Kerry Lynch stepped into the role of editor of the&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;monthly magazine in May 2022 after serving with&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;for eight years. She joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in December 2014 as a senior editor covering Washington and business aviation news. She has also served on Convention News teams, including as editor of&nbsp;HAI Convention News. Lynch previously spent 25 years with Aviation Week. During her time there, she reported for and later steered&nbsp;The Weekly of Business Aviation, oversaw business aviation content on the&nbsp;Aviation Week Intelligence Network, served on the&nbsp;Show News&nbsp;staff, and held roles as the Washington columnist for&nbsp;Business &amp; Commercial Aviation&nbsp;and&nbsp;Overhaul &amp; Maintenance&nbsp;monthly magazines. In 2021 she was honored with the National Business Aviation Association Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement in journalism and was the 2004 recipient of the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalism Excellence Award. She also has been a recipient of an Aerospace Media Award for business aviation (2022) and NBAA Gold Wing Award (2003, 2024). Lynch graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor of arts in journalism.

Editor, AIN monthly magazine

Kerry Lynch

As the new Congress and Administration arrived in Washington in January, the aviation community looked ahead to new opportunities, such as the potential for bonus depreciation renewal, and watched for pitfalls, such as tariffs or the resurrection of privatization talks.
But important for the industry is ensuring the implementation of many key provisions and reforms included in the massive FAA reauthorization package signed into law last May.
“We're approaching [this year] with a lot of excitement to build on a lot of the things that we have accomplished over the past several years, including strong awareness of both business aviation’s societal benefits and our commitment to an advancement towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen. “We're really excited for the chance to build on all of that. We’ve got an opportunity with a new Congress, of course, to get our community engaged, make sure that the people on Capitol Hill know who we are, who the folks back home are, and who care about business aviation.”
During the transition, some of the pieces of what to expect in Washington became clearer, with President-elect Trump naming Sean Duffy, a former congressman who sat on the House Financial Services Committee, as Transportation Secretary.
House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&amp;I) Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri) was granted a waiver from a committee leadership term limit to return to the post. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) also has opted to return to his post as ranking Democrat on the panel.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, John Thune (R-South Dakota), a former Commerce chair, is taking over as Majority Leader, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was expected to take over as chair of the Commerce Committee, working alongside Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), who moves from the chair position to ranking Democrat.
“We do have a lot more clarity,” Bolen said, pointing to the selection of Duffy as the nominee to lead transportation as well as the first new Republican leader in the Senate since 2007. “Things are beginning to fill in. But, there is still an awful lot that is not known.”
This includes the leadership at the FAA with Administrator Michael Whitaker opting to step down a little more than a year into his five-year term. Also, Deputy Administrator Katie Thomson departed the agency on January 10 and Mark House, assistant administrator for finance and management and 20-year FAA veteran, was named acting deputy administrator at that time.
Their departures leave a vacuum at an agency that was just beginning to stabilize under Whitaker’s leadership and at a time when the FAA is facing a mountain of mandates under the most recently passed FAA reauthorization bill.
<h2>In Congress</h2>
As Congress realigns, it is paving the way for debate on the extension of taxes adopted through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that are due to expire at the end of the year. Plans call to use the expedited reconciliation process for this package.
Congressional leaders indicated that the tax package may not be the immediate priority, but the incoming administration has indicated a desire for a large catch-all reconciliation bill that included taxes.
For aviation, this package gives hope for the potential return of full accelerated, or bonus, depreciation. Under the Jobs Act, accelerated depreciation has been phasing out in recent years, but a tax measure proposed last year would have returned it to 100%. That measure passed in the House but stalled in the Senate over disputes on unrelated items.
Tax bills “always provide opportunities to move forward or move backward,” Bolen said.
“The tax bill is going to be an important priority for us,” said Paul Feldman, v-p of government affairs for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.
On bonus depreciation, he noted that the sense is there is support for it on Capitol Hill—“We would hope to have that restored to 100% again,” but he cautioned, “They’ve got a lot of different competing priorities and a lot of potential costs associated with different revenue measures. So, we're just going have to see how it fares.”
Bolen agreed: “Historically, we have seen our industry has done well with accelerated depreciation as to all capital goods. That’s something that we’re looking closely at.”
