President Trump is throwing his weight behind a proposal to spin off air traffic control from the federal government, delivering a major boost for proponents pushing to advance the contentious plan in Congress.

In his “skinny budget” released Thursday, Trump’s 2018 proposal calls for a “multi-year reauthorization proposal to shift the air traffic control function of the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] to an independent, non-governmental organization, making the system more efficient and innovative while maintaining safety.”

http://thehill.com/policy/transportatio ... -in-budget

This really depends, if it means reviving Shuster's plan unaltered, then there may be life in it as it addressed a lot of the sticking points such as user fees, controller retirements, etc. If it ends up being a different bill, that attacks these issues and makes ATC a solely for-profit enterprise, then no it is a terrible idea. While I support Shuster's bill, I have opposed nearly all other endeavors to privatize the ATC system on the grounds that User-Fees will destroy the already fragile world of GA (Shuster's bill at least made provisions to leave small planes alone).

Bringing the US into modern, world wide aviation.

Id rather he prioritize replacing TSA with private firms again. ATC does a good job. TSA does not.

I have zero faith in the government's ability to privatize anything correctly anymore. Especially with a president (and other white house and congressional officials) with all kinds of business ties. I don't see how we can privatize something while maximizing public interest. There are countries that have privatized postal delivery, ATC, etc.. but the US seems incapable of doing this in a manner that ensures that is fair and avoids special interests corrupting the process.

Eh, I am not a fan. The U.S. has such a strong GA industry (sort of strong, strong compared to other places in the world) that employees a lot of people and brings a lot of money into the economy. ATC is not the biggest issue in the government's budget. DOE or TSA is a much larger issue in my opinion and those are smart cuts.

TSA is useless, the airlines and consumers already pay for security in taxes and fees, let the airlines and airports chose security providers, I am sure they will do better than the TSA. Only thin the TSA should add is bomb sniffing dogs, that is it, everything else they do is just extra fat on the budget that we don't need.

Trump also proposed ended the Essential Air Service program in all states. I highly doubt that this part of the budget will make it through Congress.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Tr ... 649-1.html

What is the cost per year for running ATC and the TSA? What problems is privatizing ATC going to fix?

To me, it seems that the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes and not delivered the promised benefits. We have dedicated controllers that somehow manage to keep the busiest airspace in the world functioning in spite of archaic equipment and systems. The FAA has tried and failed to replace the current system with very little in the way of results. Maybe it is time to let someone else try.

nikeherc wrote:

To me, it seems that the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes and not delivered the promised benefits. We have dedicated controllers that somehow manage to keep the busiest airspace in the world functioning in spite of archaic equipment and systems. The FAA has tried and failed to replace the current system with very little in the way of results. Maybe it is time to let someone else try.

The projects to replace the current system have been done multiple times by multiple different contractors with little success. It is highly unlikely that yet another contractor will have any more success. ATC is a very complex, very hard, hard real time, high availability, high reliability problem quite unlike pretty much anything else out there. The requirements of the ATC system are quite unlike anything out there. Nothing in the whole cloud computing revolution really applies, nothing in big business really applies, nothing in the medical field really applies.

flymia wrote:

DOE or TSA is a much larger issue in my opinion and those are smart cuts.

Yeah, if we ensure that kids have an awareness of the world around them then next thing you know, they might be saying that there are some things wrong with our society and offer ways to fix it!

klakzky123 wrote:

I have zero faith in the government's ability to privatize anything correctly anymore. Especially with a president (and other white house and congressional officials) with all kinds of business ties. I don't see how we can privatize something while maximizing public interest. There are countries that have privatized postal delivery, ATC, etc.. but the US seems incapable of doing this in a manner that ensures that is fair and avoids special interests corrupting the process.

I'll bite. What privatization are you talking about when you say the US seems incapable?

Need to understand, first, how ATC is funded in the USA.

Does the government fund it completely?
What happens to the monies airlines, domestic and Int, pay for ATC services?
What are the benefits to the flying passenger, and the airline, by having this service spun off?

spink wrote:

nikeherc wrote:

To me, it seems that the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes and not delivered the promised benefits. We have dedicated controllers that somehow manage to keep the busiest airspace in the world functioning in spite of archaic equipment and systems. The FAA has tried and failed to replace the current system with very little in the way of results. Maybe it is time to let someone else try.

