Molly McMillin is managing editor of business aviation for Aviation Week and editor-in-chief of the Business Aviation & AAM Report, an Aviation Week market intelligence report.
Before joining Aviation Week, Molly spent nearly 20 years at the Wichita Eagle, Kansas’ largest newspaper, where she served as senior aviation/aerospace reporter.
Molly became a private pilot in 2011, learning to fly in her dad's 1956 Piper Tri-Pacer.
She has won multiple state and national journalism awards, including awards from the Society of Business Editors and Writers, Heart of America and the Kansas Press Association. She was the recipient of the 2023 and the 2013 National Business Aviation Association’s Gold Wing Award for Journalism Excellence and was featured in a book on Kansas called Ad Astra: 161 Adventurers, Astronauts, Discoverers, Explorers, Pilots, Pioneers and Scientists.
A graduate of Wichita State University, Molly was selected the 2014 Outstanding Alumni at WSU’s Elliott School of Communication.
In the little more than two months since releasing its Part 107 Small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) rule on Aug. 29, the FAA had received more than 30,000 new aircraft registrations from commercial operators and more than 22,500 remote pilot applications. Jay Merkle, the FAA’s Director of Systems Integration and Requirements Analysis, said more than 10,000 of the applicants for the remote pilot license had passed the test. The Part 107 rule takes the place of what was previously an onerous Certificate of Authorization process for each operation.
Satcom Direct last month completed the acquisition of TrueNorth Avionics, a manufacturer of cabin communications systems, thereby expanding its service offering to VIP aircraft operators. Ottawa-based TrueNorth, which designs, develops and manufactures satcom systems, TrueNorth becomes a business unit within the Satcom Direct family of companies focused on avionics development.
New York's Westchester County has applied to the FAA to privatize its county-owned airport, marking the third time since 2000 that the Empire State or one of its counties has attempted such a spinoff under the federal agency’s troubled Airport Privatization Pilot Program (APPP). A preliminary application filed in November names Empire State Airport Holdings as the private company that would operate the Westchester County Airport under a 40-year lease, with the transfer taking place as early as March 2017.
