The Federal Aviation Administration is shuffling its organisational structure, moves the agency says will improve operational efficiency, support safety and better prepare it to modernise air traffic control (ATC).
The changes, revealed by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) on 26 January, will not involve staff cuts and will see the FAA form three new offices. The FAA is an agency of the DOT.
Those include an “Aviation Safety Management System Organization” office tasked with implementing a “safety management system and risk-mitigation strategy” applicable to the entire organisation.
“Now, instead of different safety metrics siloed in individual offices, the agency will be able to share safety data more freely,” the DOT says.
The agency’s single safety management system will help it “proactively identify hazards in the [national airspace] and mitigate risks before incidents occur”, the FAA has previously said.
The FAA will also create an “Airspace Modernisation Office” tasked with overseeing the agency’s sweeping plan to update air traffic control technologies and facilities.
It is also forming an “Office for Advanced Aviation Technologies” to manage regulation and integration of drones and “advanced air mobility” aircraft such as electric vertical take-off and landing types.
DOT secretary Sean Duffy says the “critical organisational changes” will foster innovation, “streamline bureaucracy” and enable the FAA to update ATC at the speed demanded by President Donald Trump.
The agency has said the first phase of the ATC effort will last roughly 3.5 years and involve modernising facilities and installing new radars, communications and display systems.
The organisational changes also include consolidating under the administrator management of the agency’s finance, information technology and human resources divisions.
The FAA has also rolled the Aviation Safety Organization, which had overseen certification, into a new “Aviation Safety Oversight and Certification Organisation”.
The restructuring will leave the FAA administrator directly overseeing five FAA divisions: the Administration and Finance Office, the Policy and Legal Office, the Airspace Modernization Office, the Air Traffic Organisation (which manages ATC) and Aviation Safety Management Organization.
The FAA deputy administrator will manage four divisions: the Security and Intelligence Organization, the Aviation Safety Oversight and Certification Organization, the Office for Advanced Aviation Technologies and the Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
