Political Quotes

“I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the importance of aviation and continuing to focus on the workforce employed in aviation. I want to speak about the importance of the thousands of workers, including pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, baggage handlers, mechanics, catering workers, and many others, who are feeling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe we should continue to address the very important issues of the health aspects of the pandemic and the economic impact of the pandemic, but while we are working on developing a vaccine and developing better therapeutics and testing and stopping the spread of this virus, we also need to keep in mind that we do need transportation. Prior to the pandemic, the aviation industry supported nearly 11 million American jobs, put $1.8 trillion to work in our economy, and contributed to about 5.2 percent of our GDP. In fact, civilian aviation is the seventh leading contributor of overall productivity. These are skilled, high-wage jobs that are critical to our economy that cannot be easily replaced. Maintaining our aviation sector is vital to the long- term economic success of our country. When the pandemic hit, we saw a 96-percent drop in air travel, which instantly jeopardized thousands of jobs in this sector. We worked very hard in the CARES Act to create the right balance of capital for the aviation sector to continue because it is essential.…”