The projects to replace the current system have been done multiple times by multiple different contractors with little success. It is highly unlikely that yet another contractor will have any more success. ATC is a very complex, very hard, hard real time, high availability, high reliability problem quite unlike pretty much anything else out there. The requirements of the ATC system are quite unlike anything out there. Nothing in the whole cloud computing revolution really applies, nothing in big business really applies, nothing in the medical field really applies.

As much as like competitive bidding etc, I think this'd work if we specified that the new organization would have to purchase NavCanada's software products, or perhaps follow their lead.

One of the really important differences in how NavCanada has developed their ATC system is there is little to no outsourcing. The software developers who produce the software work for NavCanada, and they work on incremental improvements in addition to the moonshots.

For what it's worth, Canada quasi-privatized its ATC system through the Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act, which led in 1996 to the creation of Nav Canada. As a not-for-profit, non-share-based corporation (not dissimilar to our airport authorities), Nav Canada is governed by a 15-member board of directors representing the four stakeholder groups that founded Nav Canada (airlines [4 directors], GA sector [1 director], Federal Government [3 directors], and aviation sector unions [2 directors]. These ten directors then elect 4 non-aviation sector independent directors, and the 14 together appoint a President and CEO who becomes the 15th director.

The quasi-privatization of Canada's ATC system raised $1.5B ($1996) for Transport Canada. As a non-profit corporation, all surpluses are reinvested in the ATC system (just as our airports reinvest all of their profits in terminals, runways, etc.).

Without wading into the politics of the President's budget proposal, if you've ever flown through Canadian airspace, let alone into a Canadian airport, you have been in the hands of a privatized ATC system. Canada's ATC system is modern, safe, well-run, and constantly improving through reinvestment and R&D. The not-for-profit corporation model for our airports and ATC system has served Canada well for the last two-plus decades and could serve as a model for potential changes to the US ATC system.

It's worth adding, too, that since 1994, when the Federal Government quasi-privatized Canadian airports, it has ceased to invest in them and the airports themselves are fully responsible for self-funding their growth and modernization. Airlines also don't effectively own terminals and aren't responsible for their upkeep and expansion. There's no equivalent in Canada to the FAA grants for noise buy-outs, runway construction, etc. The Federal Government also extracts almost a billion dollars annually in rent from the airports for the Transport Canada owned property on which they sit.

Furthermore, I'll add that Canada, frequently described with pejorative terms like "Socialist" and "Communist" based on our single-payer health insurance system for primary care, makes frequent use of public-private-partnerships for everything from rapid transit lines to hospitals, dams to community centers, and schools to highways. In British Columbia, it is the law that any Provincially-funded project with a value greater than something pretty modest (I think that it's it the $30m range) must go through Partnerships BC to evaluate the potential for it to be delivered through a Public Private Partnership. Partnerships BC maintains a list of case-studies (http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/projects/) illustrating current and past projects.

Please keep this thread on topic and we do not need another Trump vs. Anti-Trump flamewar in Civil Aviation forum.

Privatising ATC in any way is a slippery slope. The idea is incredibly worrying. you only have to look at the the disaster of privately run prisons to see what could happen. ATC may need reform, but it should never, ever be privatised.

klakzky123 wrote:

I have zero faith in the government's ability to privatize anything correctly anymore. Especially with a president (and other white house and congressional officials) with all kinds of business ties. I don't see how we can privatize something while maximizing public interest. There are countries that have privatized postal delivery, ATC, etc.. but the US seems incapable of doing this in a manner that ensures that is fair and avoids special interests corrupting the process.

Yes look what happened to FSS.

You also have to look at the Controller Retirement Process which is different than the Federal Government Retirement. If you privatize ATC you get into a slippery slope where some controllers may not have or may be close to having all their requirements for a controller retirement. Those controllers after paying into the system for years will get screwed out of their pensions. Then you would also be looking at an age discrimination lawsuit filed against the FAA just like the one the one that Flight Service Specialist's filed that still isn't settled in the courts yet.

Poor Delta. Went out of its way to try to appear accommodating of the new administration (even put "make aviation great" into a press release) and in return it got blamed for the travel ban chaos and now gets an ATC privatization proposal.

