AOPA President Talks About The TSA, The FAA And The Coming Battle Over User Fees

By ANN Senior Editor Pete Combs

Part One

Phil Boyer looks at his watch and asks if we might talk as we walk. It's Friday -- AOPA Day -- at Sun-N-Fun in Lakeland, FL, and Boyer is a busy man.

He's also, by his own admission, a bit exasperated. Why? It all has to do with the TSA.

"There have been three (TSA) heads in just a little over the three years that the TSA has existed," he told ANN. "The first one lasted six months. The next one lasted about a year and three-quarters and now, the last one here is just a little over eight months. Each time that a new person comes in, we've got to explain this subset of the air transportation system called General Aviation."

In other words, Boyer and his staff at AOPA haven't even finished breaking in Admiral David Stone (USN, Ret.) and now he, along with his top aides, are leaving. The Bush administration reportedly asked Stone to step down as his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, considers a top-to-bottom, department-wide reorganization. There's talk that the agency will be dismantled entirely -- and concern about the unknown that might replace it.

To Boyer, that raises the question of just where GA security will fit in whatever becomes of the TSA. But whatever that is, he knows AOPA will once again have to bring someone up to speed.

"They certainly understand that the TSA mandate from Congress was passenger screening and baggage screening. They think of large airports. And then they get these constant little press barrages about how unsafe small airports are, without considering (of course) how really big a threat are small planes. So we have to do this education process -- we've done it three times."

With Admiral Stone, Boyer said, the process was especially slow "because he didn't have much of a background in general aviation, versus Admiral Loy (the second TSA chief, who preceded Stone), who had a lot of background with pleasure boats and could equate those to airplanes."

An especially low point in the education of David Stone, Boyer said, came with the announcement of the "ill-conceived and ill-executed" Alien Flight Rule. It requires all flight students from outside the US to submit to fingerprinting and background checks -- putting the onus of responsibility for all that on the backs of CFIs nationwide. Boyer said that was akin to on-the-job training for Admiral Stone.

"He realized that his people have got to start talking with AOPA before they craft a rule -- rather than afterwards, (when they) get beaten up over it."

Sure, pilots (student and otherwise) have born the brunt of the frequent changes at the top of the TSA. But, he said, it's the taxpayers who must foot the bill for teaching TSA leaders the same lessons over and over again.

"The taxpayer puts another set of people in place, funds their salaries and gets them educated -- which takes almost a year. For us, this is what our members pay us to do. But, boy, we sure could be doing a lot more productive things rather than starting from scratch again.

Boyer is a bit frustrated. "We gotta start again at educating them. Well, we're getting better at it. We're getting faster. We should just develop a kit called the 'New TSA Administrator Kit.'"

What about that which will follow Stone and the TSA as he knows it? While some aviation insiders say the situation may very well become worse for GA owners and operators, Boyer dared to be just a little optimistic.

"I think it's going in the other direction. I'm buoyed by the fact that... Michael Chertoff, the new DHS Secretary... has said, 'I want our agency to address those things which are true risks and put our money there -- big cities, not small cities.... I want to have those things that really are a risk and leave the other things alone."

(In part two of our conversation with Phil Boyer, the AOPA president talks about the Aviation Trust and the coming battle over user fees. -- ed.)

FMI: www.aopa.org