Capt. Jason Ambrosi, head of pilots’ union ALPA, joins ATW Editor-in-Chief Karen Walker to discuss air traffic modernization, safety and more.
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Karen Walker (00:10): Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for Window Seat our Aviation Week Air Transport podcast. I'm ATW and Aviation Week air transport editor-in-chief, Karen Walker. Welcome on board. Now I'm recording this week's Window Seat from the headquarters of the Air Line Pilots Association International or ALPA, which is located in McLean, Northern Virginia, a short distance from Washington DC. And I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by the ALPA president, Captain Jason Ambrosi. Welcome, Captain.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (00:40): Well, thank you. Happy to be here.
Karen Walker (00:41): Thank you. Thank you for your time. Now ALPA represents some 80,000 pilots across the USA and Canada. And Jason became president in January 2023, correct?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (00:44): Correct.
Karen Walker (00:45): He is a longtime pilot at Delta Air Lines where he flies Boeing 767ERs. Our conversation is going to focus on safety and some technologies that ALPA wants to see put into law in the aftermath of two tragic and recent fatal crashes in America. Before we get to that, let's touch on some other top priorities for ALPA. Jason, first you joined Delta, I believe, just a few months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and of course that brought down four US airliners and this September we'll see the 25th anniversary of that terrible day. Can we just start please? Can you tell us your memories of that day and how you feel that the airline industry or the airlines in particular changed in that time?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (01:44): Well, I was fortunate enough to get hired and the airlines have had a tendency over time to be boom and bust in cycles. So, there was the boom cycle of the late '90s when I got hired at Delta in early 2000, about 18 months before 9/11 and everything was pointed up. Airlines were making terrific profits at that point. Things were looking up. And then of course we had just signed a new contract, everybody was happy, relatively happy. You're never going to make everybody happy, but relatively happy. And then obviously the tragedy commenced on 9/11. I do remember that day very vividly. I think anyone that was around at that point's never going to forget. And I was in the Atlanta airport getting ready to leave and fly to somewhere and obviously everything started with delays, delays, delays, delays, and then cancellations and the airspace is shut down and trying to figure out what's happening.
(02:43): And I remember having hundreds of pilots in our crew lounge at the Atlanta Airport all watching, and I watched one of the buildings fall from that crew lounge in Atlanta and obviously it was what just happened? How are we going to recover? What are we going to do? Obviously, there was a couple, three days of no flying right after that. I flew on the first day that airlines were operating again after that. It was a tough time for pilots and flight attendants, all of us, especially ones on the road, because it was really hard to get in communication with the company. What are we going to do? What's our schedule going to look like? How do we get home? So, there's a lot of uncertainty. I was fortunate enough that I could get in my car and go back home because I lived in Atlanta at the time.
(03:28): But yeah, I flew that first day when service resumed and you knew the industry was going to take a hit because I was a 727 first officer at that time and I think that we had 16 people in the airplane on the first leg and nine people on the second leg. And it was a tough couple of days flying then and you knew it was bad news. It was coming and it was horrible after that. We furloughed pilots. I was one of the pilots that got furloughed in the second wave of furloughs at Delta. Bankruptcies, lost pensions, pretty much 50% pay cuts. The industry saw a lot of bankruptcies. Everything was looking bad. So, in the aftermath, now we can look back and say the industry's much stronger. The airlines are doing better than they've ever done for the most part. You've got a couple airlines that have separated themselves from the rest right now in the post-COVID environment.
(04:27): But I think one thing as a nation we learned from 9/11 and how crippled the airline industry was after that was that in COVID, it was a big part of urging Congress to sign the payroll support program so that the airlines could get an influx of capital to keep—airlines are so essential to our industry—keep the employees paid during what COVID, so that when the vaccine kicked in and things started going the other way, we were ready to recover. And that was a big part of why it was. Or we probably would be back into a post-9/11 kind of scenario where there were bankruptcies, a lot more bankruptcies, a lot more harm, a lot more people. And the airline industry would never have been able to recover and carry passengers and cargo as fast as it had if it wasn't for that payroll support program.
