On Wednesday, March 15th, Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary will call a meeting with the FAA, unions, airlines, and industry leaders to investigate a series of close-call incidents known as ‘runway incursions’. In January, a near collision occurred between an American and Delta flight. This was followed by a similar near collision that occurred at Austin-Bergstrom Airport involving a Southwest and FedEx plane in February.

To anybody that has been paying attention, these past few months have been anything but normal in the aviation world. With the shutdown of Southwest, the delay of the Boeing 777x, the FAA NOTAM outage and now two very close calls earlier this year, the American aviation industry would be categorized as struggling by some. 

This comes in light of many pilot and airline unions calling for a revitalization of American aerospace infrastructure citing the deterioration of both hardware and software across the country. Buttigieg said it “is our responsibility to take a hard look at all factors and determine what steps are needed to reinforce safety culture and strengthen safety practices, especially given significant disruptions and changes to the aviation sector coming out of a global pandemic.”

So what does this mean for the future? In my opinion, there is still a lot to come this year in American aviation for better or for worse. While it is important the government acknowledges the degradation of aerospace infrastructure we must not look past the human factor in many instances. Ultimately, the people are still the most important aspect of a cohesive aviation industry.