“Without highly-skilled employees, the essential roles that our industry fulfills will cease,” the coalition said in their letter. These essential workers, they added, have allowed general aviation to provide the vital transport of medical equipment, medical personnel and patients during the pandemic and continue to connect small communities even as the airline industry reduces and eliminates services in many parts of the country.
General aviation airports, too, have been a significant asset during the pandemic, providing staging areas for critical supplies and bases for repatriation flights, research, agricultural service, utility surveying, and other vital functions such as organ transplants and aerial firefighting.
In addition to NBAA, the letter was signed by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Aeronautical Repair Station, the Association Experimental Aircraft Association, Helicopter Association International, the National Association of State Aviation Officials and the National Air Transportation Association.