Karen Walker (05:24): Very interesting comparison, although they were very, very different, but in terms of impact on the industry, you compared 9/11 with the COVID pandemic. As you say, with the US, the crews were kept on the payroll. It was so important because they were ready to go as soon as people were ready to fly again. It made a huge difference.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (05:49): And in the early days of the pandemic, obviously the airlines didn't know they were going to get three rounds of money, so they did, like we did, large early retirement incentives and so on to reduce. So, we still had the growing pains coming out of the pandemic, but oh, it would've been a lot worse if we didn't have the support and the well-needed support because it was very different. Now looking back at your original question on 9/11, some of the frustrating part of my job now is we're 25 years after this year and we still don't have the implementation for secondary barriers, which has been delayed till this August. So, some of the much-needed safety and security improvements after some of these tragic events, it's almost unfathomable how long it could take to actually make progress on something like a secondary barrier or something.
Karen Walker (06:45): Absolutely. Talking of the different things that are priorities for ALPA, I know you have a lot going on, including of course always representing your members, but let's talk about a few of those. Let's start with always having two pilots in the cockpit. There's been quite a lot of pushing back and forth on this issue. ALPA staying firm on this. Tell us why.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (07:16): Well, the aircraft certification process now is predicated on two pilots in the flight deck at all times. Crosscheck. Whether it's just something as simple as the vision from if there's only one pilot, you don't get to see what the airplane was certified to see, whether it's verifying when you have issues, how we divide duties when there's an emergency, let's say, to anything as simple as just if someone gets incapacitated, having a backup there, that happens. So, it's essential to get there. Now, obviously some in industry and some in one of the manufacturers are pushing pretty hard because of economic reasons. They'll purport that it's for safety or it's for fatigue or what have you. Well, simplest way to solve that is augment crews instead of flying it all the way across the Atlantic in the middle of the night with two pilots, do what we do here in the United States and add a third pilot or four pilots depending on how long that flight is so that you have adequately rested pilots on a flight deck.
(08:28): But it was a two-phase process as we've discussed before, there was the single pilot cruise concept on the [Airbus] A350, which was supposed to be implemented as early as this year.
(08:41): EASA had previously supported rulemaking ahead of even the studies on it. We're proud to say in the last three and a half years that EASA has now taken a different look at it and they're focusing on technology to support the current crew complement that this process has been slowed down significantly and as it should. We're labeled quite often as anti-technology, but we're not. We support technology as we're going to get into the technology that we want, that we can't get, that we're trying to get to help avoid tragedies like we had here in DC last year. We support technology, but it should support the decision-making of two pilots, at least two pilots on the flight deck at all times. And again, if fatigue is the issue, then we would ask that the manufacturer and anybody else that's concerned about fatigue help us change the rules to bring everybody up to the safest standard on fatigue, just like we are arguing for just safety cultures and all the other things out there that can help make aviation the safest around the world.
Karen Walker (09:56): That makes sense. It is a bit like what we often hear now with AI. Yes, AI can be extremely helpful, but it's still about the human. It should be assisting the human rather than taking over the role.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (10:10): That's an excellent example because AI could do a lot even in aviation to just process the mass amount of safety data to help identify potential threats because there's just a lot of data out there that we could do a better job of analyzing and making sure that we're capturing then to prevent tragedies from happening ahead of time. So, there is a role for AI. AI could aid, but again, it should aid human decision-making when it comes to aviation rather than make those decisions for us.
Karen Walker (10:45): And then another issue that ALPA has taken a stance on is pilot mental health. Recently we've seen the passage of the U.S. Mental Health in Aviation Act, which ALPA supported. Tell us a little bit about that.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (10:58): Yeah, so it's made it through the House and it's made it out of committee in the Senate. So, it's awaiting a full vote in the Senate. I've advocated directly with the Senate majority leaders recently within the last couple of weeks to get a floor vote on it in this Congress if we can, because that is important. We had a mental health and aviation rulemaking committee that ALPA co-chaired with industry and FAA, and they came out with many recommendations. This legislation's basically saying, let's move forward with those recommendations. Let's help pilots that need help. Don't force them underground to a point where they're not reporting issues or not getting the help they need. And it's not just for pilots … it’s for air traffic controllers. I think that after years of mission-oriented tough guy approach, for lack of a better term, in our industry, people are starting to realize that just like physical health, mental health is essential.
