The Vertical Space

#88 Captain Lee Moak: The time for change is now

• Luka T • Episode 88

Share episode

In this episode, we sit down with Captain Donald Lee Moak, a distinguished aviation leader. With experience spanning military and commercial aviation to boardroom leadership, Lee is known for driving change. He doesn’t just talk about change; he makes it happen.

Our discussion centers on three major themes: the urgent need to modernize and privatize the U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system to enhance safety and efficiency, lessons from aviation’s strong safety record, and the recent rise in incidents that Lee has warned about in op-eds and reports. We also dive into his tenure as president of the Airline Pilots Association, his insights on union and non-union leadership, and his advice for aviation CEOs and entrepreneurs navigating today’s challenges.

Lee doesn’t shy away from tough conversations, whether it’s advocating for regulatory reform, calling out safety risks, or pushing for leadership that truly prioritizes aviation’s future. From the bullhorn to the boardroom, he’s been at the forefront of meaningful change.



Lee:

I believe that the vast majority, if not everybody, would agree that something has to change. They would probably disagree on the level of how broken it is. But they would all agree that there's room and opportunity for improvement. And I have said this before, that the system is changing. The industry has a real hard time dealing with the rate of change if it's fast. But if there's ever been an opportunity to change, it's right now with this administration and these events that have provided a hyper focus on how important safety is and how important the National Airspace ATC is to the industry.

Jim:

Hey, welcome back to The Vertical Space and a discussion with one of our great aviation and business leaders, Captain Donald Lee Moak. Lee is a distinguished aviation leader with extensive experience in safety, FAA regulation, and governance. Lee has been a driving force in advancing aviation policy, labor relations, and regulatory frameworks. Few leaders today have Lee's breadth of experience from the military and commercial flight deck to the boardroom. And as such, his recommendations carry great weight, and because he also speaks his mind from the podium to this podcast, and writes his thoughts in papers and op eds, he doesn't just speak to people one on one in front of a cup of coffee, as most do. He yells from the rooftop when change is needed, and then goes from the bullhorn to the boardroom to make change happen. Few have Lee's special talents, and I applaud that Lee is a combination of talk, action, and leadership for meaningful change. We walked through three major themes in today's discussion. The first two were very much tied that we need to improve, modernize, and privatize the ATC system now, first to improve safety of flight, and then to receive all of the other benefits that its advocates have discussed through the years. We stepped into a bit more detail on how and why commercial aviation was relatively accident free for so many years. We discussed the recent accidents and incidents which Lee warned about and reported on in recent op eds and other writings. Then Lee goes on to point out what can be done to minimize these incidents and accidents, including a novel approach which Lee refers to as time out for safety. We then go on to discuss the other benefits of modernizing the ATC system and the previous and current challenges of privatizing and corporatizing the system, and those who have supported it in the past and the powerful groups that have opposed it. And we discuss one of the most challenging aspects, as it always is with great change, who and how it's going to be funded. I point out that the Trump administration tried to pass these changes early in the previous term, and we're curious to see what, in fact, has changed to get it through this time. Lee and many others certainly make a strong case. We then step into Lee's years as president of the Airline Pilots Association, the role of the union, as well as the challenges and successes under his leadership, and why he and his team were able to get so much done. Listen to Lee's recommendations to union and non union leadership and how they can be aligned to improve their organizations. Finally, we get a special treat to hear from Lee on advice to our new CEOs and entrepreneurs on leadership. How to lead aviation businesses during these challenging times. And I especially like the call out that you just can't push change through an aviation that safety first isn't just a belief, it's in fact, the very bedrock of aviation. By way of background, Lee is a former Delta Airlines captain and U. S. Marine Corps fighter pilot. As president of the Airline Pilots Association, he spearheaded critical aviation safety initiatives, including NextGen implementation and the Known Crewmember Program. Lee has served on multiple FAA advisory councils and was appointed by the U. S. Secretary of Transportation to co chair the review of aircraft certification processes. Currently, he provides strategic guidance on aviation safety and operations as a board member for major aviation and aerospace companies. So our many thanks to Lee and to our listeners we hope you enjoyed this conversation and call to action from one of our great guests, Captain Lee Moak, as you profitably innovate in The Vertical Space. Lee Moak, welcome to The Vertical Space. Great having you on. It's a great honor.

Lee:

Thanks, Jim. And, nice to meet the team, it's really, a special deal for me to get to talk with you. I'm looking forward to it.

Jim:

Thanks Lee. The first question we ask our guests what is something that very few agree with you on?

Lee:

I'm going to answer that, as if that was asked to me a month ago, prior to the latest round of, accidents and near misses. About a year and a half ago, I wrote an op ed for the Washington Post based on all the near misses that went on. And if you remember, some of them were quite dramatic. We had a, Southwest, Airplane take the runway and a FedEx airplane, almost landed right on top of it. We had a United aircraft take off out of Hawaii, and during climb out, there was a, loss of situational awareness, apparently. And then it recovered at about 700 feet, and then it went on, it continued on to San Francisco, and we had a, American flight up at JFK, crossed the runway as the Delta flight was taking off at night, the Delta flight aborted and they didn't hit. But the American flight taxied out and, took off and went on its way to London for seven hours. So what the op ed was about and what I believe that the industry wasn't addressing was that these near misses, not only were they unacceptable, they were preventable, and we really needed to take action, right now, with the concept that we'll talk about maybe a little later, the timeout for safety and try to figure out each of these, what was going on. As you fast forward to today we had the D. C. A. accident, which is an ongoing investigation, and there's lots of speculation. And, I wrote an op ed about that, which was concentrated on the investigative process. But more importantly, as happens with, most accidents, all accidents, there's always, pundits that want to weigh in on what they think happened, which gets a little in the way of the investigation process. And, a lot of times because there's a information void because the parties to the accident are not allowed to discuss the accident while it's an ongoing investigation by the NTSB. So that silence, as we know in this modern day of communication, it's going to be filled with something. If the parties can't address that, then it's going to be filled with conspiracy theories and speculation. Some of them may be accurate. More often than not, it's not accurate. But the, underlying message from that particular opinion piece was the question to be asked is not what happened. The question to be asked Is the night before they had the same near miss on the same route and what we did is we said, whoa, that was a near miss and we did nothing about it. And what we have to be asking ourselves is do we have to have an accident in order to affect change, especially in this day and age of technological advancements.

