Part I – The NFTA and Part 141 Modernization

Lee Collins has been captivated by flight since age 8 when his parents gave him a ride in an airplane for his birthday.

His career spanned Major Airlines, Regionals and Corporate/ 135 flight operations. He was also instrumental in driving culture transformation during his tenure as president of an airline pilot trade association. Along the way he was also owner of a Part 141 Flight Training Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

In his current role as CEO of NFTA, Captain Collins is dedicated to leading this three-year-old organization to leverage their experience in governmental and legislative affairs, organizational design, strategic vision, and leadership.

Lee was interviewed at the conclusion of the World Aviation Training Summit (WATS) in Orlando by Rick Adams, FRAeS, leader of the WATS Pilot Training Conference.

Rick Adams: Four years ago, you were enjoying retirement. Now you’re back in the whirlwind of Washington politics with a start-up organization focused on pilot training. How did that come about?

Lee Collins: When I left the airline industry in 2020, we moved to the Florida Keys because I was going to do a little sabbatical for a while. Well, it lasted a little longer because of the pandemic.

Then I got involved with the guys at Paragon Flight (https://www.paragonflight.com) as a consultant. And through that involvement, they and some of their industry partners were convinced they needed to start their own trade association to represent the training industry. They felt like the space was vacant. Nobody was doing what needed to be done for advocacy and also helping to promote excellence in flight training. Helping to provide a vision for the future of flight training at the general aviation ab initio level.

They went to a meeting in DC and took me with them. And one of the guys said, how do you know so much about this? And Paragon said for 24 years he ran a trade association in DC (CAPA, the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations - https://www.capapilots.org) that represented airline pilots who weren't members of ALPA - all the independent pilot unions at the time.)

So maybe you could help us do what we're going to do? Yeah, happy to help.

Rick Adams: NFTA has already been involved in some significant Washington activity.

Lee Collins: We've been in existence slightly more than three years, but the last two years have been very, very busy. I think because of our work that first year in front of the FAA Reauthorization bill, we were very engaged for general aviation flight training. I took the playbook I used on the airline side and I employed it to their issues and had them all over the (Capitol) Hill when all the real substantive work gets done by staff.

If you wait until the bill is getting ready to be marked up, it's over. It's done. You're out of the game. You've got to be there when they're building the skeleton of this bill.

We showed well that first year. Beginning of the second year, I was selected on behalf of our organization to be a member of the Mental Health ARC (FAA Mental Health & Aviation Medical Clearances Aviation Rulemaking Committee). A highly visible effort. I think that was looked at it as our coming-out party. I said we've got to really hit our marks here and do well. And I think we did.

I was very proud to have a substantive role in at least four of the recommendations. One recommendation I offered for consensus approval was approved and ultimately became the very first recommendation, the overall understanding that the FAA needed to develop a non-punitive pathway for voluntary compliance or voluntary admission, stepping forward by a pilot who was having trouble.

And then we knew that this Part 141 thing was going to be an ARC. The FAA had been angling towards it for a while. We had requested language in the reauthorization bill to mandate that, much like they had done a few years ago on the repair station issue.

We're willing to help any way possible. We believe we have the expertise. We believe we have the background... all very seasoned in flight training and in working regulatory and legislative issues. We knew how to behave in that space.

But then right before the bill passed, there was a decision made at senior FAA leadership that they weren't going to go forward with an ARC. They wanted to try something different, and they said, what do you think about this? And my initial reaction was, I don't think much of it because it's a listening session, right? There's no force of will behind it. There's no Administrative Procedures Act or anything that would compel you, or even a bill from Congress that compels you to perform. You can go, oh, that's nice. And then it goes into a desk drawer. We never see it again.

Rick Adams: Even ARCs have suffered that fate.

But over the course of the summer, in talking with leadership there, I started to understand what they were trying to do. Affect real substantive change quickly, without years and years of input and comment, endless comment periods and all of those things. And of course they reserve the right at the end of this process, they could still go to a regulatory framework into an ARC if they needed to. So they said it doesn't take it completely off the table. Just maybe we get a lot done in advance of that. And then if the ARC does have to be convened, it's dealing with more narrow segments of the rule.

So we said, all right, let's go, let's do it. And they said, would you be willing to be our industry co-lead or co-partner?

An ARC has limited membership. It's the haves and the have-nots; those who get in get to make the decisions and those who don't don't. This (Part 141 Modernization initiative) is open to everybody (Alliance Invites Public Input to Future Flight Training Framework | Halldale Group). So we said to the entire industry, if you're in flight training, if you're in any way related to flight training, you're welcome to participate in this. We want to hear your ideas.