(12:01): And I'm proud to see that we're going to get that across the finish line here shortly.
Karen Walker (12:06): Excellent. And air traffic modernization. We almost can't have a conversation without that at the moment, particularly in the US. It's a worldwide problem, but there's been a major campaign here launched by US transportation secretary Sean Duffy. And of course he's now working very closely with FAA administrator Bryan Bedford. I know you know both of those well, and they are really trying to fast track the long overdue modernization of the national airspace system here. I guess the thing I would most ask you is what are ALPA's big asks in this modernization program? And is it going to happen?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (12:47): Yeah, it's going to happen as long as we help keep the momentum. Because obviously this is something that has been needed for decades, but as is the case often, it took a tragedy to be the catalyst to accelerate the change. Because I was part of the former NextGen advisory committee and NextGen has been this almost two decades long process where any money that was allocated ended up fixing old hardware rather than doing the new stuff that we need to do. So, as you said, Secretary Duffy has done a great job of leading this charge. $12.5 billion is a great start, but it's nowhere near enough. I know there's some pushback on whatever that final number is, but in the grand scheme of things, when you see how much our government spends on whatever, allocating $30 or $40 billion to make our air traffic control system—getting it to today's technology—is money well spent and it should be.
(13:57): So, we'll continue to advocate for additional resources to keep things moving.
(14:03): For us, a priority is making sure that the people that use it, the air traffic controllers and the pilots, specifically airline pilots that operate 40,000 flights a day, have a seat at the table and make sure that the system works as intended. There's a lot of great minds out there, but a lot of them aren't in the airspace using it. So, air traffic controllers and pilots need to have a seat at the table and make sure that we help them. And we are … but making sure that continues. And you hear about how AI is going to somehow schedule flights. Okay, first let's fix it. Let's get the communication where it needs to be. Let's get the facilities upgraded the way they need to be. Let's get where we are making the system safer. Make sure that this modernization process includes upgraded ground surface surveillance, safety enhancements and everything else, as well as the more aspirational items like AI to schedule flights, that kind of thing and so on.
(15:11): But yeah, again, a seat at the table and make sure that the system works for everybody.
Karen Walker (15:14): So, it sounds like you do feel ALPA is being heard. You just want to ensure that continues.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (15:19): Yes. As next gates and so on, we'll continue to push and make sure that we're there.
Karen Walker (15:27): So that's a good way to lead into the big talking point, which as you say, we've seen two tragic fatal crashes in the states in particular the one in January 2025 near Washington DC. And then of course in March on the ground in New York where the plane was hit by a ground vehicle. In the aftermath and investigation into those crashes, you've been very, very proactive as an organization tracking and supporting those that are going through the Senate and the House and that would bring responses, particularly technology responses to those sorts of incidents. Tell us where things stand and what you're doing and why.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (16:17): The current situation, as you know, is there's two different pieces of legislation. The Senate acted first with the bipartisan legislation ROTOR Act, which addressed much of the issues that we're looking at related to the PSA tragedy. And then the House has a more broad ALERT Act that was after the NTSB recommendations and it encompasses all recommendations that are important, but it encompasses more recommendations. But the key ones, the integrated type of display technology, ADS-B IN that is in the ROTOR Act is absent from the ALERT Act as well as language related to if military aircraft are operating in our combined space like here in DCA or New York or whatever, they have to be reporting their position unless it's something like security, like moving the president, of course. So there's two provisions in the ROTOR Act that are not in the ALERT Act that are essential.