Jim:

So what few agreed with you on in the past when you wrote your original op ed was, is this the most important thing to focus on? And then your most recent op ed was, this is what occurred and what can we do to prevent in the future? What are some of the recommendations you put in your most recent piece as it relates to the technology that you're recommending to help prevent such accidents in the future?

Lee:

As we'll talk again as I stress we'll talk a little more about this later But technology is racing faster than regulations can keep up with. We have a process in aviation certification, and that process, one part of it is called the supplemental type certificate(STC) at the FAA. And what that is set up to do is to bring new technologies to an aircraft, a certified aircraft or to market in a quicker fashion, primarily to increase safety. So, there are many technologies that are already, developed that could be put on aircraft, immediately that would have alerted and ultimately could have prevented what went on with the DCA accident. One is, we have TCAS, system in the current aircraft. And TCAS came about because of mid air collisions, but in general, TCAS is working up at altitude, and what TCAS does is it looks at the transponders of the two airplanes that have S mode transponders, and it's giving direction based on a resolution advisory direction based on a resolution advisory that says pull up, or descend or stop. It doesn't have lateral guidance left and right. And, the other part of TCAS is the TA advisory. And the TA advisory, what it says, it's alerting you to a possible RA advisory. The problem with the current system is you get erroneous advisories. And so airline operations to avoid erroneous, advisories has the system set up that, TAs and RAs cease between 1, 000 and 500 feet exactly where this particular accident, apparently occurred. The other part of this is with that type of technology, parts of industry has been fighting the, adapting that safety technology. They've been fighting it because of, cost reasons and actually, deployment reasons. Now the more advanced part of TCAS, which also falls under this thing called ACAS, It's ACAS X, ACAS XU, ACAS XR, and those are all technologies that are much more advanced and, they work for helicopters, they work for general aviation, they can work for commercial aviation, but they're more robust in the directive type, procedures while you're flying. We have that now. We have that now. We just haven't deployed it.

Jim:

Lee, how is TCAS not properly deployed in this situation?

Lee:

Well, again, the investigation is ongoing and I try not to speculate on it. But let's talk about other incidents that you can relate to this. If you're gonna inhibit a traffic advisory TA. If you're going to inhibit a traffic advisory, because it might distract a pilot at 1, 000 feet. That means from 1, 000 feet to landing, you don't have situation awareness for other traffic within the cockpit. So for commercial aviation, the TAs are inhibited at approximately that altitude. The resolution advisory, is shut off at approximately 500 feet. So you're not going to have any protection, from that, altitude on down. Now, commercial aviation has a requirement to report TAs and RAs above those altitudes, and any RA you have at altitude, you're required to, commercial aviation, you're required to follow it and additionally you're required to report it. Alright? Military aircraft, and I, I flew in the military, I've flown commercially, I've flown business and general aviation. Military aircraft, they, may have, the system, the S mode transponder that is reporting out. Or ADS B, but they can disable it, which, in other near misses, it has been disabled. It's still to be determined on this. So, if you have an airplane the transponder is not reporting out, then, the TA and RA even in altitude is not going to be effective.

Luka:

Lee, what do you believe is the root cause of this recent trend in increasing accidents and near misses? Are these incidents symptomatic of an underlying systemic issue?

Lee:

I believe we shouldn't be having accidents in 2025 in commercial aviation, especially since they're preventable. And so how do you prevent them? Well, we have lots of data and what's happening currently, I believe, is that data is being collected. Now let's talk about that for a minute. We have data from the aircraft engines. That's going back to the commercial operators generally through the engine manufacturers for commercial reasons. We have data from the airplanes that are being collected the, commercial operators of that aircraft. We have data, being collected on the flight operations of the airplane. And there are very good programs where that data has been, sorted. And, we have, de identified and we have, programs that, fully adapt, flight operations based on the data they're collecting. So the problem is, we don't have one place that all data is being sent with the idea, why do we do all this? Not for fun. With the idea that we can prevent accidents. So if you take it to the most basic level. And we assume that I'm correct when I'm telling you there's been many near misses around the country. And if you, go with that theory that there have been many near misses at Washington Reagan, related to military, to commercial civilian aircraft operations, you have to ask yourself, why aren't we changing how we're operating based on the near miss? What you want to do is take that data, change your operations so that you don't have another near miss and most importantly, so you don't have an accident.

Luka:

What do you think the data was pointing to in the DCA operations? Because what I'm hearing is that military and commercial operations have been ongoing there for at least 50 years. So what is it about the data that we should have seen yet we have not?

Lee:

I think it's pretty simple. You have a near miss, you, report it and you go, whoa, that was a near miss, sure glad that, that didn't happen. And then that's the end of it. You didn't address why did we have a near miss? How can we not have another near miss? And more importantly, how can we not have an accident? So a near miss, let's be clear. We wouldn't be having all this attention going on right now to what happened in DCA, if they would have missed by 20, 30, 50, or 60 feet. Oh, by the way, the night before reported there was a near miss also. So we wouldn't ever even know about that near miss. Now somebody knows. So the process for that is interesting. And I have a military background also. So the military flies with military flight numbers. Okay. Commercial aviation flies for the flight number, but the pilots are tied to the flight number in commercial operations. If a military aircraft violates airspace, the FAA may or may not file that as a violation. And then it goes through a chain of command around and eventually it's looked at by the military. Whether they, take action or not is, unknown, and the loop back, if I was to report a near miss with a military aircraft, it would be hard for me to know if anything was ever addressed. So you have to ask yourself, where did all those reports go? Well, I think the first question is, were they ever reported? Where did the reports go? If it was common knowledge, why didn't we address the routes early on?

