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Keynote Address

William R. Voss

Access to safe, affordable and sustainable air transportation, has changed and will continue to change the world. What we do connects the peoples and the markets of the world. When we do it well, it changes history. Aviation creates connections that lead to opportunities. Aviation creates familiarity between individuals that grows into trust, and trust that grows into peace.

That is a fact. Let’s talk about some other facts that have not changed in the last few months that represent a foundation we can build on today. When times are turbulent, it is easy to forget that economics is an indicator of human activity. It does not necessarily drive human activity. In July of this year, the chief economist of Goldman Sachs came out with a report that the middle class of the world will grow by 2 billion over the next 20 years. Right now 70 million join the ranks of the middle class every year. By 2027, that rate will accelerate to 90 million a year.

What is different about this new generation is how badly it needs aviation. My father was able to ride between cities on slow-moving freight trains. For the most part, the emerging middle class doesn’t even have that option. They live where transportation infrastructure is substandard or nonexistent. They need to be able to get goods to market, they need to move themselves to where the work is.

In addition, this new generation needs stability. Many of these young people live in countries whose borders include fragmented groups that have grown apart through centuries of isolation. The isolation must end if these countries are to survive and if peace is to become firmly established. Aviation can connect those people, and that connection must occur.

As these people achieve new wealth, their spending on transportation will increase dramatically. Since 1990, the share of income the average Chinese worker spends on transportation and communications has gone up more than 2,500 percent. Air transportation remains essential. Its growth is inevitable. It is up to us to keep it safe.

What must we do to achieve that?

I have been presented with many safety problems around the world, but I can think of few problems I have seen in aviation safety where the solutions were not already known. Aviation safety is limited not by our ability to understand, but our ability to act. Our ability to act is limited in turn by our ability to speak clearly to each other and to those that govern us about what we do, and what needs to be done.

I have discussed these problems directly with heads of state, and even they feel powerless to act. This is not the type of problem that inspires legislators or politicians. This is the type of problem that tends to wait for a concentration of tragedies, economic debacles or both.

Another issue that plagues all of us is our ability to collect and protect the data that keep the system safe. These are the data that warn us of simple errors before they become major tragedies. We know that the way to keep a system safe is not to focus solely on the onein- a million tragedies, but instead to pay careful attention to the hundreds of small mistakes that happen every day. Addressing these problems when they are small gives the public higher levels of safety and saves operators money. It is a win-win approach, but getting and keeping that information that feeds it is proving difficult.

I could list many more challenges but they all come to a similar point. We don’t have a lot of technical problems anymore. We have systemic problems that are sensitive and difficult to address. Perhaps today we could start by talking with each other about those difficult issues that lie below the surface.

FAA International Aviation Safety Forum December 2, 2008 Washington, DC Retrieved from: http://www.flightsafety.org/pdf/voss_faa_120208.pdf