The main reason that GA has spoken against the privatization of ATC is because a majority of the costs for the switch will come from user based fees. This will require a new bureaucracy and can potentially decimate small businesses that depend on GA aircraft and airports. (Oldfield, 2015) Airlines, on the other hand, are mostly all for it stating "a corporation with a board of industry leaders would work faster than FAA to modernize equipment and adopt more efficient flight paths" Delta has opposed the privatization arguing that it will not decrease the traffic and could distract from current efforts to decongest. (Jansen, 2015)
New Zealand was the first to privatize in the late 1980's followed by Germany, Australia, The U.K., France and Canada. While all of those have been pretty successful, U.S. Airlines found that the Canadian method worked the best handling 50% more traffic using 25% fewer employees. (Bachman, 2015) The process of implementing this would not be a quick. The bill has already been proposed and is now waiting on the vote of congress with lobbyists fighting on both sides.
I personally do not think that privatization would be more efficient. We already have a well working system in place and I believe in not trying to fix something that isn't broken. During Thanksgiving, Delta had 92% of their flights arrive within 15 minutes of their set ETA. (Jansen, 2015) We have a much busier airspace than many of the other countries who have adopted the privatization which makes comparing their models to our numbers irrelevant. I do feel that some slight changes could be made to better it, like NextGen but to change the entire process I think would be foolish.
Bachman, J. (2015, September 11). Should the U.S. Privatize Air Traffic Control? Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-11/should-the-u-s-privatize-air-traffic-control-
Jansen, B. (2015, December 2). Airline executives urge privatization of air-traffic control. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/12/01/airline-executives-urge-privatization-air-traffic-control/76604766/
Oldfield, R. (2015, December 4). Stop the Movement to Privatize ATC. Retrieved from http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/stop-the-movement-to-privatize-air-traffic-control/article_0e6c72ca-1c18-5826-902e-f9f06d46fb0a.html
I agree, there is nothing wrong with our current system, and the fact that ATC got 92% of Delta’s flights to their destinations within 15 minutes of ETA during Thanksgiving is astounding. This fact shows that there is almost no way to make ATC anymore efficient than what it is already. I also agree with your statement of not fixing something that isn’t broken!
ReplyDeleteI thought it was pretty interesting that Canada was able to handle more air traffic with the privatization of ATC, although more air traffic can be handled it still costs the airplane operators money to use the services.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that small GA businesses could be in jeopardy due to the added fees of a private ATC company. The prices aren't necessarily known. In Canada GA users of the system pay $70 but that can always change like a price of a cable bill. The price could be exaggerated because it would be new here in the U.S. making it harder for GA class to fly.
ReplyDeleteI like that you bring up the idea of trying to fix something that's not broken. The FAA has done a very good job with ATC and it is quite bipartisan as it stands today.
ReplyDeleteI like that you bring up the idea of trying to fix something that's not broken. The FAA has done a very good job with ATC and it is quite bipartisan as it stands today.
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