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Duffy Unveils the National Advanced Air Mobility Strategy, Dec. 18, 2025

December 18, 2025 · US Department of Transportation · 0:39:32

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What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy unveiled the first-ever national strategy for advanced air mobility, in the Department of Transportation’s December 18, 2025 upload of the launch. Duffy opened by marking the 122nd anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, as he noted the date from the stage, and framed the strategy as the answer to whether America will keep leading in aviation as electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, drones, and supersonic flight change it. The strategy carries 40 recommendations, as he stated the number, across broad concepts he listed as modernizing the airspace for increased traffic, building new infrastructure such as vertiports, bolstering safety, accounting for security concerns, and developing the workforce the new industry needs.

Duffy cast the effort as a race the United States must not lose: the country had ceded drone territory to China and was playing catch-up, he said, and would not cede advanced air mobility the same way. He said the administration was building a brand-new air traffic control system — with the $12.5 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill as a start and, as he put it, $20 billion more needed — hiring a historic number of air traffic controllers, launching a pilot program to test advanced air mobility aircraft in the field, putting forward a new rule to expand drone use, and supporting a return of supersonic flight, as he stated the program.

Why it matters

The Advanced Air Mobility Strategy is the forward-looking half of Duffy’s aviation agenda: alongside rebuilding the existing air traffic control system, the department is writing the rules for the aircraft that do not yet fly commercially — air taxis, delivery drones, and supersonic jets — and staking the claim that they will be built in America and exported, not imported.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the National Advanced Air Mobility Strategy and its 40 recommendations, unveiled by Secretary Duffy on December 18, 2025. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “U.S. Secretary Sean P. Duffy to Unveil National Advanced Air Mobility Strategy” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks and figures as delivered by Secretary Duffy at the unveiling.