Trump might have a pick in mind to run the FAA
Ever since Mike Whitaker, current administration of the Federal Aviation Administration, announced that he would be stepping down when president-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated, speculation has swirled around who Trump’s pick to replace him might be. The airline industry site View from the Wing suggests that JSX CEO Alex Wilcox might be a name to watch.
JSX is a company that specializes in chartered private jet travel. Anecdotal evidence that suggests Wilcox could be in line for the job includes the use of JSX jets by the Trump transition team, though Kamala Harris’s campaign also used the company’s services according Federal Election Commissions data.
Wilcox does not have any significant government experience, having worked in aviation his entire career. He spent some time at Southwest Airlines (LUV) before eventually joining Virgin Atlantic Airways. Later, he helped launch JetBlue Airways (JBLU) with founder David Neeleman. In 2007, he helped launch JetSuite, then spearheaded its JetSuiteX division in 2016 (JetSuiteX became JSX in 2019). The company declined to confirm whether Wilcox was being considered for the FAA job.
“Alex is squarely focused on the business of JSX — we have no comment on matters pertaining to the Federal Aviation Administration,” the company said in a statement provided to Quartz.
Running the FAA will come with a number of big challenges. Possibly the most high-profile one will be managing the recovery of Boeing’s (BA) 737 Max production program as it rebuilds operations following a door plug blowout this January. Another will be wrestling with Elon Musk, who has criticized the agency’s handling of SpaceX.
One under-the-radar duty will be figuring out the future of America’s air traffic control system. Airlines and airports have frequently complained that the important piece of aviation infrastructure is understaffed and not as technologically up-to-date as it should be. A coalition of industry groups including Airlines for America, the Air Traffic Control Association, and the Association of Flight Attendants, wrote a letter last week enlisting Trump’s help in remedying those problems:
To maintain a best-in-class National Airspace System (NAS) that is globally competitive, our objective is to work with your Administration to find common ground so that together we can address needed efficiencies within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), including process reforms to procure and deploy air traffic control equipment, modernize and realign facilities to improve operational efficiencies, address key staffing shortages, and ensure stable and predictable funding, including multi-year budgeting, to strategically manage and deploy the FAA’s ATC assets.