(17:27): And as I said, advocating for that integrated ADS-B IN technology, that's technology that the NTSB has been recommending since 2008. This is technology that's been around for two decades. This is technology, one man's opinion, that when they recommended or when they said you have to have ADS-B OUT, they should have said you have to have ADS-B IN then. But again, I was just blissfully flying airplanes back then, so I wasn't part of that. But I'm told that, oh, we never would've got ADS-B OUT if they demanded ADS-B IN at that point. Well, now we're at one where we should have ADS-B, and we're having to come back and push for that. But it's technology that's readily available today. Hundreds of thousands of general aviation airplanes have it. It's just something that's out there, and it could save lives. I mean, as you've seen that if that technology was available on that PSA airplane, it would've been more like a minute of warning rather than 19 seconds.
(18:27): It would've given them a much better display, and that tragedy probably wouldn't have happened. Same as the tragedy at McGuire had that ground equipment had ADS-B OUT. We had ADS-B IN on the airplane; they would've had a warning there. So, this is readily available technology. It's not some pie in the sky thing that needs to have rulemaking and all that. With that, obviously it has a cost. It's not a crazy cost. It's a cost though. But I would advocate what's the cost of a life or 67 lives? So, this is something that is readily available. Let's do it. And it's not that we're anti-ROTOR or anti-ALERT and pro-ROTOR We're pro-safety. So we want to take the best of both bills and to get a combined bill. So it doesn't need to be one or the other. It can be, let's do the best of both.
Karen Walker (19:16): You'd like to see an integrated bill, if you like, that brings in particular those points that you just raised. But like I say, it isn't a sort of, no, we don't like that bill at all. It's bringing them together. They've both got good ideas.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (19:29): Ideas. Yeah. So, this conference process, we need a conference and bill between the Senate and the House. Let's say, okay, here's the good of both, and let's get a final product that everybody could be proud of that does what the NTSB recommendations intended and give us the technology that's readily available and saves lives.
Karen Walker (19:48): I think the Senate ROTOR bill, that got approved by the Senate last year, didn't it?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (19:55): Yeah, the ROTOR Act actually was by unanimous consent in the Senate. So no opposition.
Karen Walker (20:01): It's across party lines and—
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (20:03): Correct.
Karen Walker (20:04): Yeah.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (20:05): And then in the House they'd held a vote on ROTOR, but, it needed two-thirds and it missed it by one vote in the House getting across that two-thirds threshold. So that shows that a significant majority of the House also supports that language that's in the ROTOR Act. So, we believe that there is momentum to say, "Hey, let's do the best of both," like I said.
Karen Walker (20:30): So are you hopeful that this could happen this year now? Something could happen this year? It always seems to me like these things take a lot longer, don't they?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (20:38): It does. I think because you do have some competing interests. Obviously, there are folks that don't want to have the integrated displays. They feel like, I'm not going to call out these individual specific or special interests, but there are special interests that say, oh, let's just plug and play it on your iPad and that's good enough, or we should carve out this segment kind of thing. The ROTOR [ACT] has good language for the airplanes of general aviation to let them have that alternate compliance because obviously if you have a [Cessna] 172 or something, then doing integrated displays is difficult. But for us, the big airliners, we need to have that integrated display. I don't need to do yoga looking at my iPad, trying to figure out what specific thing I need to be looking at to help traffic avoidance when I should be looking forward and having that stuff integrated in our displays.
(21:36): I think we'll get there.
Karen Walker (21:37): You and I had a bit of a conversation a few weeks ago about that idea to just put the display in the iPad, which is essentially the pilot's electronic flight bag these days, and it sits over here. And as you said, well, that's fine. You love what that iPad does, but when it's something that's critical, you want it in front of you. So that's the point about having it integrated into the main cockpit.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (22:02): Absolutely. We use that iPad for a lot. It's our manuals. It's our charts. It's our weather turbulence displays. It's our flight plan because we don't kill trees anymore. We have that data on there. So, if I need to look up a NOTAM, I don't have the pile of paper anymore. It's all on there. So now we're going to add another app for traffic avoidance, a true safety related thing. Meanwhile, toggling through all these different tabs or what have you on the iPad. It's just not a great idea. Let's do it the right way. Many airplanes manufactured today already have the technology installed. Some airlines have embraced it already and have most of their fleets with ADS-B IN. This is not something that's difficult. This could result in … well, the ROTOR deadline was 2031 for implementation. The airlines, all the manufacturers could roll these airplanes out tomorrow.