What's sad and being missed by many is that the ATC system itself isn't broken. It has run millions (billions?) of operations 24/7/365 with the same primary purpose since its conception.

The truth of the matter is that Washington and corrupt, foolish, f*cked-up politicians use the ATC system as a hostage to push completely unrelated issues/agendas. Those dumb a$$ have no accountability pi$$ing money into the wind that should be used to improve the system for the flying public and all users.

Privatizing the system is going to improve jack. It's only a means of making someone (in Washington) very stinking rich. And when things aren't going well, those people are going to be no where to be found leaving the other politicians pointing fingers and naturally, no answers.

nikeherc wrote:

.......... the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes.........

Please name the taxes and how they are assessed/collected.

Thank you.

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

What's sad and being missed by many is that the ATC system itself isn't broken. It has run millions (billions?) of operations 24/7/365 with the same primary purpose since its conception.

The truth of the matter is that Washington and corrupt, foolish, f*cked-up politicians use the ATC system as a hostage to push completely unrelated issues/agendas. Those dumb a$$ have no accountability pi$$ing money into the wind that should be used to improve the system for the flying public and all users.

Privatizing the system is going to improve jack. It's only a means of making someone (in Washington) very stinking rich. And when things aren't going well, those people are going to be no where to be found leaving the other politicians pointing fingers and naturally, no answers.

Politicians have far more accountability to the public than a private corporation. Go get Boeing to change something vs going to a town hall holding your elected official accountable at the voting booth.

BobPatterson wrote:

nikeherc wrote:

.......... the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes.........

Please name the taxes and how they are assessed/collected.

Thank you.

There is a 7.5% Federal excise tax on tickets, a $5.60 9-1-1 security fee per segment and a segment fee of up to $4.00. There are additional fees on flights to or from Alaska and Hawaii.

The ticket tax supposedly goes to the airways trust fund, but just like social security, it goes into the general fund. There is a significant surplus in the "trust fund" or at least there used to be.

If anyone has better information, I stand to be corrected.

The group I fear that would lose the most out of privatization would be the GA group. The US has an enormous general aviation section and most of this is because of the non-privatization of ATC. Look at other countries that have privatized ATC and the lack of general aviation that they have in their country. EU and Chinese Airlines send their students to train here in the US mainly because of the favorable GA environment.

This is not to say that a privatized ATC program would be a disaster, however. I could see it working only if they keep the fees off of the general aviation sector. Increasing the fees I feel would lead to a decrease in general aviation traffic, higher costs for instruction (to compensate user fees should they be applied), and an overall decrease in the production of pilots in the United States. Which considering the number of retirements that are coming over the next few years, would be a recipe for a really interesting situation.

If it ain't broke don't fix it...

nikeherc wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

nikeherc wrote:

.......... the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes.........

Please name the taxes and how they are assessed/collected.

Thank you.

There is a 7.5% Federal excise tax on tickets, a $5.60 9-1-1 security fee per segment and a segment fee of up to $4.00. There are additional fees on flights to or from Alaska and Hawaii.

The ticket tax supposedly goes to the airways trust fund, but just like social security, it goes into the general fund. There is a significant surplus in the "trust fund" or at least there used to be.

If anyone has better information, I stand to be corrected.

Fine. Thanks for breaking those items down.

But it seems to me that all those taxes and fees are paid by travelers and are not charges imposed on airlines or "the industry." Maybe I'm wrong.

Whether or not the moneys collected go into dedicated funds, there's government accounting for you.

I know that we impose ATC fees on airlines passing over the USA but not landing here. I would presume that it was intended to use those revenues to actually pay for Air Traffic Control. But in recent years at least some of those funds were used to pay for the Essential Air Service program so that it didn't look like all the subsidies were coming out of "our" pockets.

Of course, the customers of any business pay the taxes levied upon those businesses. That not withstanding, the cost for such services includes the taxes and, therefore, the taxes impact demand for the services or products. The travelling public has paid many millions of dollars into the airways improvement trust fund. What they have gotten is an outdated ATC system and airports that in many cases have problems handling the number of flights that they should receive. There are new technological approaches that would alleviate many of these problems. The FAA has been ineffective in implementing changes. In countries where privatization has occurred, there have been technological advances that would be an improvement here. Draw your own conclusions.

