White House nominates AOPA President Boyer to new FAA Management Advisory Council

White House nominates AOPA President Boyer to new FAA Management Advisory Council

President Clinton announced April 11 his intention to nominate Phil Boyer, president of the 355,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, to the new FAA Management Advisory Council.

"We're pleased that the White House has recognized AOPA and Phil Boyer as the representative of general aviation," said R. Anderson Pew, chairman of the AOPA Board of Trustees. "It's important that GA pilots and aircraft owners have a strong advocate at the table as the FAA makes critical decisions affecting the next century of air travel."

The 15-member Management Advisory Council (MAC) is intended to provide "an oversight resource for management, policy, spending, and regulatory matters under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration."

The MAC will advise the FAA administrator on modernizing the air traffic control system and ways to make the agency more efficient and "businesslike."

The MAC will also be charged with reviewing the FAA's rulemaking process, particularly how the agency applies cost-benefit analysis to its decisions. AOPA believes that airworthiness directives, for example, should be subjected to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis because of their impact on aircraft owners.

"AOPA believes the MAC will be a significant aid in the quest for a better FAA, rapid implementation of modern technology, and an even safer and more efficient aviation system," said AOPA President Boyer.

When Congress established the MAC in 1996, it directed that council members be appointed from the ranks of senior aviation industry professionals with strong backgrounds in management and planning.

Boyer, who has headed the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association since 1991, is only its third president in the organization's 60-year history. A longtime broadcasting executive and general aviation advocate, Boyer is a 5,500-hour instrument- and multiengine-rated pilot. He has been flying for more than 32 years, 14 of those as an aircraft owner.

Boyer was previously senior vice president of development for Capital Cities/ABC Video Enterprises, Inc. in New York. There, he explored new business opportunities in communications technologies and coordinated ABC's international business activities. He was well known to pilots at the time as the creator of ABC's Wide World of Flying video magazine.

Among several top executive posts at ABC, he held vice president and general manager positions at flagship ABC television stations WABC-TV in New York and WLS-TV in Chicago.

Boyer holds a degree in communications from Sacramento State University, where later he was an associate professor of communications.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, based outside Washington, D.C., represents more than 355,000 pilots, or more than 50 percent of all active pilots in the United States.

The largest aviation organization in the world, AOPA is also ranked among the nation's 100 largest membership organizations of any kind.

AOPA members own or fly three quarters of the nation's 204,000 non-airline, non-military general aviation aircraft, which comprise 96 percent of all U.S. civilian aircraft.

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April 12, 2000