FAA Chief "Drones Will Force Change at Agency"

For the Federal Aviation Administration, regulating the skies is about to get much more complicated.

The FAA’s acting administrator, Michael P. Huerta, told drone industry leaders gathered in Las Vegas on Tuesday that the agency is poised to “realign” itself to prepare for the coming explosion of unmanned aerial vehicles.

They’re now available only to military and law enforcement, but the FAA will begin granting personal and commercial licenses in 2015. It estimates that there could be as many as 30,000 drones flying above the U.S. by 2020.

“We need to change the way we do business,” said Mr. Huerta, who oversees the agency’s 47,000 employees and $16 billion budget. “We’ve looked ahead over a decade out and we know where we want to be in 2025, but the FAA’s internal structures were created when the agency was formed 50 years ago. We know we need to realign.”

While speaking frankly about the daunting challenges confronting the FAA, Mr. Huerta assured the drone sector — posited to become a multibillion-dollar business within the next few years, analysts say — that the FAA won’t stand in the way of technological development and will help promote the new crafts as the next generation of flying machines.

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