Rockwell Collins - We Need to Pursue NextGen with Sense of Urgency
“Unless we do something, our antiquated system is going to break”
Washington, DC - Kent Statler, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Commercial Systems for Rockwell Collins, said that the case for modernizing the air transportation system for the 21st century is more urgent than ever.
In a keynote address at Aviation Week’s NextGen Ahead Air Transportation Modernization Conference in Washington, DC, Statler said many of the technologies necessary for NextGen already exist.
However, unless the Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), airlines and industry find better ways to work together with mutual accountability and trust to forge a national airspace that can handle what’s ahead, the vision and target of NextGen will likely never be achieved.
“Unless we do something, our antiquated system is going to break,” said Statler. “As a country – as a spoke in a global economy – we can’t afford to let that happen. If we are to respond to this urgency, we must do so together.”
Statler also noted that the tripling of aircraft fuel costs in the last decade and the resulting race for efficiency has added new gravity to the NextGen development process.
