The Bright Future of Aviation: Sustainability, Innovation, and Opportunity

Dr. DeVivo, distinguished guests, good morning.

Thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts on the future of aviation... despite the chilly weather, I am thrilled to be here today because you are an important part of aviation's future.

Aviation has been a part of my life since I was born.

You see, I am the son of a pilot, and I grew up in the Bahamas.

So, the idea of my father taking the family on a "road trip" was a little different for me… what I saw my dad do was create "magic."

While I realize that my perspective is unique, what makes me really excited is that the future of aviation is filled with opportunities for everyone who sees the magic in what lies ahead.

Our first century of flight created an ecosystem that makes safe, reliable air transportation commonplace.

We took ideas that existed only in imaginations and cartoons and made it the reality for many.

The ability to wake up on one continent and go to bed in another - on the other side of the world the very next day - is not only commonplace, it is expected. And that makes me wonder…

When you work in an industry that is already beyond what anyone could have ever imagined-one built on decades of incremental enhancements that often go unnoticed, supported by data that is shared to create a positive safety culture, and now connects every corner of the world-how do we make it even better?

We can make it better by ensuring that we are handing the next generation a strong aerospace ecosystem that they can build upon.

We can make it more sustainable, more equitable, and filled with more opportunities. In short, we make it even more magical.

Now, I cannot take credit for the idea of making a magical place more magical. That credit belongs to The Walt Disney Company.

Disney has been making magic happen for decades, but as an aviation guy, one of my favorite examples is a recent one.

Their amusement parks are famous for their nighttime fireworks displays.

But since 2016, Disney has been experimenting with replacing the fireworks with drones. And earlier this year, the Disneyland Park in Paris debuted the iconic Main Street Electrical Parade as a drone show.

Drones add magic, but they don't pollute like fireworks do.

They don't have a negative effect on our air quality or the potential to contaminate the waterways they fly over.

Drones provide more magic, but also more sustainability.

When it is a foundational element to making our aerospace system future-proof, sustainability opens the door to a world of innovative ideas.

So, how does the FAA, a safety regulator, spark this innovation?

Answer: collaboration!

We partner with U.S. industry, international stakeholders, and academic institutions - sort of like Vaughn College - to make the magic happen.

The Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise Program - also known as CLEEN, spelled C-L-E-E-N - uses a cost-sharing approach to enable industry to expedite integration of environmentally beneficial technologies into current and future aircraft.

CLEEN is already in the middle of its third phase. This is a five-year, $125 million program that requires participants to match or exceed the government's investment.

Modeling conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology projected that by 2050, the first two phases of the CLEEN Program will result in 51 billion gallons of fuel saved and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of more than 500 million metric tons. The modeling also shows that landing take-off nitrogen oxide emissions will be reduced by 2.79 megatons through 2050.

Innovation in the aircraft isn't enough to achieve the U.S. aviation's sector's goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. So, we are also focused on accelerating the production and use of sustainable aviation fuels or "SAF."

Along with our colleagues in the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, we are leading the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge to dramatically accelerate the use of sustainable aviation fuels.

Our goal is to scale up the production of SAF to 35 billion gallons per year by 2050. This would allow us to meet 100% of the projected domestic jet fuel demand.

This year FAA Fueling Aviation's Sustainable Transition, or "FAST" grant program announced $244 million in investments for a variety of projects that produce, transport, blend, or store sustainable aviation fuels. An additional $46 million in FAA grants will fund projects that develop, demonstrate, or apply low-emission aviation technologies.

The FAA has put a significant amount of energy and activity behind our sustainability efforts, but we see industry doing it too. And I'm not just talking about traditional airlines.

The FAA is working with a new generation of aviators who will operate electric vehicles. These vehicles will provide environmental benefits and also have the potential to make air transportation-and the benefits it provides-more equitable.

We are already seeing more access to the skies with nearly 400,000 commercial drones that are operating in the United States.

Drones can be a more cost-effective solution to getting an "eye in the sky" to see terrain, buildings, crops - well, anything under 400 feet in most cases.

Drone package delivery is taking off and is expected to grow exponentially once rules for routine beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations are completed. (And before you ask, no, I am not allowed to tell you when that proposed rule will be published. But you might want to keep checking the Federal Register.)

For more rural areas - like where I went to college in Florida, these new entrants have the potential to expand air transportation options, expedite the delivery of medication and other important goods, and improve infrastructure monitoring. In urban areas, much like New York City, new entrants can take cars off the roads, reducing travel times, congestion, and air pollution.

And these are the not the benefits of some far-off, imagined Tomorrowland.

Drones are already changing the way we prepare for and respond to natural disasters and wildfires.

Drones were pandemic heroes - providing contactless delivery of personal protective equipment, vaccines, and other important goods. And drones are sparking the aviation bug in students from elementary school to university.