Peter:

Are there other airports around the country that have traffic crossing the short final approach path to a runway like at DCA and if so, or are there similar, near misses that have occurred at those airports or is DCA a unique thing?

Lee:

Right. No, that's a great question. So everybody's kind of focused in on DCA as if it's an outlier. Okay. And I, I would say it's not an outlier at all. I flew in and out of DCA for a number of years in commercial aviation and around the country. And, this is going to become more of an issue as we move forward. Around the country, many, large airports have more operations than they've had in the past. Okay. Because of the regionalization of the airline industry, we have, similar numbers of airline operations domestically in the U. S. But they're more concentrated at large airports around the country. Those airports have helicopters, not necessarily military. They have helicopters, civilian helicopters that are talking to controllers in transiting the airspace. Now, if I pause there for a minute, I want to point out something. You're not allowed in the Class B airspace as a general aviation pilot without an ADS B transmitter, which is essentially telling the controller that you're there, you can't transit that airspace. Okay, so these helicopters to go through the airspace have the proper equipment and they're being cleared through the airspace and controlled appropriately. Now, again, not knowing anything, about an ongoing investigation, uh, in DCA, it's kind of a leap to ask a controller to talk to an airplane helicopter that's not transmitting, this type of data and say that that airplane visually separate yourself from another airplane at night when there's no depth perception by the controller or by the two, aircraft, meaning, okay, which one were you, it's a long conversation, but without the technology, if the technology would have been active, supposedly been active you could have prevented a mishap.

Peter:

But if Luka says that these operations at DCA have been going on for 50 years, that predates ADS B, that predates a lot of technologies.

Lee:

Yeah, the operations have been going on for a very long time, and there's probably been a lot of near misses, and, the, routes should have been changed, so you don't have a near miss. There's no excuse to have a near miss. Because when you have a non miss, like what we had here, then all of a sudden you're going back and looking at, hey, should we have been able to prevent this? I'm a big believer, especially, in commercial aviation, that we shouldn't have any accidents. In this day and age, we've practically eliminated them. But in this day and age, we shouldn't be having accidents. And again, I've called attention to the very fact that, a near miss should be treated as an accident. with the way the NTSB, the FAA, the commercial operator should be looking at it.

Luka:

What structural changes would you propose to address these weaknesses in not accumulating and exploiting the data?

Lee:

First off, I would say that we have to recognize that the data exists and this data exists, it's, it's even, there is even more data today than there was five, 10, 15, 20 years ago, but if you just go back a few years, when commercial operators were first looking at data off their own airplanes, they could look at data and say, wow, the flaps were getting over speeded on an approach into Cincinnati, a new STAR arrival, we'd have a exceedance on the airplane. Why is that? And they could look that the STAR had changed, the speeds were different, the altitude that you had to lose to make the points were different, and the actual STAR was contributing to the exceedance of the airplane. They could work with the FAA and get it changed, and adapt immediately. Okay. It was in their best interest to do that. And they were able to get it done. Now, so you fast forward today, they even have more data. Okay. But I think the systems that were originally thought about to, take the data and ensure that operational adaptations occurred has somehow been disconnected?

Jim:

Lee, we want to talk about ATC modernization in a few minutes and probably relates to a lot of what we're talking about here with ADS-B and the like. Is there anything else relating to safety? I mean, a lot's been going on recently. Is there anything else relating to safety that you'd like to share with our audience? Recommendations that you'd make, to be able to help prevent them in the future. The time out for safety you mentioned briefly, but you should talk a little bit more about that as well.

Lee:

Yeah, I do. I want to talk about time out for safety. Look, if you think about advanced safety programs, anybody who senses that there's a problem, a safety problem, should be able to call a timeout for safety. If you think about aviation, if I'm shooting an approach into an airport, and it's not a stabilized approach, and I make a decision to go around, a year from now, no one will ever remember I went around. If I continue an unstabilized approach, and have an incident or an accident, people will always remember that I had an incident or an accident. So, part of the training is that if something's not right, you need to change. Now, if you take that a little further and include everyone involved in aviation, anyone should be able to call a timeout for safety. I want to give you a couple examples. I believe that If you have a, airplane cross a runway when someone's landing or taking off and they cross the runway on their taxi out and they almost cause a mishap where one person could have died or 300 people could have died, the controller in the tower, ground controller or tower controller should be able to call out, a timeout for safety and say, something's not right here. Now think about it, under the current system, the FAA tower controllers, the FAA ATC controllers, they can't call a timeout for safety. They can't do it. So that plane taxiing out, he can now taxi out, although he almost killed a couple hundred people. He can taxi out and take off and fly for eight hours after this event almost occurred. I believe a better system would be for anybody, including ATC controllers to be able to call a time out for safety. And let's sort this out and see what happened there. And, right now that power at the FAA, it lies in Flight Standards. So, Flight Standards isn't active 24 hours a day. They might be out at my airport and they check the, paperwork on my airplane, on my personal airplane, and they say, wait a minute, this is expired. You're, down. You can't fly this until you get this repaired, not a paperwork issue. They can call a timeout for safety on anything, Flight Standards can. But ATC, I believe, should be enabled to do it. So I used a very specific example that's happened several times. If a tower clears an airplane to land, with another airplane still on the runway and they can see all that. Someone should call a timeout for safety and perhaps that controller should not be controlling until we sort out what was going on that he did that or she did that. And what I mean by that is it could be anything. They could be fatigued. They could be distracted. It could be a lack of vigilance or training, but to continue having someone control when so many lives are at stake at that moment without trying to figure out what's going on with that person, is missing in the system.

