Promising Future?

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) will welcome industry leaders of the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) sector who will take part in a panel discussion of AAM technologies and the likelihood aircraft deriving of such will, in fact, drive sustainable on-demand aviation in the coming years. The keynote session will convene on the second-day of 2023’s NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In addition to Hillwood Aviation president and CEO Matt Byrd, who will serve as moderator, the panel is slated to comprise: Ben Marcus, co-founder and managing partner at UP Partners; Melissa Tomkiel, president and general counsel at BLADE; and Shannetta Griffin, associate administrator of airports for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen stated: “The FAA has made AAM a priority, as demonstrated with its recently released blueprint for integrating AAM operations and access to air taxi vehicles. We are pleased to host this important discussion among industry and government leaders, to focus on the strides being made in the regulatory arena, the private sector and elsewhere to make the promises of AAM a reality.”

Earlier this year, the FAA released its Innovate28 initiative—an implementation plan by which the agency and a number of key stakeholders will cooperate to safely foster near-future AAM operations. By virtue of multiple discrete phases, the Innovate28 plan aims to facilitate at-scale AAM operations at one or more U.S. sites by 2028. The plan calls for AAM air taxi operations to be conducted after a fashion similar to extant scheduled and non-scheduled commercial helicopter air-service.

Initial AAM operations will utilize existing routes and infrastructure, such as helipads and early vertiports, and communicate with air traffic control as required. Ultimately, the FAA and AAM industry partners seek to validate expanded, possibly autonomous AAM flight operations.

The NBAA contributed input on the FAA’s blueprint with guidance from the association’s AAM Roundtable, a forum consisting of leaders of AAM developers and companies currently and actively engaged in determining the means by which AAM technologies will be integrated into the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS).

Established in 2021, the NBAA AAM Roundtable works with the bipartisan congressional AAM Caucus and the leading Congressional authorizers to ensure the inclusion of pro-AAM policies in the pending FAA reauthorization legislation.

The 2023 NBAA-BACE Day-2 Keynote will begin at 09:30 PDT on Wednesday, 18 October. 

FMI: www.nbaa.org