Ed Bolen President & CEO, National Business Aviation Association

Mobilizing membership in critical times is a vital role of successful association management. No one knows that more than Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), which represents 8,000 companies that rely on general aviation aircraft for business purposes.

A Call to Action
This summer, Bolen was especially moved to action. In a press conference on June 29, President Barack Obama repeatedly used “corporate jet owners” as an illustration of wealthy individuals and companies that should forfeit tax breaks in order to raise U.S. revenue. The next day Bolen and the NBAA fired back with a strongly worded letter sent to the White House in which he chided the President for the way he “mischaracterized and disparaged business aviation.”

In the letter Bolen continued by explaining that business aviation generates highly skilled, well-paying jobs and brings economic development to communities lacking scheduled airline service. Bolen went on to note that the administration’s suggestion to lengthen the depreciation schedule for general aviation airplanes would generate revenue of less than one one-hundredth of one percent of the nation’s debt and instead would stall new airplane sales, which have fallen significantly since the recession.

In addition, the NBAA went on a media blitz to reiterate the points Bolen made in his letter to the White House and prepared a letter for members to send to their representatives in Congress related to the President’s remarks and the issue of depreciation schedules for business airplanes. A subsequent letter prepared by the NBAA for its members addressed policymakers’ interest in instituting aviation user fees, rather than the industry’s preferred general aviation fuel tax for aviation system funding and modernization.

The NBAA won this round of the debt ceiling battle, as the approved package was free of proposals targeting the business aviation industry. As Bolen explains: “It was really the membership mobilization that proved effective. Every member of Congress, every senator is an elected official there to represent a constituency, and we saw the business aviation community contact their elected representatives and make their voices heard. What we effectively said was that we understand that a user fee is the same as a tax, that it necessitates the creation of a new bureaucracy, and we don’t want our scarce resources to fund a new bureaucracy. We want our revenues to go to promoting and keeping the U.S. air transportation system the best in the world. The best way to do that is to build on fuel taxes, not user fees.”

However, the debt ceiling debate isn’t over. As part of the debt ceiling agreement, the bipartisan Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction must find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years. The so-called “super committee” must submit its recommendations to Congress by November 23 and lawmakers must vote on them by December 23. Therefore, Bolen is preparing his organization for another round of mobilization.

“As you know, we now have a super committee made up of 12 individuals that will be charged with looking for ways to either reduce federal expenditures or enhance revenues. We will be very aggressive with our membership in continuing to promote the value of business aviation to companies and communities and our country, and also the efficiency of fuel taxes versus the bureaucracy-creating and administrative burden associated with user fees. User fees are the wrong way to generate revenues from our industry. We have certainly seen that, when our community mobilizes and is energized, we can make our voices heard. We have seen that through the FAA reauthorization debate. We have seen it with the large aircraft security program when the community was really active and outspoken in commenting in both public hearings and comments to the docket with the TSA. And, we have seen it most recently in the debt ceiling debate,” Bolen notes.

A Bumpy Ride
The relationship between business aviation and the economic health of the U.S. is symbiotic. When the economy is healthy, so is the industry. Likewise, when the industry is strong, it contributes significantly to the economy. According to NBAA, business aviation plays a critical role in driving economic growth, jobs and investment across the U.S. by contributing more than 1.2 million manufacturing and service jobs. Business aviation is a segment of the general aviation industry that contributes more than $150 billion to the U.S. economy each year and includes usage in areas such as agriculture, law enforcement, fire and rescue services, as well as government, education, nonprofit and business.

When evaluating business shipments alone, the numbers show an ongoing decline. According to data from the General Aviation Manufactures Association (GAMA), business jet shipments in the first half of 2011 were 261, down from 663 at their peak in the first half of 2008 and 355 in the first half of 2010.

However, Bolen sees a brighter picture when evaluating flight activity numbers, through which expansion or contraction in business aviation is more quickly visible. When examining shipment numbers alone, he explains, there is a delay or pause between the shipment numbers and the current state of the economy because of the time it takes to order and deliver an airplane.

