Aviation in the United States is an essential part of our national economy. Whether it is making sure hundreds of thousands of passengers reach their destinations each day, or rapidly moving baggage and cargo across the country, or even protecting our national defense and homeland security, the continued growth and success of America’s aviation system is vital to our nation’s future economic success.

But America’s air traffic system is facing a big challenge – one that will affect every airline passenger and every business operation in the country by 2025 if a solution isn’t found soon. That challenge is overcrowding.

Several government reports indicate that in the next 20 years, airline passenger traffic will triple, with baggage and cargo increasing by fourfold. With such a staggering growth rate, our present air transportation system is simply not designed to adjust to that kind of expansion without some radical redesign and change.

In 2006 alone, the number of air passengers exceeded 750 million. According to government projections, it is likely that passenger count will reach one billion each year between 2012 and 2015. At that point, America’s current air transportation system will simply be reaching its limits.

The strain on the system is already evident. The number of recurring flight delays we already see and the difficulties we have in maintaining the pace of system operations at airports during bad weather are early indications of some of the coming problems.

Although our current air traffic system has served the nation well since the 1950s, and it continues to be the world’s largest and safest air transportation system, it is a system that is inherently limited in its ability to grow and adapt.

That is why the National Safe Skies Alliance (Safe Skies) is partnering with the Tennessee Valley Corridor to establish a new regional pilot demonstration area here in the Tennessee Valley to help develop the nation’s Next Generation Air Transportation System.

The vision for NextGen, in contrast to today’s air traffic system, is designed to be more flexible, resilient, scalable, adaptive and highly automated – meeting up to two or three times the current demand of passengers and air cargo. Safe Skies and the TVC intend to be at the forefront in helping design, test and develop the components of this new system.

Safe Skies has already become a recognized leader in advancing aviation security and efficiency by conducting independent testing and evaluation of technologies in airports all across the nation. But to build a leading demonstration area, we needed a strong partner that had a reputation for bringing people together to get things done.

For over 12 years, the TVC has been dedicated to promoting the Tennessee Valley region as one of the nation’s premier science and technology centers by linking together and leveraging the Corridor’s world-class research institutions and technology assets. The Corridor’s guiding motto of “National Leadership through Regional Cooperation” made them the ideal partner for this important new project.

Safe Skies and the TVC are working to bring together both large and small airports within the Tennessee Valley Corridor to collaborate on potential solutions to the major problems our air transportation system will experience by 2025.

This pilot program, with the support of the Joint Planning and Development Office, a multi-agency federal joint planning office led by the FAA, but including the federal Departments of Transportation, Homeland Security, Commerce, NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, seeks to evaluate all areas of airport operations: safety, environment, shared situational awareness, security, weather and airport infrastructure.

By establishing this NextGen pilot program and getting all of the airports within the Tennessee Valley Corridor actively involved over the next few years, Safe Skies and the Tennessee Valley Corridor will not only help lead the nation to new and innovative air transportation solutions, but we can also advance the capabilities and capacity of our own air service here in the Tennessee Valley.

In the future, few issues will be more important to our continued economic success.

(Tom Jensen is the chairman and CEO of the National Safe Skies Alliance, a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing aviation security by conducting independent testing and evaluation of anti-terrorism technologies in airports nationwide.)