Luka:

How would the timeout for safety be realistically implemented in this case? Let's say where you only have that one controller on the shift and you can't replace them with somebody else or you have other traffic that needs to continue taxing and flying. What's a realistic way to execute these timeouts?

Lee:

Well, first off, we have to take that word out of it. Realistic. Okay, because it's unacceptable. So you would have a different question for me if they had hit each other. Okay. Because at that moment, everything stops. Okay. And we're dealing with many other problems, but what we have to do is back it up because we have data, we have things happening and we want to be preventable. Not trying to address it after the fact. I want to give you another example that might help you with this. So there was a flight out of Hawaii. I mentioned earlier. That flight took off out of Hawaii. And again, the final investigation, I don't believe it's done with that, but it climbed to, let's say, 2, 000, 2, 500 feet, and then it rolled over, apparently, and it descended all the way down to 700 feet. Or so reported all reported and then it recovered and climbed out and it was now didn't recover because the GPWS system within the airplane said, pull up, pull up, did it recover because the ATC controller got a low altitude alert on their system? Again, I, I don't have that information, but I do know that it went to that altitude. I do know it recovered. And I do know that it flew another eight hours or so onto San Francisco and landed. So if you think about it, you're a passenger on the airplane, a crew member in the back of the airplane. Or you're, the pilot's flying the airplane, or in this case, you're the ATC controllers, okay, something went on there, and should we continue for eight more hours and then try to figure out it the next day, or should we say, time out for safety, let's stop this, you come around and let's land back at Hawaii and sort this out. I'm of the belief, okay, that we need to address these things in real time. So, taxing out, you can always taxi back in. Do you have the proper mindset, certified airplane, it's certified for two pilots, you almost have an accident like this that could kill hundreds of people. Okay. Are you in the right mindset to continue on with the operation from a safety perspective? So I just believe something needs to change there. I have advocated for that to the FAA. It's, the FAA's response back to me at the time was, well, the controller should call the dispatcher at the airline and let them contact the air crew, because they've already been dispatched, right? Let them contract them and tell them what to do. Again, I guess that's the system you could use to address it. But the reality is. We need to get, I think, into the mindset, time out for safety, something's not right, people need to reset.

Peter:

I'm still interested in more of your thoughts to Luka's question on the root causes. What, if anything, has changed in recent quarters where we observe, this number of near misses and incidents that we've talked about here. Because for 15 years prior, we had such a safe system working. And, has something changed? Is the series of recent incidents a statistical anomaly or is there something to it? And what direction do we need to go with the National Airspace System to resume the level of safety that we have enjoyed or to even make it more safe? What are your thoughts on root causes changes and the, the direction to go. I mean, you mentioned, okay, the safety timeouts, but we didn't have those safety timeouts during that 15 year period.

Lee:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, first off, the premise of your question, I am, probably unique in industry in that I don't believe it's been safe, when you say 15 years, you're really referring to the Colgan accident to today. But in that same 15 years, you had many, many near misses that any one of them, it could have happened the following months of the, after Colgan, or it could have happened a year. But what did happen, what has happened is that we have probably north of a thousand accidents a year in general aviation and business aviation that's flying in the same airspace as commercial aviation we kill plus or minus 300 people a year. But what we've decided is to say airline travel is safe, even though that's going on. So think about what happened the week of the DCA mishap we had that happen a couple weeks we had that happen. Then the next day we had a private medevac jet, take off out of Philadelphia and promptly crash into a neighborhood, kill only five people, not 67 people, kill only five people, injure people on the ground. The next day. So, could that have been a commercial airliner? I believe it could have been. And then a few weeks later, we had a commercial airliner, although not in domestic U. S. airspace. It's up in Canadian airspace. You're, all very familiar with it. it was landing at Toronto airport and it had a mishap. Okay. So, if that would have been down in the U. S., we could have used it, but I tend to believe that North American airspace is very similar, although there, there's a dramatic differences between Transport Canada and the FAA, but I would submit first off that It hasn't been as safe as we'd like it. Now, you could make the case that a general aviation accident. with one person at the controls, it's, a, pilot error. Okay, generally, historically, pilot error. Maybe we shouldn't lump that into the same thing with commercial aviation, but those are pilots. They're flying in our airspace. They've had near misses with the same ATC system and they crash occasionally. So I don't think we should discount 300 deaths like that per year as the system has been remarkably safe. Now, who would argue with me on that? AOPA, the, the trade group for aircraft owners and operators, they would say it's safer than ever. I would say if you kind of look at the data, and number of cycles, number of frequencies, number of sorties planes are flying that it's not safer. I would say if you're using a piece of data that says that, look at the miles flown, maybe they would have a point there because of the longer legs of general aviation airplanes as compared to previously. But the bottom line is we can do better. And I think, it's all very preventable.

Luka:

Some would argue that COVID was a big milestone. A point in time when talent went away from the industry, when trained, experienced professionals, both in the cockpit and outside, left the industry as perhaps a contributing factor to a decrease in safety that we've seen over the last four years. Do you agree with that? And again, I'm trying to shine some light on specific things that changed in the industry. Did people get more complacent? Did we stop maintaining aircraft properly enough? Is the training not as effective? Are we more reliant on technology and automation? What do you think is going on?

Lee:

Yeah. another good question. So there was a time when I was in my twenties and I had a hundred and something hours or maybe 150 hours. And I thought that I was the greatest pilot in the world. Cause I was with those few hours, I was landing on aircraft carriers and it must be all about me only with time came wisdom that I realized that really anybody can do that. I was a function of some of the best training in the world. Okay. Great training. As, I moved, on in, my flying career in the military. I have a few thousand hours of flying in the military and I got into commercial aviation. What I saw there was very specific, excellent, training standard operating procedures and line oriented, procedures that were very good. As I went from there and I got into business aviation, general aviation flying again later on in life, which I do still today. What I saw there was a fundamental lack of standardization and oversight from the FAA into the general aviation and business community. All right. So that is an issue, but I think it's an issue that's always exists and can't specifically be pointed at because of the pandemic. So what is that, what is, how do I sum that up? I sum it up by, it is a function of training and oversight. So how do you decide how to train? How do you provide proper oversight? Well, we have mechanisms today because of technology where we're able to collect a lot of data and we know what's going on. And if you know what's going on, you can adapt your training and adapt your oversight.

