ATC Privatization

The great debate on whether or not ATC should be privatized has fairly equal voices on both sides.  The General aviation side of the house fears that it will become a “pay to play” industry, sacked with fees and sent to the bottom of the totem pole in terms of priority to the big boys.  The financial impact to the GA community’s ability to fly the friendly sky’s could be an industry killer.

A few, but not all, of the major airlines have spoke in favor of privatization mainly because they realize that the implementation of the NextGen system has have numerous cost overruns, and delays measured in multiple years behind schedule.  They quicker the NextGen system is implemented, the quicker the airlines can begin saving billions of dollars in saved fuel and time.

Other countries do have privatized ATC, though the sum of which barely equate to the vast mass of traffic and area the USA contends with.  New Zealand was the to part ways with the government ATC role back in the late 1980’s.  Germany, Austrailia, and the UK followed suit, with France migrating ATC to a government agency funded by user fees around a decade ago, while retaining safety oversight. (Bloomberg, 2015) Germany established a government-run corporation while The U.K. uses a unique public-private partnership for NATS, which oversees air traffic control. As I stated previously, any one of these countries are essentially the size of one of our States, but they have proven that they can run their respective airspaces safely, efficiently, and with positive balance sheets.

After Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 just this October, which establishes funding limits for both Fiscal Year 2016 and 2017, and avoids more sequestration cuts, I haven’t been able to determine the status of House Transportation committee chairman Bill Shuster’s proposal to create a new nongovernmental agency to take over ATC. Without further evidence I’d have to assume it is dead in the water. (ainonline, 2015)

Having worked both in the military, and for private military contractors for several years, I do have a unique perspective when it comes to spending, efficiency, and mission accomplishment.  It is my experience that private industry can accomplish the same task as the government, but with with less.  But unless that particular private entity has access to the same resources as the government one(s), there are definitely (and appropriately so) certain tasks that should be exclusively handled by the feds.  So- which way am I leaning towards with ATC? The jury is still out.  I definitely believe that had the NextGen innovation and roll out been run by a private corporation- it would be fully implemented by now.  The feds are not good with IT projects, Obama Care website anyone??  The most common argument against privatization is that greedy corporations answer only to their shareholders and chairmen, I'm not sure how that argument is still a player but thats the critics.  When it comes to spending 'our' tax dollars, I'd have to say that government answers essentially to no one.  That is unfortunately why the most fraud, waste, and abuse is in government spending.  
Ideally, I'd like to like to see zero based budgeting be fully implemented in the FAA, ATC, and all other government agencies involved in aviation, so the dollars that are allocated to aviation, are efficiently and effectively spent- in aviation.

 

Reference:

Should the U.S. Privatize Air Traffic Control? (2015, September 11). Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-11/should-the-u-s-privatize-air-traffic-control-

NATA Pushes Capitol Hill for Action on FAA Funding Bill. (2015, November 2). Retrieved from http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2015-11-02/nata-pushes-capitol-hill-action-faa-funding-bill