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Recently confirmed Federal Aviation Administration chief Bryan Bedford is planning to restructure his sprawling 46,000-strong agency in a bid to fix what he sees as a siloed organization without a clear goal or mission. Bedford explained the first step of this plan during a town hall earlier this month, a recording of which was reviewed by The Air Current.
Bedford said he is initially focused on streamlining the agency’s leadership structure, which is currently split into five “lines of business,” an FAA term for the agency’s primary functions, and nine staff offices. These include regulatory teams, such as the FAA’s oversight arm known as the Office of Aviation Safety, as well as operational responsibilities in the Air Traffic Organization.
The move aligns with Bedford’s background as a government outsider and airline executive. During the town hall, he characterized himself as a turnaround expert brought in to lead “companies that need restructuring” by “trying to figure out new and innovative strategies to heal them and advance them and grow them.”
Related: Bryan Bedford’s history of grabbing aviation’s third rails
Executing the restructuring will be challenging, as much of the FAA’s focus since January has been consumed by the Trump administration’s effort to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system. This crucial undertaking will force the regulator to multitask a strategic realignment alongside its largest-ever infrastructure project at a time when the agency has lost thousands of employees to retirements and departures to private industry.
“Part of my objective here isn’t just to fulfill the President’s desires to build a brand new, beautiful air traffic control system,” Bedford said at the town hall. “Part of it is to really try to reframe how the FAA culturally works and functions together. My opinion, and again, part of that’s based on my experience as a user of FAA services, is it’s an organization that is very siloed.”
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