link: http://www.nbaa.org/admin/registration/faa”
Safety Management and IS-BAO Meeting & Workshop
In June of 2010, PNBAA hosted an educational, informative and interactive session on the imminent November deadline for civil operators to have a Safety Management System in place. We separated facts from fiction and hosted a panel to help members prepare and learn more. Additional information this recent AIN Alerts:
“Babbitt: No Operator ‘Too Small’ for SMS – FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has a message to aircraft operators that believe they should be exempt from implementing a safety management system (SMS). “I’m confident that SMS will really make a difference [in reducing aviation accidents]. I know there are those who complain that they’re too small for SMS. Or that it’s too costly. Or that they don’t have time,” he said. “No one and no company is too small for SMS. The cost of SMS is far less than the cost of an accident. Saying that you don’t have time for SMS is the functional equivalent of saying that you don’t have time for safety.” Babbitt characterized SMS thus: “You identify the problem, you analyze it, you come up with a solution, you train to the solution and then you check how you’re doing. [It’s] a safety feedback loop.” To operators who believe SMS is just a fad, he said that not only is SMS here to stay, “It’s going to be here for the long haul because it works. Everybody has a responsibility for safety.” The FAA plans to release SMS rules to operators by year-end, and some countries will require aircraft operators to have SMS implemented by year-end.”
WA State Aviation Tax Averted
From February thru April of 2010, PNBAA provided a series of communications urging a membership “Call to Action”! General Aviation unified and mobilized to set aside the proposed WA State tax. PNBAA joined with NBAA, Members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Washington Pilots Association and others in the grassroots Washington Aviation Coalition (WAC). An NBAA Press Release included quotes from PNBAA’s President, Jim Bennett, and PNBAA Director, Chuck Kegley. Bennett: “Legislators didn’t have a clear understanding of the true economic impact of aviation in the state of Washington. FBOs wouldn’t sell enough fuel, so their margins would get thinner and thinner. Airports would be impacted by those airplanes that moved to another state. Clearly, the impact was greater than the legislators had anticipated.” Kegley: “One voice, one message was the single driving premise for our group. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Aviation contributes immensely to the local and regional tax bases already, and any additional burden of a new tax may be enough to push these operators and aircraft owners to consider cheaper options, outside the state of Washington.”
FAA Announced Moratorium on Use of Trusts is Rescinded
PNBAA provided timely information on this commonly-used aircraft ownership structure to members. Jim Bennett, PNBAA President, and David D. Warner, PNBAA’s General Counsel stated “earlier this month, FAA announced a retroactively effective “moratorium” on the processing of aircraft registrations for owner-trusts, where the owner-beneficiary is a non-US-citizen. A very large number of US-based operating companies, lenders and leasing companies have utilized this owner trust structure to hold title and registration for decades – statutes and rules have clearly permitted its use. Making the change retroactive could have also put existing owner-trust registrations in jeopardy. A coalition, which included the PNBAA, diligently worked to present concerns and propose alternatives to the FAA. Although the industry may continue to apply this useful registration technique, the FAA will continue to review this topic and likely will initiate an orderly review and (possibly) rule making process at some point in the future.”
