COVER STORY
AMT Exclusive:
An interview with
RAA President
ROGER
COHEN
By Charles Chandler
Charles
Chandler
began his
aviation career
as a junior
mechanic for
American
Airlines and
retired after
27 years of
service.
O
ne of every five domestic airline passengers will travel on one of the 2,700
regional aircraft that serve around 658
cities across the United States and in 470
of those regional airlines provide the
only scheduled service. They make about
13,000 flights a day carrying about 160 million passengers a year. Looking after their best collective interest
is the Regional Airline Association (RAA), a business
association headquartered in Washington, D.C., that
represents members' interests in Congressional hearings and before the Department of Transportation, the
FAA, and other agencies.
Roger Cohen is president of the RAA. He came to
RAA in December 2006 with extensive experience as
an aviation advocate representing Aircraft Owners &
Pilots Association, the Air Transport Association, and
he also worked for 10 years at Trans World Airlines.
Cohen holds a Bachelor of Science degree from
Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Recently,
Roger Cohen agreed to an interview with Aircraft
Maintenance Technology (AMT) Magazine.
Maintenance employees don't face
some of the institutional and builtin barriers to employment that the
pilots do.
AMT: Roger, thank you for taking time from your busy
day to visit with AMT. After reviewing the Regional
Airline Association (RAA) web site it appears that the
association is very engaged in representing the member
airlines in a variety of areas. The issue of airline safety
appears to be an underlying theme in many initiatives.
Could we start from the top with what is the overall
mission of the RAA?
Cohen: The written mission statement is: With
safety as its highest priority, RAA represents North
American regional airlines, and the manufacturers of
products and services supporting the regional airline
22
April 2013
Aircraft Maintenance Technology • www.AviationPros.com • www.AMTSociety.org
Roger Cohen, President, RAA