“For people who are looking for an immediate read on what’s happening by looking at the shipment numbers, they don’t actually see exactly the snapshot of what is happening economically at that time. For example, the shipments through the fourth quarter of 2008 and the early part of 2009 were pretty strong in terms of deliveries, but those were airplanes that were ordered in 2005, 2006 and early 2007, so that would tend to skew the data a little bit,” Bolen says.

“In terms of flight of activity that we’re seeing now, generally it has been strengthening. It has not been a straight line; it has been bumpy. But, as a general rule, flight activity was more in 2010 than it was in 2009 and more in 2011 than it was in 2010. There are months that don’t follow that trend, but when you pull out and look at it a little more broadly, it seems there is more activity this year than last, and more activity last year than the year before. So, we think generally things are moving in a positive direction, albeit somewhat more slowly and less evenly than a lot of people would like,” he adds.

Bolen also sees growth in the global marketplace, noting operations in areas such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and Africa that have added to industry activity and aircraft sales and have helped to somewhat balance the domestic downturn. However, he cautions, “Make no mistake about it, the U.S. is the largest market for business aviation in the world, so the health of the U.S. economy is important for the future of business aviation.”

Strength Through Education
One of the NBAA’s priorities in securing the industry is educating the public and policymakers on the importance of business aviation to the U.S. through the “No Plane No Gain” initiative, a joint undertaking of NBAA and GAMA, focusing especially on jobs, productivity and keeping America connected.

“It starts with the United States recognizing just how important business aviation is to companies, communities and our country. In the United States, business aviation generates a huge number of well-paying, high-skill jobs in manufacturing, service, financing, insurance, publications, advertising … it’s a real economic generator. It helps to create the kind of manufacturing jobs that any economist will tell you is the backbone of a strong economy,” Bolen notes.

In terms of productivity, NBAA points out that business aviation allows employees to reach multiple destinations in a single day, work en route, discuss proprietary information in a secure environment and safely transport tools and materials that cannot be carried aboard commercial airlines.

“Business aviation helps companies, especially during a difficult economic time, to be very efficient and productive. The business airplane can allow employees to turn their travel time into productive work time. They can go to three cities in one day, rather than one city in three days. It allows you to move parts and equipment that may be too sensitive to fit in a cargo hold or too big to get in an overhead bin,” Bolen continues.

The third prong of NBAA’s education effort stresses that business aviation serves communities forgotten by airlines, and notes that some 500 airports have limited commercial airline service. Almost all airline flights go from only 70 major hubs, and using business aviation is often the only way to reach the destinations the airlines don’t serve. According to NBAA, in the last year, more than 100 cities across the U.S. saw decline in scheduled commercial airline service, with more than 30 communities losing airline service entirely. With the loss of service, comes a loss of jobs.

“We are also an industry that allows economic development in communities that don’t have great commercial airline service. One of the things that we have seen throughout the recession is that a number of communities have lost all or substantially all of their commercial airline service. So, business aviation allows those communities to try to retain their major employers or major industries or attract new ones,” Bolen adds.

Putting the Efforts Together
Through membership mobilization, education endeavors and public and government relations, NBAA, with Bolen at the helm, is working diligently to secure the future of the business aviation industry in the U.S. and help stimulate the domestic economy in the process.

“We are constantly looking for things that might stimulate the industry. But we also spend a great deal of time trying to prevent negative regulations from hitting our industry. So we try to put it all together to make sure people understand the significance of the industry, we try to promote ideas that will perpetuate the industry, and we try to kill bad ideas, laws, regulations, restrictions that we feel will harm the industry,” Bolen says.

“Getting the economy growing again in the United States is everyone’s priority. We need to create jobs in the U.S.,” he adds. “Hopefully, they’ll be good jobs, manufacturing and service jobs that can be created in any community regardless of the level of commercial airline service that they have. And getting that word out is really important.”

Lisa M. Goetz is an associate editor of the Monitor.