It’s time to get aviation out of the 1950s

OPINION:

Modernizing aviation is both essential and necessary. Americans rely on air travel to keep our economy moving with roughly 2.6 to 2.9 million daily passengers in the United States alone. But behind the scenes of this ecosystem, too much of our aviation industry is stuck in the past.

In Congress, one of my top priorities is cutting needless red tape that makes everything in government and the private sector slower, more expensive and less safe for the American people. Strangling bureaucracy affects the aviation industry and the safety we rely on that makes America the gold standard for innovation and safety. My bill, the Aviation Supply Chain Safety and Security Digitization Act, identifies a clear problem, offers a sensible solution and received strong bipartisan support when it passed out of the House.

What I’m offering is an industry-driven step towards modernizing FAA safety documentation for airplane parts. Currently, the FAA still relies heavily on paper record-keeping systems that are akin to those used in the 1950s — an absurdity. Not only is this approach severely outdated, it also creates real risks for the aviation industry and consumers.

Imagine if the use of email was suddenly prohibited and the use of old-fashioned, stamped envelopes became mandatory and exclusive. Our communications would grind to a halt. That analogy, on a smaller scale, is exactly the problem in the aviation industry. In addition to the practical inefficiencies, the current system allows nefarious actors relatively easy access to our aviation supply chains. Just recently, the FAA alerted European airlines to possible counterfeit safety documentation; it was discovered that 126 airplane engines were found to have fraudulent parts. This should never happen, but instances just like this are enabled by the system currently in place.

The FAA rightly maintains rigorous safety standards because failure at any point could have catastrophic consequences. However, when companies operating at the cutting edge of technology are forced to rely on recordkeeping methods that belong to another era, that stubborn bureaucracy continuously inhibits efficiency and weakens the entire process.

A system that requires paper documentation is too easily exploited. With millions of Americans flying every day, the impact and the urgency of getting this right is significant. My bill is a step toward a safer and more efficient aviation supply chain. Digital certificates will be easier to track and harder to counterfeit.

At the end of the day, how we regulate matters just as much as what we regulate. We need smarter systems. If we want to reduce costs, we need to eliminate outdated processes. And if we want to stay competitive, we need to embrace innovation instead of resisting it.

Unfortunately, right now it takes an act of Congress to update this important system. So that is what I am offering. The House has done its job by passing the Aviation Supply Chain Safety and Security Digitization Act. Now, the Senate needs to act and send this bipartisan bill to President Donald Trump’s desk. This is the kind of straightforward, effective reform that should move quickly. The longer we wait, the longer we allow outdated systems to hold back an industry that is essential to our way of life.

We are not living in the 1950s. It is time for our aviation system to catch up to the century we are actually in.

• Rep. Brad Knott represents North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District. He serves on the House Judiciary, Transportation & Infrastructure, Homeland Security, and Ethics committees.