A new aviation advocacy organization has launched with the goal of creating a grassroots community of pilots and aviation businesses to directly address political issues facing airports.
Officials with the new group, “Friends of Aviation,” also announced that it would begin with airport preservation projects at airports in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.
“Our goal is to build a grassroots community of aviators to help prevent airport crisis and closure,” Friends of Aviation founder Andrew Crider said. “After COVID, the aviation industry is in crisis. Airports all around the country are facing more threats than ever before.”
Crider is calling on pilots to join Friends of Aviation, with the hopes of recruiting chapter presidents and leaders. He adds the group hopes to network state chapters for information sharing, to address airport issues before they make headlines in local papers.
“We are sharing this advocacy space, and don’t want to detract from efforts made by other organizations,” Crider said. “What we want is grassroots advocacy, better outcomes, and everyone who shares the love of flight to be heard and fought for.”
One of the first actions taken by Friends of Aviation was to start a petition at Change.org to reopen Horace Williams Airport in North Carolina, which was closed in 2018 after a nearly two decades push to redevelop the land for commercial real estate.
To find out more about the new organization, email [email protected].
One way to help guarantee against airport closures is to first take community complaints about noise seriously, and second get airports to offer unleaded fuel alongside leaded as soon as possible. Showing that pilots truly care about people in the community they fly over will go a long way.