Lawmakers propose bill to privatize air traffic control

The new non-governmental air traffic corporation will have the agility to innovate and adapt that is lacking in any government agency, as well as the flexibility to borrow resources necessary to achieve the modern ATC system and air transportation network that continues to elude us.

A government watchdog says that despite a doubling of spending on air traffic control operations over the past decade productivity has declined and reform efforts have been ineffective. As annual passenger levels approach one billion, the system will become increasingly inefficient, the costs on our economy will grow, and the headaches air travelers know too well already – delays, lost bags, cancelled flights – will become more prevalent.

Smaller aviation groups that represent noncommercial flight operators have been more measured about the air traffic control privatization proposal, however, saying recently that lawmakers should not rush to embrace the air traffic control privatization proposals, despite claims from backers about the success of similar systems in Canada and several European nations.

Under Shuster’s plan the system would still be financed with taxes on plane tickets, aviation fuel and other fees.

Airlines have tried to transfer air traffic control to a nonprofit corporation for at least two decades.

Now, that may be changing.

In a significant move executive board of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing controllers, announced its support Wednesday for the legislation.

It would extend the FAA’s funding until 2022, but the measure would also create a new nongovernmental organization that would take over air traffic control from the agency in approximately three years. The last multi-year FAA reauthorization required 23 short-term extensions before it was passed in 2012, but the recent five-year surface transportation reauthorization provides some reason for optimism that Congress will be able to reach an agreement on a long-term FAA Reauthorization bill as well. John Thune, R-S.D., also favors privatization and has kept an eye on developments in the House.

DeFazio has said he plans to offer a counterproposal that attempts to protect the FAA from the funding vagaries of Congress but stops short of privatization.

Both Republican and Democrat leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee and transportation appropriations subcommittee voiced their opposition as the House is expected to roll out a comprehensive reauthorization proposal-including a measure for an independent ATC-this week.

Other anti-privatization arguments are coming from businesses that use their own planes to fly employees around, private pilots and air taxi services that fear airlines and the large airports that serve them will dominate the new corporation’s board.

But the bill doesn’t specify how the tax and fee structure would be changed because decisions on taxes are up to the House Ways and Means Committee; Shuster is working with that committee, a spokesman said. Dozens of other countries have privatized their air-traffic systems, but lingering questions focus on whether the private system adopted in Canada, for example, would work in the much larger and more complex USA airspace.