Luka:

Given your extensive experience in both the military and commercial flying, what has been your personal experience with what's referred to as the automation paradox, where increasing reliance on automation designed to reduce human error may actually inadvertently introduce new types of risks, whereas systems become more complex, more automation means more supervision, more exception handling, more decision making under pressure when automation reaches its limits. But because these interventions are less frequent by design, human operators are less practiced. They're less trained, they're less prepared. And so automation makes the role of the human even more critical, but now the human is dealing with more complex and more rare and higher consequence type situations. How have you lived through that experience? And do you think that this has become an increasing problem and part of the reason we're seeing this degradation in safety?

Lee:

I don't think it's the principal reason for the degradation of safety, but I will kind of talk about this just a little bit because it's interesting. So I don't want to date myself, but I did start out with analog steam gauges. I then, so I went from, F 4 fighters to the the brand new F 18 digital airplane. I then went from that airplane at some point, I went back to an analog airplane, the A7. And I went from that back to, F 18s, the digital airplane. Then I came into the, airline industry and, I started out on the 727, which was pure analog, with some things, but it was an analog airplane. And then, technology was introduced and it constantly got better. And then I came to the civilian, world and started flying those airplanes again, Cessnas and Pipers, both, turbines and piston airplanes. So I've kind of seen it. up and down the entire way. I've flown flight management systems. I've flown, the airplanes where you had to make your own charts before you went. and I would say that if you look at it today, I don't believe that the problem is really the technology, I could say, it's the training and oversight of the technology to pilot interface, how it's being used, but if you stick to basic fundamentals of flying and look at the technology advancements that are in the cockpit, everything should point at it being safer. Not more dangerous. One other point I want to make. And again, I don't know if I was clear with that point. I want to make this point is in commercial aviation for a minute. You taxi out. You take off, I'm generalizing, 99 percent of the flying. You taxi out, you take off, you're under control. You get into the air traffic system, you're under control. You fly your route, unlike, when I started on NDBs, VORs, and TACANs. You're flying on waypoints and GPS. You're under positive control of the entire route. You're making, piloting, executive level decisions based on weather and based on other factors in route while the airplane is on the auto flight system. You're generally not hand flying it during that entire period of time, take off to 1500 feet, something like that. All the way in, all the way in, and then, you shoot an approach in, and depending on the weather, some, commercial operators require you to have the approach coupled all the way to landing, even into landing rollout before you decouple it. That requires a lot of, flight management. I believe, the data would point that that's inherently safe. that's a safe system. so when people try to point and say that piloting skills, stick and rudder have degraded. I don't necessarily believe that. What I do believe is that part of the system can be safe. Long as the pilots are properly trained, there's proper oversight of their training. They're adapting based on data that we show where there's inherent risks and then it'll be safe with one caveat. Everyone has to be vigilant because those systems are so precise. They are so precise. You're at 31, 000 feet in RSVM airspace. You're exactly at 31, 000 feet. You're not 31, 010. You're not 29. 99, you're at 31, 000 feet, and the other guy is too, if he's at 31, 000 feet. So, there is separation provided, to you by, air traffic control systems, but the plane is flying very precise routing. It's not a mile off, it's not a half a mile off, it's not even a hundred yards off left or right in commercial aviation. Included down to the approach where when the plane is flying, it's landing on the center line of the runway, within, wind and weather limitations. So I don't buy necessarily that, the technologies, the problem. I would say that you have to make sure you're staying on top of it and you're always vigilant.

Jim:

Lee, as we move on to ATC modernization, privatization of air traffic what change would you make right now that you think would be most effective in addressing the biggest issues.

Lee:

Well, that's going to lead us right into the FAA, but It's great being in my current role. Because I can say what I think, I don't have a, constituency on this particular Here's what I would do. I used to sit on, not only the FAA Management Advisory Committee with people that you've done podcasts with before, but I also was a member of the NextGen Advisory Committee, and the underlying, joke on NextGen is it should have been named a NowGen. Should have been called now gen, not next gen. So what I would do is I would push rapidly the modernize the ATC system to privatize the the FAA, ATC, for a host of reasons I'm going to talk about in a minute. And if you did all that brought private industry business principles and to, technology, equipment procurement, training and oversight of controllers, you'd make the system much safer very quickly. Controllers are not the problem, The problem centers around, the legislative and regulatory functions being able to keep up, not only from a funding, viewpoint, remember I said legislative and regulatory, not only from a stable funding viewpoint, but also from a technology procurement, methodology and viewpoint.

Jim:

We've entered the discussion on ATC modernization, privatization of air traffic. Many people have felt it's kind of a bridge too far. The first Trump administration tried to enact something early in its years. Is it practical that we could get privatization implemented?

Lee:

