Trump expected to tap former Delta exec to run FAA: officials

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

POLITICS MARCH 8, 2019 / 11:23 AM / UPDATED 13 HOURS AGO

Trump expected to tap former Delta exec to run FAA: officials

David Shepardson
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is expected to soon nominate a former senior Delta Air Lines executive to head the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), administration and industry officials said on Friday.

Trump is set to pick Steve Dickson, who retired after 27 years at Delta in October as senior vice president of global flight operations, to run the 45,000-employee agency that oversees U.S. airspace. The agency has been run on an acting basis for 14 months by deputy administrator Dan Elwell, who is expected to remain at the FAA.

Dickson and the White House did not respond to messages seeking comment. The U.S. Transportation Department declined to comment.

Dickson oversaw Delta’s more than 13,000 pilots and an internal support team of 400 employees at Delta’s Atlanta headquarters. He flew the A320, B27, B737, B757 and B767 during his career at Delta and is a former U.S. Air Force officer and F-15 fighter pilot.

Last year, Reuters and other outlets reported Trump was considering his longtime personal pilot, John Dunkin, to lead the FAA.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-aviation-trump/trump-expected-to-tap-former-delta-exec-to-run-faa-officials-idUSKCN1QP1VM

[SunSeeker]

1. Yet another fox hired to guard the chicken coop. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. What do you know about him?

[SunSeeker]

3. I know from the article he has spent 27 years as a Delta Airlines executive.

Which is problematic considering he must now regulate those airlines on consumers' behalf. As the articles notes:

The FAA also must write a series of new rules required by Congress in a five-year reauthorization approved in October. For instance, the FAA must set minimum dimensions for passenger seats, including legroom and width “necessary for the safety of passengers.”

So whose interests do you think will win out in Dickson's mind when it comes to setting minimum dimensions for passenger seats on airlines? The airlinrs' profits (by squeezing more people into the cabin) or the comfort and safety of you and me?

But I suppose it could have been worse. As the article points out, Trump had initially wanted to appoint his personal pilot, John Dunkin, the dude who has spent his entire career flying the Trump jet.

[Sgent]

4. He seems as good as anyone

and better than most. I would be concerned about his thoughts on General Aviation.

He has a very impressive career at Delta from entry level co-pilot to Director of Global Operations and opposed the privatization of the FAA a couple of years ago when Trump and the R's were trying to do it.

I'm not too concerned about regulatory capture -- assuming he divests himself of Delta stock (if he has any) -- because he's already finished his career and doesn't care about having a cushy seat waiting for him.

[SunSeeker]

5. As an officer of Delta, you can be sure he has Delta stock.

And with the President refusing to divest of his hotels, you can be sure his appointees feel no compunction to divest themseves of anything.

But yeah, he's as good as you're going to do under Trump.

Neither of the FAA admistrators under Obama were airline executives. The first was a pilot and founding father of the Airline Pilots union, the second had decades of public service experience managing various transportation agencies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Huerta

[Sgent]

6. Different rules

for the President vs appointed positions.

On a more general note, Carter (farm) and Reagan (royalties) both had conflicts -- nothing to the extent or size of Trump's, but I'm a large number of Presidents have had significant business interests. Congress really needs to clarify the rules.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Actually, he's probably not a bad choice.

At least not as galactically awful as most of Trump's picks. Dickson was the VP of flight operations at DAL and as such he was a pilot (which is required by FAA regs for flight ops executives), not a bean counter or other head-office suit. I'm a former DAL (previously NWA) employee and I've met Dickson, though I didn't actually know him because I was well beneath him in the department hierarchy. Flight ops personnel, the people who are directly responsible for making an airline go, tend to be pretty fanatical about safety. And you deal with FAA regulations and FAA inspectors every single day. Someone like Dickson will be well-versed in regulatory stuff, and since he's coming from flight operations he is more likely to be serious about safety and not just there to fluff the airline industry.