And believe it or not, his proposal isn't half bad.
By Christian Britschgi
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/05/trump-proposes-major-overhaul-of-outdatePresident Trump, in a
speech Monday, promised to replace the current government-owned and operated air traffic
control system with a private "self-financing, non-profit organization" relying on user fees, not taxes, to fund itself.
The idea is not new. Canada, the U.K. and Germany are among the roughly 50 countries that privatized air traffic control.
It has been a long-fought goal of libertarians like Bob Poole, senior transportation analyst for the Reason Foundation (the
non-profit that publishes this website). Poole has argued since the 1970's the "high-tech 24/7 service business" that is air
traffic control "is a poor fit for a tax-funded bureaucracy housed within a safety regulatory agency."
Poole proposed what Trump is now embracing, dumping the Federal Aviation Administration-run system with a non-profit
air traffic control entity less bureaucratic, more cost-effective, and ultimately more responsive to consumer needs.
As a 2016 Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report found, the FAA has done a pretty terrible job managing and modern-
izing a system upon which some two million air travelers every day rely.
Despite repeated attempts by Congress to reform the FAA's management, personnel, and organizational practices, its "costs
continue to rise while operational productivity has declined," the report concluded . . .
. . . Given the FAA's performance—considered poor by even the government's standard—and the success of alternative models
worldwide, one would think this kind of reform plan would be an easy sell.
Reform is not a sure thing.
Rep. Bill Shuster (R–Penn.), head of the House Transportation Committee, last year introduced a bill very similar to Trump's
proposal. The bill failed to make it to the floor of the Republican-controlled House for a vote.
But with the president's endorsement, the support of former FAA administrators, the Airline Pilots Association International and,
potentially, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association on board, the long fought for goal of air traffic control privatization
might just get off the ground.