Well, I would think it's, it's interesting in Washington today because it's almost like the apple cart was turned upside down in anything is possible. But if you forget the discussion on possible for a minute, I'll tell you a couple things that I would tell people before, the most recent administration. I would say, hey, you're coming to Washington and you have the greatest idea in the world. And, in private enterprise, if you have a great idea, generally, that's really, what you underscore. Hey, a great idea. Let's work on that. But if you come to Washington with a great idea and you don't have any relationships, you have a 50 percent chance of getting something done. Only 50 percent with a great idea that we know is great. If you come to Washington and you have the worst idea in the world, but you have great relationships. And we've seen this time and time again. You have a 50 percent chance of a terrible idea getting through based on relationships. But what the key is, is if you have a great idea and you have great relationships and you come to Washington, you only have a 75 percent chance of getting anything done. Because Washington swirls around because their decision adverse, it can't get anything done. Great idea, great relationships, you still can't get it done. Now that doesn't make sense, right? So now when, the current administration with the current dynamic and not talking about all the politics, just the dynamic, I would say the opportunity for change is right now. And they, whoever wants to lead that change should be on it because It's going to happen. the problem is Washington's always changing. It doesn't deal very well with the rate of change. And right now the rate of change is accelerated because of the process. So what I believe needs to happen, if you're able to take advantage of all of the new technologies that are just sitting there waiting to enter the national airspace, waiting to enter commercial operation, waiting to enter, government operation, you're going to have to recognize that you have to change and the change needs to occur rapidly and it needs to occur now. So, ATC modernization, where people, stake out positions on funding, on jobs, on technology, that kind of needs to move aside and we need to focus on ATC modernization and getting it done in a timely fashion. Because if you don't, if you don't, we're going to have more mishaps if you don't, we're not going to be able to introduce new urban air mobility, drone technology. We're not going to be able to expand commercial operations much larger in the airline industry, because remember, we have saturated, our airports, our major airports, because of the economic drivers, which forced it into regionalization. If you don't change, you're not going to be able to have more density in those airports. So now's the time for change. I believe, there's going to be an opportunity here.

Jim:

We had Paul Rinaldi on about a year ago, I think it was who has stated the case in the past, and he was been forceful recently on this need for change. Practically speaking, how could it happen Lee?

Lee:

I think everything's kind of set in motion right now, because they're going to be able to point, some of these most recent mishaps, and near misses, that the system is broken. I believe, our national airspace is safe on a comparative basis. It's, more safe to fly than to cross the street on that basis. But, I believe that these events were preventable. When the investigations are done, they're going to illustrate that they were preventable, that they're preventable and, it's going to set the dynamic in place that you could change and modernize. What you need is a leader, a group to lead. And, I don't know fully what Paul, said in his interview with you, but, I've known Paul for a long time and served on committees and I have the utmost respect for Paul Rinaldi. What I would say is he probably said, something to you that I can relate to my experience of being a governor on the United States Postal Service. If you try to close a VOR and an FAA employee that happens to live in that community is there, you're going to have a Congressional member advocating or holding up legislation so that that facility stays in their community, even though it's no longer needed and it costs money, And the Postal Service, which is, outside of the government based on the 1972 Postal Deregulation Act. It's outside the government, although the government is allowed to appoint the governors who oversee the postal service, but all funding for the postal service comes from user fees. You pay stamps or you pay for packaging. There is no funding or minimal funding, it's a better way to say it, a complex subject, but no funding from the government for the Postal Service. That's essentially, the model that I believe ultimately, ATC needs to adapt. So right now, you're watching massive change in the Postal Service, modernization, new facilities, 60 year old buildings had asbestos in them, have been closed, they brought in new advanced technologies. It's rapidly changing over the last few years. After 30 years of neglect. So here we are at that point. Now, take that model and think about ATC. ATC, as I wrote in my op ed the other day, ATC is still using paper strips. Okay, it's a little crazy. It still uses, if you followed what A4A was saying the other day in their testimony to Congress, they're still using floppy drives to, update their computer systems. I think by any definition that is a system that needs to be modernized. When I was on the FAA management advisory committee again, several people that you've interviewed were on that committee with me we needed a data center, and when, the FAA administrator at that time brought the oversight committee, a proposal that they were dealing with on a data center from start to finish in the current procurement process was 10 years. Well, in 10 years, that, that technology would have been obsolete, actually in three years that technology would have been obsolete, yet if IBM, HP, Apple, Uber, name it, they want a data center, they're going to go out and get a building in Herndon, Virginia, and they'll have it up and running in six months. That's, the profile that the FAA is desperately in need of.

Jim:

One thing Paul mentioned was flight strips, and we talked about TFDM funded flight strips, funded and approved 10 years ago, the winner for that. And we still haven't fully implemented automated electronic flight strips. Your views have changed on modernization through the years. How have they changed?

Lee:

When I was the president of the Airline Pilots Association, I would say my private view was we needed to modernize and we needed to do it this way. However, the one stickler at that time was who was going to pay for it, the modernization, as it related to user fees. So commercial airline companies, that I represented the members of, they wanted to be sure that they weren't going to fund the entire amount. Business aviation didn't want to pay any more. General aviation doesn't pay anything. They pay a gas tax. And so you had the major players, fighting with each other on the funding, not really arguing over the more politically correct term was corporatization. Okay, really, whatever the entity is, but it uses private industry business principles. And so at that time, I was trying to, navigate a way through that to ensure that we ultimately got it done. And we were only paying our fair share, but I don't think I've ever changed. about the need for ATC modernization. I think what I'm articulating right now is I have changed that, and I have a lot more experience in this now. I have changed in that I believe that the legislative process is, broken. the legislative process still needs an oversight function, but the funding part of it and unstable funding and CapEx for, private enterprise, all those things, they don't work very well, when legislation's responsible.

Luka:

What do you think is the most feasible funding mechanism?

Lee:

User fees.

Luka:

Across the user base, general aviation, business aviation, commercial?

Lee:

I think that's, that's the way to do it. I mean, there, I, it's not that I wouldn't be open to other matters, but let me give you an example. So the Postal Service did it 90 percent right. You pay to, you get a forever stamp and you buy a stamp, you mail a letter, even though I'm sure most of you don't do that anymore, but if you did, or you mail a package. What didn't happen there is the pensions of the employees stayed in the government system and those pensions aren't very well defined and that money is co mingled. So the amount of money, as you know, would define benefit pensions are very complex. So I believe, you shouldn't do it partway. You should do the entire system out with the proper oversight and governance of the government, national airspace is very important, proper oversight of it, but the funding being paid, principally by the users. Now, there would have to be a transition phase, and perhaps others would disagree with me on this, but having been on the Audit Committee of the United States Postal Service for three years, with a monthly meeting. I understand the finances very well. So, a transition phase would be, okay for the employees, but ultimately the users of the system should be funding it in one way or another.

