Outgoing FAA Administrator Jane Garvey called it her “state of aviation” address. Garvey said she always chose the Washington Aero Club to give something approaching a “state of aviation” address. “In preparing today’s remarks, I took a look back at some of those old speeches; and what struck me, in retrospect, was the sheer number of subjects–all of them critical, most of them controversial, and, as I know you will agree, none of them easy,” she recalled. “I’ve stood before you to talk about modernization, labor-management relations, security, infrastructure, Y2K and a whole lot more.”
At her confirmation hearings in 1997, she remembered that Senators described the job of FAA Administrator as difficult, demanding and overwhelming, among other things. “And those were the optimists,” she declared. “Beyond the everyday trials of managing an organization with 50,000 employees, and overseeing the largest and most complex air traffic management system in the world, there was the challenge of restoring confidence in an industry that had been hit hard by some terrible accidents. Morale was sinking. The Y2K threat was looming.”
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