SWALUV wrote:

The group I fear that would lose the most out of privatization would be the GA group. The US has an enormous general aviation section and most of this is because of the non-privatization of ATC. Look at other countries that have privatized ATC and the lack of general aviation that they have in their country. EU and Chinese Airlines send their students to train here in the US mainly because of the favorable GA environment.

While I think this is an incredibly stupid idea (which explains why Republicans came up with it) too, I'm not sure that that's got a whole lot to do with it. For example, the US has five times the population of France but 17 times the land area. The US has over twice the land area as all EU member states put together but just under 2/3 the population. I wonder how disastrously crowded European air space would be if general aviation was proportionally as popular there as it is in the US.

The GA sector in the US is not developed thanks to public ATC. It's developed because gas is cheap, the country is big, and many people can afford flying. Not the case in most of the rest of the world.

nikeherc wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

nikeherc wrote:

.......... the government has taken a great deal of money from the aviation industry in general and the airlines specifically in the form of taxes.........

Please name the taxes and how they are assessed/collected.

Thank you.

There is a 7.5% Federal excise tax on tickets, a $5.60 9-1-1 security fee per segment and a segment fee of up to $4.00. There are additional fees on flights to or from Alaska and Hawaii.

The ticket tax supposedly goes to the airways trust fund, but just like social security, it goes into the general fund. There is a significant surplus in the "trust fund" or at least there used to be.

If anyone has better information, I stand to be corrected.

If the fund works like Social Security, it does not go directly into the general fund. Whenever Social Security runs at a surplus, it purchases bonds from the Treasury which go into the Social Security Trust Fund. The cash can then be used by the government, but the fund holds the bonds which can be redeemed at any time.

Based on the FAA's website right now, the fund is worth ~$14.7b, just slightly more than projected tax revenues.

b747400erf wrote:

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

What's sad and being missed by many is that the ATC system itself isn't broken. It has run millions (billions?) of operations 24/7/365 with the same primary purpose since its conception.

The truth of the matter is that Washington and corrupt, foolish, f*cked-up politicians use the ATC system as a hostage to push completely unrelated issues/agendas. Those dumb a$$ have no accountability pi$$ing money into the wind that should be used to improve the system for the flying public and all users.

Privatizing the system is going to improve jack. It's only a means of making someone (in Washington) very stinking rich. And when things aren't going well, those people are going to be no where to be found leaving the other politicians pointing fingers and naturally, no answers.

Politicians have far more accountability to the public than a private corporation. Go get Boeing to change something vs going to a town hall holding your elected official accountable at the voting booth.

Oh I vote. Private corporations have their customers interest in mind. If their customers want change, change should be made. In this case (and in theory), politicians should have the public's best interest in mind. Politicians aren't doing their job because again, ATC isn't the problem, it's the budge they control not being spent appropriately. Additionally, one of them inevitably always attach items to an aviation bill unrelated to aviation/ATC which others don't like so the bill fails & your back to square one with no progress.

-Remember, if ATC does go private and user fees are implemented, the airlines are just going to pass the cost to its customers (passengers). Look, as others have said, technically speaking, right now we do pay users fees...it's in the form of taxes. Whether GA pays gas tax or taxes on a ticket. But the taxes that are collected are just funneled to other "buckets" unrelated to aviation. Again, poor politics. This has nothing to do with money, just poor leadership.

And I will tell you right now. Most of those people in higher FAA leadership roles right now don't give a sh*t about ATC or aviation. They are just trying to move up their political roles are make friends with contractors to get cushy, high six figure jobs in the corporate world. It happens all the time, just ask SWA and Randy Babbitt.

-Nobody is arguing that the GA sector is/was "developed" by a public ATC system. But nobody can argue that if you add another expense onto any sport, hobby, recreation, etc., it will only reduce the amount of users. Look at the fiasco created by baggage fees.

-Another major issue NOT related to ATC is our out dated airports. Airplanes need space to take off and land and that isn't going to change. It doesn't matter how close you can get them en-route when you still need a four (or tight three) mile hole between arrivals to get a departure out. And that three/four miles only increases with low weather or when departure &/or missed approach paths will cross. Airport lay outs and size need to be addressed.