Peter:

And roughly what sort of cost burden do you see that placing on general aviation?

Lee:

Yeah. So, General Aviation, after you publish this, I'll probably get some emails on that. that would be a, not being political here, just being practical. That would be a discussion item on what should general aviation pay. But I believe, and, there, there is part of general aviation that doesn't use the ATC system. You have to recognize that. They just fly in the airspace, don't necessarily use the system. But the reality is there are really good people and smart people that can sit around and figure out a fair and equitable, funding stream. And I think though some people, including the users, would tell you the current system is broken. Everybody wants somebody else to pay. But, and they don't want to pay any more, but under the current system, if we continue with this and it continues to deteriorate, it's only a matter of time before, instead of having a negotiation on how you do it, you actually have it imposed upon you.

Luka:

What's the ballpark annual amount that would need to be funded?

Lee:

That's an unknown number to me, but I know it's a known number. But remember, it needs to be a transition phase because the current system is archaic. And so you gotta, look at it and decide what facilities move into the new system, what systems move into the new system, do you run two systems until one system, it's not a light switch, right, it's not a flip it over one day, do you run two, there's a lot of government properties, there's a lot of properties that are leased from people, so it's pretty complex, but can it be done? I'm confident it can.

Jim:

Lee, would we likely see the same parties being proponents of this and opponents of this, of the privatization if we tried it again as we saw 10 years ago?

Lee:

Well, I, I would hope that everybody learns something from that, As far as, proponents and opponents, remember we're focused on ATC. We're not really talking about FAA safety for a minute, because safety and certification has its own set of problems, right? There are people that say it's going to be a long time before you can ever get another, Airliner certified in the U. S. Because of the current dynamic that's going on in Washington. We're not talking about that. We're talking only about the ATC system. And I think the real hang up, is, maybe twofold one, the funding stream. And what facilities and where the facilities are located

Luka:

Yeah, I wonder how the new administration and DOGE might be thinking about privatizing ATC and freeing that capital from the administrative budget burden.

Lee:

Yeah how DOGE is thinking, it excites me that you think I would have insight into them. I believe that the vast majority, if not everybody, would agree that something has to change. They would probably disagree on the level of how broken it is. But they would all agree that there's room and opportunity for improvement. And I have said this before, that the system is changing. the industry has a real hard time dealing with the rate of change if it's fast. but if there's ever been an opportunity to change. It's right now with this administration and these events that have provided a hyper focus on how important safety is and how important the National Airspace ATC is to the industry.

Jim:

Lee, you ran the ALPA, which was a very large and prestigious airline pilot union. Talk a little bit about that. What's its role and and where was it? And where are we today with ALPA?

Lee:

Yeah, so the Airline Pilots Association, I, I would just kind of bifurcate it in two fundamental roles. Well, perhaps three. One is the Airline Pilots Association. They are the bargaining agent for the pilots at the majority of US and Canadian airlines. The bargaining agent. The other role is they have the largest non governmental safety organization in the world. So that came about because of the number of accidents that were occurring from the foundation of ALPA. I think if you go back and research this, you'd find that the founding members of ALPA, 50 percent of them were killed within a few years of airline accidents. All right. So that started the focus on aviation safety, and it's carried through all the way to today. if I was to say there's a 3rd function, I think that 3rd function is integrating with, governmental policy and trying to shape that, Again, excellent organization. always changing, lots of members. There are several pilot unions in the U. S. There's also the Allied Pilots Association. They only represent American pilots. There's the Southwest Pilots Association. They only represent the Southwest pilots. There's the Independent Pilots Association. They represent the UPS pilots. And then there, the Teamsters have a small aviation group and they have a couple of Cargo groups they represent. But by and large, ALPA is the leader.

Jim:

Tell us a little bit about what you accomplished at Alpa that, you're particularly proud of and was particularly challenging.

Lee:

Yes, that's good. So, when I was the president of ALPA, it was a difficult time. Seems like we were always running into those. The industry was fundamentally changing. Before I was the president of ALPA, I was essentially the president of the Delta pilots, which was at the time, one of the largest groups within ALPA. And Delta had gone through a bankruptcy, a hostile takeover, the financial crisis of 2008 where at one point oil went to 150 a barrel and we were wondering if Delta and the rest of the industry would go back into bankruptcy. And then a merger, which started the mergers of large airlines between, Delta and Northwest Airlines. I went from there to the Airline Pilots Association in Washington and headed that up and essentially, completed 19 contractual agreements, which before that they were far and few between. And also, worked with the United and Continental Airlines and their, pilots to merge those two airlines together. Brought JetBlue Airlines into the Airline Pilots Association. And also the Airline Pilots Association had a history of of only supporting Democrats. So I changed the Airline Pilot Association from a party specific to pilot partisan politics, meaning focus on the issues related to the industry and pilots, not the issues related to, Democrats, Republicans or independents. And, that, ALPA. They've carried through on that to this day. So it was a big time of change.

Luka:

Lee, critics sometimes argue that unions prioritize job security over embracing disruptive but necessary change. Is this something that you faced while at ALPA, and if so, how have you reconciled union interests with the need for constant improvement?

Lee:

I think that's a fair criticism of union leadership, not of unions. So when I was at ALPA, we focused on contract bargaining, safety, and government policy, and we were very careful not to mix industrial strategic imperatives with safety imperatives. We were very careful. We kept it, split. As you've gone forward, to today, there are many unions that are focused on jobs, first and foremost, and sometimes they let the whole job discussion get in the middle of it, the safety discussion, and I don't think that's appropriate.

Jim:

Lee, when we first met, it was many years ago. You probably don't remember, but I was at a conference where there were many airline CEOs, leaders of airlines, the press. I remember thinking every time this guy speaks, everybody's paying attention to him. You're, in the good graces of a lot of not only the union, but the top people within the airlines and you're on the boards of many organizations today. How were you able to appeal to the top executives to the unions to the pilots all the different organizations where other people generally get earmarked what's different about you that makes you appeal so much to all parties?