2024 also has brought significant progress toward the entry of air taxis or Advanced Air Mobility into the national airspace systems.

We have been working through the aircraft certification process with several advanced air mobility, or AAM, manufacturers, and we have a plan in place to support integrated AAM operations at one or more locations in the U.S. by 2028.

In fact, this past October, we issued a final rule for the qualifications and training that instructors and pilots must have to fly powered-lift aircraft.

As our industry evolves and adopts new aircraft types with new capabilities, the FAA has to evolve too.

This means making our national airspace system and the infrastructure that supports it more agile.

Near-term, you will see us beginning to implement unmanned traffic management or UTM in the real world through our UTM Operational Evaluation in the North Texas area.

Through this program, we are working to validate the UTM industry consensus standards to mitigate drone-to-drone collision risk for BVLOS operations.

This program is also evaluating several areas for which established policy does not yet exist. It is generating data that will help the FAA, operators, and local community leaders.

Drones and AAM vehicles are helping to make our physical transportation systems more equitable. But there is additional work that the FAA has to do to make itself more equitable…

I'm talking about the importance of diversity.

We need to bring as many people into the industry as we can.

It's not just the right thing to do, we are safer and stronger when we have people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives working together to solve increasingly complex challenges.

Study after study has established that more diverse organizations are more innovative, more productive, and more successful.

The need to be a more diverse organization is not the stuff of Tomorrowland. Why?

Because there are complex challenges that we need to address in order to future-proof our aviation system. We need innovative solutions now! And, we need a range of viewpoints to address transportation network inequities now!

So, we are working to build a pipeline that will bring more diverse viewpoints into the aerospace industry.

The FAA is investing in educational outreach through our nationwide Adopt-a-School program, aviation career academies, and even gaming, using Microsoft's Minecraft for our annual Airport Design Challenge.

The FAA's Minority Serving Institutions Internship Program has been placing incredibly bright college students in our offices, and a number of these students have applied for and been hired as full-time FAA employees. Note that the application period for these summer internships usually runs in the fall - we just closed the summer 2025 application period on November 29th.

But, the application period for the Samya Rose Stumo National Air Grant Fellowship Program is open. This program provides graduate students with a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of national aerospace policy within the executive and legislative branches of our government.

Our inaugural cohort completed their fellowships last year and 100 percent of participating fellows found permanent jobs in the FAA. The application process for our third cohort opened on December 1st and runs through January 31st.

For all those students here - I am assigning you homework... and, I do not care if you have finals!

I want you to go to www.faa.gov/nagf, look over the program, and see if this opportunity is right for you.

And if you are not a student, don't worry… I am assigning you homework too! Help us promote these programs! These initiatives don't just benefit the FAA…they benefit the whole industry.

A more sustainable aviation system that puts equity - both in the skies and in the workforce - ensuring safety in those skies - helps to generate that last bit of additional magic - an aerospace system of the future that is filled with opportunities for everyone.

Much to my father's initial disappointment, I did not follow in his footsteps.

In high school, I attended-for two consecutive years-Florida A&M University's Minority Introduction to Engineering summer program.

My senior year, I received the Florida's Bright Future Scholarship and planned to attend FAMU… before, ultimately, making a last-minute decision to attend Florida State University instead.

But with the help of a very smart, and very kind senator from the state of Florida, whom I know wishes he could have been here today, (thank you, Senator Nelson), I found my way back to aviation as a professional staff member on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

And, that experience led to my current appointment as the assistant administrator for Policy, International Affairs, and Environment at the FAA.

The last four years have been challenging, humbling, and immensely rewarding.

I recognize that not everyone who holds this position will look like me or bring the same perspectives that I did.

So, with my time at the FAA drawing to a close, I am keenly focused on how we share the opportunities in aviation with more people.

This includes standing up the new Bessie Coleman Women in Aviation Advisory Committee.

If you are interested in advising the secretary of transportation and the FAA administrator on policies related to promoting the recruitment, retention, employment, and well-being of women in the aviation industry, among other topics, we need you.

But you need to get those nominations in by December 23rd.

The most pressing issues facing our industry - sustainability, safe integration of new entrants, and the need for more diversity in our workforce - are big.

They don't stop at geographic boundaries. And they are not unique to any one sector of the aerospace field.

So, my challenge to you is this: how are you sharing these opportunities?

How are you inviting the voices that are absent from this conversation?

How are you sparking the innovative ideas that will make aviation more sustainable and more equitable?

The bright future of aviation is not a competition; this next century of flight holds the promise of endless opportunities.

But making this magical ecosystem more magical - doing the things we have yet to imagine - means not being afraid to do things differently.

It means sharing those opportunities in a way we have never done before. Because the path to more sustainability and more innovation will be driven by new ideas and new voices.

Realizing the bright future of aviation means we all have a role to play.

So, thank you for being here today. Thank you for being a part of aviation's future.

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