Government shutdownAerospace and Defense Industry says its member companies negatively affected by shutdown

Marion C. Blakey, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, last week called on Congress and President Obama to pass a bipartisan solution that reopens the government as soon as possible.

He said that the negative impacts of the shutdown range from industry worker furloughs on programs that support the soldiers to delays in new aircraft certification and space systems launches.

He said that a number of the association’s member companies have notified the association that if the shutdown continues, they will be forced to furlough tens of thousands of workers.

Blakey noted that the most immediate concern is the absence of Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) inspectors. Pursuant to DOD regulations, these inspectors are required to audit and approve parts and operations throughout the manufacturing process for military products. The manufacturing process must stop if these inspections and certifications are not performed, choking off the flow of new equipment to the armed forces.

The FAA has furloughed 15,000 employees, but the air traffic control system was not immediately affected by the shutdown. The shutdown, however, forced the FAA to furlough all but about 100 of about 1,200 certification staff and inspectors. The remaining staff is being devoted solely to monitoring the safety and airworthiness of the existing fleet.

With only a small fraction of FAA certification engineers and inspectors on the job, the FAA will not initiate any new certification projects and will not be able to support smaller companies that rely on direct FAA support for design approvals. This will have immediate impact on small companies, Blakey said.

Virtually the entire staff of NASA has been furloughed, with only 549 employees out of more than 18,000 remaining on the job. This has stopped important research and development work and has the potential to delay launches of spacecraft such as the replacement of NOAA’s polar-orbiting weather satellite, which provides vital information to predict hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe winter storms.

Blakey called the government “a tragic mistake.” He said that “There are too many government responsibilities, from national security to public safety, which have been negatively impacted either directly or indirectly…. We strongly encourage our elected leaders to reach an agreement reopening the government and raising the debt limit as soon as possible.”