FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA) RELEASES REALIGNMENT OF AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION SERVICE (AIR)
On January 6, 2017, the FAA announced the realignment of its Aircraft Certification Service (AIR) aimed at increasing the FAA’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Summary. As the aviation industry has become increasingly global, there has been concern that AIR is unable to keep pace with the industry demands and cannot maintain consistency and standardization. The FAA has decided to create a structure that better aligns personnel and executive leadership with the work performed. This structure seeks to shift the focus of resources to enable early engagement with industry and promote more consistent oversight of the aviation system. By implementing this structure and realignment, the FAA hopes to produce an incremental reduction in involvement during the certification program.
Purpose. The realignment of the certificate service is part of the FAA’s efforts to improve its responsiveness to the U.S. aviation industry as it certifies new products. The FAA is also investing in management systems to improve performance and the organization and seeks to streamline its regulations and policies to help the industry move products to market faster and retain competitiveness. As part of the realignment, AIR will implement a new functionally-aligned organizational structure to execute the certification strategy.
The new organizational structure consists of five functionally-aligned divisions. Three divisions will perform essential regulatory duties: (1) Policy and Innovation, (2) Compliance and Airworthiness, and (3) System Oversight. The remaining two divisions will focus on internal infrastructure: (1) Organizational Performance, and (2) Enterprise Operations. This organization is led by the Aircraft Certification Service Executive Director, who will be supported by two deputies; one who is focused on tactical “regulatory operations” issues, and the other is focused on “strategic initiatives.”
Some of the benefits of this new organizational structure include consistency and standardization, innovation, system oversight, streamlined certification, metrics-based analysis and agility and adaptability.
Changes. AIR’s current organization is structured to support local office engagement with industry through four product-based directorates with geographical certification responsibilities. The realignment of AIR is the first phase in the process and groups similar organizations together to create the functional divisions while maintaining existing sub-division organizational structures.Industry points of contacts already existing will be retained to ensure seamless relationship management and to facilitate contact with the appropriate FAA employees.Implementation of the realignment will result in cessation of the directorate structure.
If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact Shelley Ewalt.
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