Lee:

So what I would say is it's not really magic or secret. If you focus on the problem, that you're trying to solve. And if you look at it from an airline itself and say to yourself, do I want to negotiate to get a larger piece of the pie taking it away from somebody else? Or do I want to work together to make the pie bigger? I was of the mindset, let's make the pie bigger than everybody gets more. And if I was to break down all my experience with all the airline CEOs that I've worked with and continue to work with and all the unions I've worked with, I would say the following. In general, executive level airlines, teams, the boards, they, I think have a fundamental misunderstanding of unions and union leadership. I believe that airline CEOs, need to look at employees of the airline as their employees, and they need to look at the unions that have union leadership as who they bargain with. They shouldn't confuse those two issues, but it happens quite frequently. As far as unions and union leaders, they're different. Union leaders are different than the unions themselves. And the union leaders. they didn't go to union leadership school. They weren't born to be union leaders in general, and their financial acumen sometimes isn't, executive level. They weren't all CPAs or in this case, they're pilots. And so they have a tendency to not understand the financial dynamics of a company and how a company is competing and how, by working together, ultimately, they can all benefit each other. So I tend to bridge that gap, I can talk to, union leaders, unions, employees, pilots, all crew members. And I can also talk to the members of the board and explain things to them that are very foreign. And, I do that with the idea of getting the job done. Moving, the enterprise forward. That shouldn't be a secret, but you'd be surprised how many people don't understand each other. And, it almost sounds like I'm saying on a mediator, really, I'm just a communicator in that realm. I understand what both sides are saying. It shouldn't be sides. They should be together, but more often than not, there's a wedge there that, I try to remove and find, a collegial issue they can work on together.

Jim:

As you've been working together in your time in aviation, and you're still very much involved in many different boards. Are there any people who stand out in your history who have been some of the better leaders?

Lee:

So people that stand out as great leaders. So Richard Anderson and, Northwest Airlines. If you go and look at the resume, most of the other CEOs in the airline industry, at one time or another, they worked with Richard Anderson and Northwest Airlines. Why they all came out of that airline would probably be great for another podcast for you. But I think in general, if you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers. It sounds a lot like, the ethics classes we had in the Marine Corps. It sounds the same, from Richard, I would say, Ed Bastin, is, a great leader and a great example for how a CEO should conduct himself under duress. He's done an incredible job when the industry, was going through dramatic change from, pandemics to incidents to governmental changes. I would say, Dave Barger over at JetBlue was an exceptional leader. I could go on and on. Now, if I leave anybody out, I'm going to feel bad. Within the union leadership, I would say Paul Rinaldi was a great union leader, and continues to be a great leader. In the, piloting profession, I would, say Tim Canole was a great, president of the Airline Pilots Association. There are others, Randy Babbitt, Dwayne Worth, As far as, other unions, I think it's a difficult place they, they find themselves. I was on the AFL CIO executive council, the board at the highest, level for a number of years, and, they were having a lot of trouble adapting to change. And, I would say that continues today. Fundamentally, they should be looking at how they work with these, companies to increase the pay and benefits and the health of the company, not necessarily looking at their own, individual issues.

Jim:

We have a lot of young CEOs and entrepreneurs who would love to hear some advice from you on what you've seen. Great CEO leadership, some of the traits or what advice would you give to them and running these small companies? You're on boards of some of these startups. And, what advice would you pass along to our listeners?

Lee:

Well, the first thing I would say is you, need to be prepared, to adapt. If you don't adapt, you're going to fail. And it used to be said just like that. but now if you don't adapt. In a fast fashion, you will fail. So you have to be prepared to pivot and adapt at all times. The next thing I would say, especially, you do a lot of podcasts, Jim and team on EVTOLs, urban air mobility, drones, and all that. And, my experience out in Silicon Valley, using that as a proxy for all of technology, my experience out there has been that, what works in other disciplines besides aviation, what works there in the disruptor arena is they focus on getting the job done at all costs and move around, government at all costs and just ask for forgiveness. At all costs. in aviation, you can't do that. You have to go through a certification process. So, in that certification process and technology development process, what they need to do is have a realistic look at the timeline for certification and have a funding stream that is set up for them to make it to the end. There's been so many of these companies that have great ideas, but they end up going bankrupt or they end up shutting down, for lack of funding because they were hung up, not necessarily in the development of the, technology, but in waiting for the certification process to play out. And again, you could say, well, that's the FAA's fault. I would say, you could blame a little bit of it on the FAA, but the reality is that's the current process going in and the process is built on a foundation of safety. Now, some of those companies. startup companies we've been watching them go over to Europe because there's a bilateral agreement with Europe with EASA if they can get through the ODA process over there, then the FAA is going to have to accept them. Some of them are going out to the Middle East, to, the Emirates, bringing their technology there because they don't have the same constraints and they can, operationally put it into technology they can put it operationally, have it working and therefore they can try to use that as they move back to the U. S. for certification. And that's a sad state of affairs that you have to venue shop to get your product certificated, but that's what we're starting to see. So for a startup, I think they have to be mindful of that. For the way they spend money, they have to be very cognizant of that. We have several startups that you're familiar with that, came to market through a SPAC. And so they had a lot of money and, they're now having to pivot because certification is hung up. The other modes of funding, even though they had a pretty good funding stream right off the bat.

Jim:

Lee, this has been great. Is there anything you'd like to leave with our audience? Any kind of summary of this discussion?

Lee:

The time for changing ATC, the time for, addressing safety is right now. We shouldn't have another mishap in this, day and age. There's, data, there's technology, we need to bring it to market, we need to deploy it, we need to make the airspace safer,

Jim:

That's great. Lee. Great summary. Hey, thanks again. Lee.