-My last point. Who is a "user"? Is it a pilot of the Cessna? A passenger? The injured person being medevaced to a hospital? The community whose police and fire use aircraft to stop crime and control wild land fires? The person sitting on their sofa waiting for their over night Amazon package?

How about we focus on more pavement and better facilities that need it to " improve efficiency" privatizing ATC is not going to help you get in and out of the big 3 NY or PHL etc there just isn't enough pavement. Work on the infrastructure a bit to help cut delays.

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

Oh I vote. Private corporations have their customers interest in mind. If their customers want change, change should be made. In this case (and in theory), politicians should have the public's best interest in mind. Politicians aren't doing their job because again, ATC isn't the problem, it's the budge they control not being spent appropriately. Additionally, one of them inevitably always attach items to an aviation bill unrelated to aviation/ATC which others don't like so the bill fails & your back to square one with no progress.

Corporations have their bottom line in mind, if they can get away with screwing over customers especially if you have few choices to fly other airlines from smaller cities, and it benefits their stock holders, you are the one to get screwed. This idealistic idea of greed being good is not helping. Your budget not being spent appropriately claim needs some large CITATION NEEDED but like the other debate I see with EAS, people only know the usual "government bad/corrupt" talking point and cannot explain or back up their feelings.

b747400erf wrote:

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

Oh I vote. Private corporations have their customers interest in mind. If their customers want change, change should be made. In this case (and in theory), politicians should have the public's best interest in mind. Politicians aren't doing their job because again, ATC isn't the problem, it's the budge they control not being spent appropriately. Additionally, one of them inevitably always attach items to an aviation bill unrelated to aviation/ATC which others don't like so the bill fails & your back to square one with no progress.

Corporations have their bottom line in mind, if they can get away with screwing over customers especially if you have few choices to fly other airlines from smaller cities, and it benefits their stock holders, you are the one to get screwed. This idealistic idea of greed being good is not helping. Your budget not being spent appropriately claim needs some large CITATION NEEDED but like the other debate I see with EAS, people only know the usual "government bad/corrupt" talking point and cannot explain or back up their feelings.

Go to your nearest FAA facility and ask Controllers at that facility to point out all the ways the FAA has wasted money. You'll be amused at best and your request for "large citation needed" will have you cringing with anger and disgust.

This is shameful. We do not need a for profit ATC system. We can not count on this guy for anything, First amtrak, then the EAS, Now the ATC branch of the FAA

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

b747400erf wrote:

HVN2HEL2LAX wrote:

Oh I vote. Private corporations have their customers interest in mind. If their customers want change, change should be made. In this case (and in theory), politicians should have the public's best interest in mind. Politicians aren't doing their job because again, ATC isn't the problem, it's the budge they control not being spent appropriately. Additionally, one of them inevitably always attach items to an aviation bill unrelated to aviation/ATC which others don't like so the bill fails & your back to square one with no progress.

Corporations have their bottom line in mind, if they can get away with screwing over customers especially if you have few choices to fly other airlines from smaller cities, and it benefits their stock holders, you are the one to get screwed. This idealistic idea of greed being good is not helping. Your budget not being spent appropriately claim needs some large CITATION NEEDED but like the other debate I see with EAS, people only know the usual "government bad/corrupt" talking point and cannot explain or back up their feelings.

Go to your nearest FAA facility and ask Controllers at that facility to point out all the ways the FAA has wasted money. You'll be amused at best and your request for "large citation needed" will have you cringing with anger and disgust.

Not know what a CITATION is? Because that is not one. Do try once more.

Go to your nearest corporation and ask a worker if there is waste. What point does that prove?

As long as it is run as a not for profit organization and no taxes or surcharges get added to ticket prices to line the pockets of some investor group. I see this as nothing more than a money grab. We need to remember that the reason the TSA exists is because airport security run by the private sector was ineffective at stopping the terrorist threat by paying cheap untrained labor so what makes anyone think that if the ATC is privatized that the same measures will be taken to cut costs if it becomes a business for profit aganization.

I could support a system similar to Canada where a quasi-governmental industry group not for profit corporation with no stock holders, with a board made up from ATC, Airlines, and GA Groups was put in charge; and had the ability to determine their own user fee structure. That could work, and work very well if done right.

A private for profit company with stock holders would almost certainly not work as they will be driven to focus on short term financial gains over the long term.

Have a great day,