Sean Cassidy is Director of Safety, Flight Operations and Regulatory Affairs with Amazon Prime Air, Amazon’s drone delivery program. In this regard, he leads Amazon’s efforts to reach successful regulatory and policy level outcomes globally in support of the safe deployment of the Prime Air delivery model and is the Director of Operations for Prime Air’s first commercial flight delivery and flight test operations. He has extensive experience with international aviation standards and regulatory organizations and currently is the industry chair for the FAA’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight Aviation Rulemaking Committee (BVLOS ARC) and the Flight Safety Foundation’s Autonomous and Remotely Piloted Aviation Capabilities (ARPAC) Advisory Committee. Prior to that he was the industry chair for the FAA Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team (UAST) and Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) subcommittee and the executive in charge of Prime Air’s participation in the 2019 European Commission sponsored drone demonstrator project. He continues to work with aviation authorities globally on the development of drone specific operating guidelines and regulations.
Prior to joining Amazon, Mr. Cassidy was the First Vice President of the Air Line Pilots Association International, and was the senior accountable executive in charge of all safety and technical programs in support of over 52,000 commercial airline pilots at 32 different airlines in the United States and Canada. In that capacity he has testified multiple times before the US Congress, served in a number of senior aviation industry advisory positions, and was appointed by the US Secretary of Homeland Security to serve on the Aviation Security Advisory Council.
Mr. Cassidy’s aviation career began in 1986 when he was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy and subsequently received his wings as a Naval Aviator. He flew carrier-based missions as an EA-6B pilot/mission commander and instructor pilot. Later he joined Alaska Airlines where he went on to accrue over 20 years of commercial aviation experience as a transport category airline captain. Mr. Cassidy has over 10,000 hours of flight time and has occupied a number of leadership positions in his more than three decades in the aviation industry.