(23:05): And as a matter of fact, many of the airplanes coming off the line have it already installed.
Karen Walker (23:09): Right. I was going to ask you about that. So, it's more and more they're available in new generation aircraft. So, is that like a software switch?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (23:17): Pretty much. So, until the tragedy and while this legislation is pending, the ADS-B IN feed and then displays have been looked at as an efficiency tool. So therefore, it was an option. I think when we talk to manufacturers, their intent would be that if it becomes a safety tool, a regulated safety tool, they're just going to flip the switch and now you'll be able to have it. Whether it's pushing a software update to the aircraft or just pulling a box out in the equipment bay and putting another box back in. It's pretty easy for them to do on most of the newer-generation airplanes. And those in industry are already working on fixes out there for, or they've made huge progress on fixes for the older generation airplanes. So as they go through their next heavy check, it'll be ready for them to do it while it's going through a heavy check or something.
(24:16): This is not earth-shattering developments by any means. They can redo the interior on heavy check or whatever and put better seats in or IFE. They certainly can put in a lifesaving technology to give us better integrated situational awareness in the flight deck.
Karen Walker (24:32): It just seems a no-brainer. We understand technology, it's there, it's available, and seconds extra for a pilot in a situation like that are huge, aren't they?
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (24:44): Absolutely. It gives us the situational awareness to avoid something long before it gets to that last line of defense. None of this is to say that TCAS is not a good tool. TCAS is basically what we rely on, but it's inhibited at low altitudes, and it's meant to be a last line of defense. It has saved a lot of lives, but it's a last line of defense. This ADS-B technology is meant to keep us from ever having to get to a last line of defense technology. And they're additive technologies. It's not one or the other. This is an additive technology to help keep you from ever getting to the near misses you see on TV because of the fact that we have that additive technology.
Karen Walker (25:24): One last question, if I may, on this subject. You referred to it earlier about the military, the military planes, and of course the midair at DCA involved a U.S. Army helicopter. So can you just tell us really the element of these bills that's talking about, I think it's to make sure that they do keep their ADS-B IN technology active unless there's, as you say, some really strong security reason.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (26:01): Absolutely. So, the ROTOR language is significantly stronger, and it actually requires the ADS-B OUT to be on military aircraft by statute unless there's a security issue. Whereas the ALERT Act is more of a discretionary DOD memorandum of agreement. So, it would allow a much bigger loophole that you could drive a semi through because basically it gives the discretion back to the department, to the DOD. So, it's important that again, if it's a presidential movement or something like that, we get it, but if not, they should be reporting their position when we're in the airspace. It's for everybody's safety. We lost three service members right there in that tragedy as well. And had they been reporting a position and had we had ADS-B IN technology, everybody would be very likely alive today and it wouldn't have happened.
Karen Walker (27:04): Absolutely. Well, Jason, thank you so much for talking us through all of that. This is all very fascinating. I know there's a lot of work still to be done, so we’ll be tracking you as you do that.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi (27:14): Yeah, we've spent time with the families of the tragedy. We've spent time with regulators, and we've spent time with other safety experts. And here at ALPA, while we also negotiate and enforce contracts, and that's a huge part of what we do, our motto since 1931, 95 years now, is schedule is safety, and we are the conscience of the industry. So we're going to continue to advocate for safety. And as long as I'm sitting here, I'm going to keep doing it because we owe it to those. I've lost four members in the last year and a half in tragedies that were preventable as well as all the others that were lost. So that's why we do it.
Karen Walker (27:59): Well, thank you again for your time. It's fantastic to hear it from the top of ALPA and from a pilot as well. So that's really informative for us. Thank you so much. And thank you also to our producer, Cory Hitt, and of course a huge thank you to our listeners. Subscribe to Window Seat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen so you don't miss a single episode. And so, until next time, this is Karen Walker disembarking from Window Seat.
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