“Phasing out the bonus depreciation initiative hurt the private aviation business in this country,” said Ben Shirazi, president of aircraft dealer-broker SmartJets and president of VIP Completions. “It is my hope, and it seems to be an industry-wide expectation, that the incoming Trump Administration will reverse the phaseout, reset bonus depreciation to 100% for 2025, and—possibly—offer retroactive refunds.”
In addition, the tax bill opens the door to other potential measures, such as a return of full research and development (R&amp;D) expensing, which also was a part of the tax package that died in the Senate last year.
As for full R&amp;D expensing, rather than the three to five years of amortization, Feldman noted, “that one has a lot of political support.” Pointing to the fact that both bonus depreciation and R&amp;D were in a tax bill earlier in 2024, he added, “Hopefully that's a pretty good sign that those have strong support.”
In addition, industry leaders are eyeing possibilities for provisions such as further blender’s tax credits or other research incentives.
“We are interested in sustainable aviation fuel incentives. I don't know how those will fare in the new environment,” Feldman said, noting skepticism among some conservatives on funding sustainable initiatives. “I’m sure there will be broad industry coalition support for some of those and [we'll] see where those end up.”
Bolen, however, noted that momentum has grown on Capitol Hill on sustainable fuels, with the agricultural communities stepping up to support it as well as the advent of Sustainable Aviation Caucuses in both chambers. “I think with sustainability, it’s been exciting to see the scope of the support growing for sustainable aviation.”
But further, with new propulsion possibilities, “there’s a lot of room to grow, a lot of recognition that technology can be our friend and that we want to bring new technologies and create an environment that allows for investment and growth. We’re looking forward to being actively engaged and helping people understand the type of manufacturing jobs and other jobs that are associated with our industry.”
Feldman also mentioned looking at potential other investments such as an R&amp;D tax credit to further research such as electric propulsion. “Those are all areas that are going to get a lot of attention. The alternative fuels, I think, is going be a tougher road over the next couple of years.”
But he added, “It’s never just been about sustainability. It’s been also about the resiliency of the fuel supply and national security. If you have more sources of energy, that's a good thing.”
As for some of the other tax provisions proposed by the Biden Administration, such as lengthening the depreciation schedule for business jets or increasing the jet fuel tax, he said, “I don’t see a lot of momentum for that,” particularly since such measures usually accompany an FAA reauthorization bill—and one just passed. “I don't think people see a reopening of the reauthorization bill. So, I don’t see those proposals going anywhere quickly.”
<h2>Bracing for Tariffs</h2>
On the flip side, industry leaders are wary about potential tariffs. While much talk has centered on them, little was known leading up to the inauguration last month about how they will be implemented. Trump initially indicated that he plans for 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada unless the borders are secured and 10% on China goods. He can impose such tariffs without congressional support under the guise of national security and defense. However, the leaders of both Mexico and Canada have already met with him, so it is unclear whether that has at all reshaped his plans, what additional tariffs may look like, and whether there would be exemptions.
“We don’t know that we know exactly what those tariffs will look like, how extensive they will be,” Bolen said. “But clearly, business aviation is inherently international. We’ve got a global supply chain, we have manufacturers from around the world. We hope that the markets are able to function well as we move forward.”
While under the guise of border and security, Trump would have the authority to move forward on initial tariffs, but Feldman, who couched that he was not a tax legal expert, believes that some others may have to go through Congress. Further on tariffs, “A lot of times, they set up like an exemption process or a way to exclude certain things. But that’s a lengthy process. And even under that scenario, the tariffs that the president would propose would probably continue for some period of months, but then maybe eventually get changed,” he said. “That’s an issue that could change from week to week, day to day.”
Feldman agreed with Bolen on the international weave of the industry. “For aviation, the concern is the global nature of the industry, but also trade and bilateral safety agreements,” he said. “We’re part of trade agreements,” and tariffs could threaten those agreements.
“We make market access decisions based on safety through our bilateral safety agreements,” he added. “We also think there's a danger of introducing tariffs in an arena where the U.S. has a positive balance of trade and is a world leader. And we benefit from that. We also already have a fragile supply chain that we just think the tariffs are not the right idea in aviation products.”
In aviation, manufacturers can’t easily switch locations or even products used on an aircraft. “It’s a real challenge for manufacturers,” Feldman said.
<h2>Privatization Redux?</h2>
Also, leaders are remaining watchful for the potential of air traffic control privatization. It is a concept strongly supported by conservative organizations such as the Reason Foundation and Heritage Foundation, which continue to push for smaller government and have the ears of some of the potential incoming cabinet members, notably the candidate for the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought.