I want you, in a perfect world, to design the best flight training system you can. And don't worry about resources. Don't worry about cost. We'll figure that out later. But give us your best ideas. And that first meeting got a lot of really good reaction. And then we had the in-person meetings in Atlanta (April 1-3) and that went very well. FAA came out of that very excited, no doubts in their mind that this might be the right way to go.

And so we've got meetings every month, now until the end of the year. (Public Engagement for the Modernization of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) Part 141 Pilot Schools | Federal Aviation Administration)

I'm very hopeful for this because there's a desire to not ‘Frankenstein’ this regulation any longer. It's been patchworked for too many years. What we need is a wholesale revision or restart of this reg that incentivizes participation and elevates safety.

So how do we do that? We've got to do it in such a way that somebody who's a Part 61 provider now by choice - some of our largest and best flight schools in the country operate under Part 61 by choice, because 141 would hamper their ability to be nimble and do a lot of very forward-thinking things like data analysis and trend analysis changes to their systems of operating currently.

The current 141 slows that process down, sometimes by years, certainly always by months. Whereas some 61 providers will say if I do a quarterly data analysis and look at my trends and I see something troubling, I can immediately make a change. And by tomorrow institute that change in my operation. Now that's the way it should be. So there's value in that. And I think we need to design a 141 that has similar.

The FAA says we only have so many resources. We only have so many people to manage this. Well, why are we managing it like it's 1969? Why is it one man with a clipboard and a pencil? Why don't we use technology to manage our industry and ensure compliance? We do it in so many industries all over the world all the time. Why can't we do that? And they say, yes, we should. We really need to look at that.

Rick Adams: How would you characterize the key difference between 141 and 61?

Lee Collins: 141 is inefficient and cumbersome, because it was envisioned during a time before we even had computers. The last major revision was 1997. And that really wasn't a major revision at all. The bulk of this regulation is from the early 1970s and late 1960s. It is just horribly inefficient. Whereas part 61, a provider is as good as they want to be, and some of the large- and medium-sized flight training providers around the country have instituted some amazingly forward-thinking ways of improving safety by analyzing data and trends within their operation. A quality management system like we would use in an airline. An SMS underlying best SMS philosophy, incorporating data and AQP-like training. All the stuff that we've proven that works in 121. We now have the ability to scale that to the ab initio world and the general aviation world, because technology allows us to. It's time to adopt it.

Rick Adams: So if 61 has that flexibility, why not abandon 141?

Lee Collins: Because 141 allows FAA oversight. Part 61 really doesn't have much oversight. I think it does make sense if we do have a Federal Aviation Administration, an authority who's charged with ensuring safety in the skies and reducing accidents and all of the things that we want to do as a safe operation, a safe national airspace system, it makes sense to have that as a partnership, but one that's efficient and is not cumbersome.

I like the idea that we have this bifurcated regulatory scheme. People can elect to be in 61 and 141. Some 141 schools will have most of their programs 141 but they might have one or two programs that they operate under Part 61 for various reasons. Having both is probably the best system out there. But when we have one that doesn't really work well, under 141, the problem we've had for years with not enough DPEs (Designated Pilot Examiners) and it has hamstrung the industry for a dozen years now.

Under 141, there has been the ability all along to issue what's called examining authority to a 141-certificated school, where they conduct their own check rides and internal progress checks of their students and advance them forward. Yet it's not used. Why are we causing students to wait month after month for check rides, costing many more thousands of dollars than it should out of these student's pockets? Because we don't have enough of these examiners when we could be operating more efficiently if we just flipped the switch on examining authority, turned it on. Even the FAA says that's a great idea. Well, they've trusted that function to the lowest-level functionaries in their system, the general aviation inspectors at the local FSDOs (Flight Standards District Offices) who are already so overwhelmed with so many other jobs they give them. They don't have the time or ability to manage that program, so they just don't do it.

There's a better way. We can find a way to fix that. Much like with the DPEs, creating a central management office for that is probably the best.

Non-standard interpretation of the rules has caused it to be sparingly used when it could really rescue the pipeline. I always say that the flight training industry is the front porch to the aviation industry. If we don't get it right on the front porch, the living room is not going to look so good. We're at the front end of the pipe and let's say the airlines and all the end users are down here. We get these jam ups along the way that they feel at this end. There were times you've seen over the last 10 years where we [flight training industry] couldn't produce pilots fast enough, and they [airlines] were having problems. They were canceling flights. We have to take those clogs out of the system. We have the ability to do so with a new 141 regulation.

Rick Adams: What do you see as the eventual outcome? You've talked about the year or so of developing this, but what do you see happening after that year and the recommendations that you're making?

