Jessica Jones became the FAA executive director for the Office of Advanced Aviation Technologies in February 2026, where she has advanced key agency initiatives, including Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and the Advanced Air Mobility Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).
Previously, Jones was acting deputy chief of staff for the Office of the Administrator, where she spearheaded air traffic controller supercharged hiring, NAS modernization and MOSAIC rulemaking.
Jones, who joined the FAA in 2011, has served several other roles across the agency, including acting chief of staff for the Office of Security and Hazardous Materials Safety and senior advisor for the Office of the Deputy Administrator.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree from Catholic University of America and is a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute.
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Q: Congratulations on your new position as FAA executive director of the new Office of Advanced Aviation Technologies. After more than 15 years at the agency, you've seen a lot, including one of its largest reorganizations. How does the new office fit into that?
Thank you. Administrator Bryan Bedford aligned us in a better position for safety, enhancing our operational excellence – which is important for any government agency – opening the door to more transparency and accountability.
This group is one of three that were either up-leveled, moved out or created. One is our Aviation Safety Management Organization. You have the safety management system that’s been being pulled together for one, data-driven safety message.
We have our Airspace Modernization Office. We all know about the brand-new air traffic control system [that’s currently being built]. They’re working with the Program Management Office from the Air Traffic Organization and NextGen that have now all come together. They’ll still do their research and their installations, and they’ll be driving for installations and all of that – making the new National Airspace System (NAS) a better NAS.
Our group – the Office of Advanced Aviation Technologies – was created because they realized the importance of focusing on emerging technologies. They needed an office to help bring together all of the players to safely integrate these new technologies into the airspace system.
“One of my huge priorities coming down from the administrator is really cutting the red tape. The other piece is the collaboration aspect.”
Q: That’s no small feat and it's a lot of moving parts. What are your priorities in this new position, with this new office?
One of my huge priorities coming down from the administrator is really cutting the red tape. The other piece is the collaboration aspect. So, in this role in integration and bringing everyone together, you’re still going to have us working with everyone across the FAA. You’ll see that all of that work is combining together.
Q: There are some major milestones coming up in this space, including Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) rulemaking. How will the new rulemaking pave the way for new entrants, including passenger aircraft for autonomous operations?
This is a step on a huge continuum of a regulatory framework. This is getting us closer, but it’s not really the only answer, right? Once that comes out, we’ll be able to look at the data that we’re gaining from BVLOS and use that to move forward with other regulatory work in order to really enable these operations safely.
“... when you think about things like the passenger-use cases as examples, that's going to take us some time.”
Q: Another expansion and major initiative is the eVTOL Integration Pilot Project (eIPP). The FAA has chosen eight projects across 26 states. When do you expect to see advanced air mobility operations, and what should we expect to see when those launch?
We have all of the signed OTAs – the Other Transaction Agreements – those are finished. Those were the baseline agreements with the folks we’re doing business with contractually. The next step is the appendices, because you have to think about infrastructure and airports and, of course, flight standards. We will be getting those as signed appendices this fiscal year. Then, within 90 days of the signed appendices, you will see the demonstration. So, this calendar year, for sure, but we’re aiming to get it done earlier if we can. Cargo [aircraft] might be a bit easier, but when you think about things like the passenger-use cases as examples, that’s going to take us some time.
Q: How do you see the future? How do you expect the day-to-day NAS operations to change?
With the AAM industry, we were already seeing active demonstrations before eIPP even came out. And that work is being done on my team. Within our office we are already coordinating those types of activities. We have hit the point where – from some of our human-in-the-loop demonstrations and some of our other reports – we see some areas that are not as successful. We’re able to clean it up and make it better.
So, two areas that I often point out are in air traffic operations: There are some areas that we need to address, and we can do that through eIPP. That’s where we’ll get those lessons learned, and we’ll clean up the areas that aren’t perfect yet. And infrastructure: that’s a huge area that I think every state is looking at a little differently. We really want to lean in a little more on infrastructure and see if we can get folks on the same page. Because a smaller airport doesn’t really need three or four or five vertiports – I don’t know. We will be able to use our analysis from all of that work.
“Through eIPP, we're going to see significant leaps and bounds.”
EIPP is really supposed to be three years. But within those three years you’re supposed to see a passenger operation, you’re supposed to see the cargo operation, you’re supposed to see emergency and medical lean in and use this for good. In the future, in areas where there’s heavy traffic congestion, we hope to help alleviate that. In rural areas, we’re hoping to make it easier to travel and have access to goods. Through eIPP, we’re going to see significant leaps and bounds.
We’ll be moving forward in other technologies like supersonic. We are also working very closely with our safety management organization on counter-UAS technologies.
Editor’s note: This has been edited for length. Watch the complete interview.
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