“Converting America’s air traffic control system into a user-funded system is a bipartisan issue,” Robert Poole, the Reason Foundation’s director of transportation policy, said in a posting in December. “Legislation to that effect was developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) during the Clinton administration as part of its reinventing government agenda. A detailed proposal to take the ATO [air traffic organization] out of DOT and convert it into a user-funded nonprofit corporation was supported by the Trump administration and was twice approved by the House Transportation &amp; Infrastructure (T&amp;I) Committee (in 2017 and 2018)… That recent effort won the support of the airline industry, the air traffic controllers’ union, and the Business Roundtable. It was endorsed by the editorial pages of many of America’s largest newspapers.”
In addition, former Rep. Bill Shuster, who chaired the T&amp;I committee while in Congress and is now a senior policy advisor for the multinational law firm Squire Patton Boggs, raised the issue during a lunch in November, saying it is something that needs to be considered once more.
“In the context of privatization, we’re always concerned. But, it’s the early days of the administration, and they have a lot of priorities,” Feldman said. “This hasn’t been necessarily mentioned as one, but there’s been speculation. We haven’t gotten a lot of sense of real momentum behind it.”
Pointing to the potential tax bill measures, Bolen cautioned, agreeing with Feldman, “We also know sometimes taxes require pay [in] force. Through the years, there have been a lot of really bad ideas floated related to that. It’s really hard to kill a bad idea in Washington D.C. They seem to just keep resurfacing.
“The idea of privatizing air traffic control, essentially, giving it to the airlines, has been an idea that has been thoroughly debated by bipartisan legislatures for a long time. We look at what has happened in other countries. We see how the cost to the users goes up at times it can least be afforded,” Bolen continued, “We’ve seen the massive bailouts that have gone to those operations. We’ve seen the outages associated with it, the inefficiency that you see flying in Europe and other places. So, routinely, what we have seen is after thorough bipartisan exploration of the idea, bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate have rejected it.”
He conceded that the concept has “its promoters and they are always looking for opportunities.” But he further agreed with the recent passage of the bipartisan five-year reauthorization legislation with overwhelming majorities in both chambers. “We recognize that that is a tremendous national asset that the public airspace belongs to the public, to the taxpayers,” Bolen concluded.
More urgent for the industry as a whole is a focus on proposals to better leverage the Airport and Airway Trust Fund to provide more money to the FAA for ATC investments, Feldman noted. “Right now, it’s probably better that we work together and make progress than to go into our respective corners and start to battle out something which may or may not come to fruition.”
In fact, a coalition representing a broad swath of industry—airlines and business aviation alike—wrote to then-President-elect Donald Trump in December offering to find common ground to help improve ATC equipment and operational efficiencies, as well as ensure predictable funding. The letter did not mention “ATC privatization” but instead asked for collaboration “to find a unified path forward to create efficiencies within the FAA that will ensure our nation’s aviation system remains the safest in the world for all users.”
This includes funding to support needed improvements to modernize FAA facilities and ATC equipment, the letter added.
<h2>Implementing Reauthorization</h2>
However, Feldman emphasized the importance of keeping an eye on reauthorization. “There’s so many different dynamics going on right now with the new appointments, people leaving, people coming in, obviously a new Congress, and some big goals,” said Feldman. “But I think for us, we are really focused on FAA implementation or the implementation of the FAA reauthorization bill.”
Not only does this mean working with the agency, but also the key committees on Capitol Hill to make sure those initiatives are implemented, he said. Among the top provisions, Feldman pointed to regulatory process improvements, including appointing an assistant administrator for such restructuring.
Also, he mentioned ensuring workforce development grants get funded and following through on a study of the future state of certification and how it can be more effective and leverage safety-enhancing technology changes. These are among many key measures the industry is watching, he said.
Bolen agreed. “We’re anxious to implement the FAA reauthorization bill that was just passed,” he said.
While getting these put in place as the FAA undergoes another leadership change may be more challenging, Bolen pointed to many positive factors ahead. On Capitol Hill, he noted that the caucuses on general aviation and advanced air mobility, in addition to sustainable aviation, pave the way for positive discussion on many of these issues. “Lots of opportunities for people to get engaged from our industry and a lot of people who care about our industry from a variety of angles.”

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