Lee Collins: One of the great benefits of the pilot mental health ARC was, for the first time, at least in my career, there was a three-month timeline. They [FAA] got the best minds they could, put us in a room and said, you’ve got three months to issue a report and there will be no extensions. That was a good thing because good people, given that kind of time constraint and a definite charge, produce good results and focused.

So I took a lesson from that. I said let's not let this be an open-ended process. I said it shouldn't be longer than a year. If we can get consensus around a report late this fall and be ready to present it right after the first of the year to the Administrator, that would be ideal. I think that the group so far is committed to that and that is a realistic timeline. I would hope that whoever the new Administrator is would attach some level of priority to it because of its importance to the system, right to the pipeline of pilot production, that at least the short-term recommendations and the long-term recommendations can be looked at, and the short-term ones taken immediately and processed through and then work in a real, committed way towards whatever long-term recommendations they come up with. That’s in the best world.

Rick Adams: Pilot shortage... ALPA would throw up arguments against that.

Lee Collins: Yeah, they would. I think the demand on pilots right now is not as strong as it was in recent years. The slowdown in aircraft deliveries over the last couple of years. That's a ripple that's now being felt at our level. They're not calling as many pilots forward as they were. So right now we're in a period of relative normalcy.

But if you look at the forecast, that's going to change in the next couple of years; we're going to get back to that 2016-2020 ‘hire as many as you can everywhere you can.’ The greatest concern should be pilots. Safety of the system has a lot to do with pilot qualifications, pilot training, pilot effectiveness. We're asking these young pilots to do far more than we asked pilots to do 15, 20 years ago. I saw a briefing just this morning where these young pilots are making it to the left seat in three years and never more than five years. Well, that's a lot for a 25-year-old.

Rick Adams: At a regional level.

Lee Collins: Regional captains. That's a lot to ask a 25-year-old. Do you think the people in the back know the difference? We need to ensure that these young people are being given the very best training and the very best qualifications and every opportunity to succeed; it's important. It's important to the airline. It's important to the National Airspace System that we don't have aircraft out there that aren't crewed by competent pilots. I think ALPA would support that.

Rick Adams: What other opposition might there be? What's the principle of their objection?

Lee Collins: They're not relevant in the argument anymore, so they're going to be against it. There's a place for what they could do with a lot of the small 61 providers and the folks out there that are just starting out who need a way to grow and learn; they can be very effective there, but their voice, for whatever reason, has been very negative around this, and they're the only negative voice we've heard, which should tell you something. In Washington DC, and certainly in our industry, you have to play well in the sandbox with others if you hope to have a voice. And when you don't, sometimes that voice is extinguished. So we'll see how that works out.

Rick Adams: Who have you got supporting this initiative?

Lee Collins: Everyone. I am very much excited about the fact that the biggest players in our industry - the universities, AABI (Aviation Accreditation Board International), the regional airlines, major airlines, large flight training providers - they're all in this process with us. They've all pledged, committed resources and people to the full process. That's amazingly positive that we could very well have an industry consensus throughout this entire pipeline to walk forward to an Administrator or go to Capitol Hill, to Congress or the Senate, and say, we agree this is the way forward.

Rick Adams: This started with Paragon. What's in it for them?

Lee Collins: They and some of their industry partners are among the forward-thinking regional flight training providers in this country. They want to see an industry that's being well led and moving with technology and producing better pilots, wherever possible. They see that to not do that, their industry would suffer. They've seen potential things out there that could have harmed the industry had they gone forward. And they needed to make sure from here on there was a voice in the discussion.

I've often been very critical, and I'll say this for the record, the ACT ARC, the Air Carrier Training ARC, it's been in existence for a while now. I emphasize the words air carrier, yet they keep publishing tomes and missives about all these things that need to happen at the ab initio level in general aviation. Is there anybody on the ARC that speaks for ab initio or general aviation flight training who could provide perspective to these comments you're making? No. Absolutely not. They see that as a threat and they need to have a voice to counter that. Should the new Administrator put a representative from our industry on that? Absolutely. But if not, at least someone who's in DC to provide context and to say, wait a minute, that might not work.

The folks that started NFTA as a trade association see those kinds of moves as a threat to the industry because it seeks to really advantage the ‘wholly owneds’ and other people who may be more capable, more well funded than other regionals.

Rick Adams: The ARC as it's currently constituted.

Lee Collins: Most of the time when they constitute these ARCS, they try to provide balance and fairness so you have a group of people in the room that represent all points of view. I think they did that when they constituted the ARC to deal with air carrier training. But somehow over the years, they've decided to wade off script, and the FAA has seemingly allowed that. And now they're out here roaming around in our backyard.