Six general aviation advocacy associations have issued a joint statement strongly opposing the Trump Administration for including in its government reorganization a failed proposal to privatize the FAA’s air traffic control services.
“There is a large and diverse chorus of opposition to the idea of privatizing our air traffic control system, including congressional leaders from both political parties, more than 100 aviation organizations, over 100 business leaders, 100 U.S. mayors, consumer and agricultural groups, conservative think tanks, and the majority of Americans. Additionally, this concept has been fully considered in the U.S. Congress and rejected despite years of repeated attempts,” said the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), Helicopter Association International (HAI), National Air Transportation Association (NATA) and National Business Aviation Association (NBAA).
“Instead of focusing precious time and resources on what amounts to nothing more than a distraction to the aviation community, the Administration needs to support a long-term FAA bill, like those passed by the House of Representatives and now pending in the Senate. These bills will take practical and significant steps to address many critical issues like aviation safety, modernization, which includes accelerated advancement of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), and needed aircraft certification and regulatory reform. Additionally, the Department of Transportation needs to continue with its commitment to the NextGen Advisory Committee, which fosters collaboration in an open and transparent manner and helps advance air traffic control modernization priorities and investments.
“We are disappointed that the Administration continues to reintroduce a failed proposal. Instead, it should put its weight behind FAA legislation pending in Congress that will advance the aviation industry, including general aviation, which contributes $219 billion to the U.S. economy and creates over one million jobs in the U.S.”
View the complete list of 300 general aviation pilot organizations, state and local aviation officials, airports, manufacturers, labor unions, businesses, management associations and consumer groups that stand united against air traffic control privatization.
More of the same – bad government never improves! I was directly involved in the imposition of the airline ticket tax and the fuel tax on GA. The original bill that passed put all of the funds to airport improvement and construction. We were looking at just months before the 747 was due in service and less than 20 airports were capable of safely handling the monster aircraft.
We under estimated the amount that would be raised, and it took the feds and congress about six months before they began to add uses for the funds. Now airports get less than 15% of what is raised, and look at the billion in airport needs as viewed by the FAA.
I also spent more than 10 years with one of the major carriers, and do not think that the ATA will not push for privatization to get the “little guys” out of their way. Talk to anyone who has flown in other counties in other than an airline (as I have) and there are none who will think privatization is a benefit to any one other than the airlines.. Enough for now. Do NOT give up the fight.
Well said!!!
I agree completely with Erick. “Nuff said…
The above comments all have merit, but giving away the taxpayers ATC system to a select group without transparency can allow manipulation of these resources to benefit only a few …the ones they select to profit from at the expense of others. We MUST have transparency and that cannot happen with privatization. If you listen to the Airplane Geeks podcast; time and time again, guests from other countries who fly under privatization loath their systems due to burdensome regulations and excessive fees. Wake up people, we have a precious resource here in the U.S. that is under attack. Privatization is a draconian solution looking to fix a our ATC system that we ALL know is NOT broken. Lets continue to enjoy our liberty and freedoms that we sometimes take for granted when it comes to flying.
Not so JP. First of all, it’s NOT privatization!!! That’s just a red flag falsely being used by NBAA, AOPA, and EAA. Second ATS is now massively obsolete, exceedingly inefficient, and frequently barring GA airspace access [e.g., by completely inefficient Class B and C, and now the new foolish ADS-B rule]. All of NextGen [PastGen] is now failing and heading straight for a wasted $40B fiasco, just like FAA’s utterly foolish and failing “pseudo-radar” implementation of a basically a good ADS-B concept, otherwise needed only as a 1x10E-3/flt hour system for backup air-air separation coordination. Finally, it is incumbent on GA to now simply advocate for and have the needed GA experienced expertise [NOT just self-serving GA lobby groups] representation on the stand-alone ATS supervisory board. AOPA, NBAA, and EAA are making making a serious mistake by fighting this ATS reformation. We could have a vastly better ATS system, with better GA access, more efficiency, more flexibility, at vastly lower cost, if both NextGen was redesigned and ATS was splitout from being under the influence of the bureaucratic non-aviation oriented FAA, and Congressional meddling and pork.
To ManyDecadesGA – you are dreaming about what a privatised system would look like.
The airlines had half a day of Trump on his day in the Oval Office, and he sent his transportation secretary to Canada to study their system. She then studies Australia’s, another expensive, discriminatory mess that favors airlines over GA.
Enough has been said so I won’t belabor it here, other than to remind all parties that government aircraft (police, fire, FAA, Air Force One, military, and more) all use the system and pay nothing. If government directly contributed the FAA costs would be balanced.
If you take Canada and Australia as examples, their fuel and operation taxes were paid into consolidated revenue and the outgoing was a line item expense. When each country privatised they kept the taxes and fees on all groups, and added ATC fees to it, yes, double taxation. To imagine the US system would be better under privatisation is naive.
Canada’s was a budget ‘adjuster’. The government loaned a billion dollars to the new NavCanada and NavCanada has to pay the money back, so it collects fees from us. The government showed a budget deficit one billion dollars less by doing this shell game. Expect the same here if ATC is privatised.
There is no benefit to GA through privatisation. All that will happen is greater cost. Fuel taxes and ticket taxes will remain, and expect individual passenger fees as a consequence.
In Australia, airports have closed due to infrastructure privatisation. Services diminished, costs rose enormously.
It’s time to recognize that aviation and infrastructure is a necessary service and should continue to be offered, and funded, as it is now.
I love the opposing comments that completely avoid any supporting evidence for their position. The facts remain that ADS-B is poised to make a significant impact in traffic separation and safety for every type of aircraft. Every major FAA introduced change in recent years, such as Basic Med, new equipment certifications, and use of training devices for currency, have helped GA. My experience as a GA pilot flying in all but class A airspace has been nothing but positive thanks to the professionalism of ATC. I don’t know who these nameless naysaying trolls are, but I suspect they’re shills for the big airlines.
Once again. Govt MUST be reduced in size. The debt (do we need to point fingers on this again) requires it. Time to put on big boy pants and start pitching in to get this done. Much of the government today needs to be either eliminated or privatized.
No truth in your comment. The federal debt is the same thing as the private sector surplus, to the penny. Reducing the debt or even eliminating it has never been accomplished by any nation in history, but whenever the U.S. does so, a recession follows as that is contractionary to the economy. As to the claim that the government must get even smaller, the ratio of federal employees to private sector has been shrinking for at least 30 years. Also documented, privatization increases costs to the government. The push to reduce government size has always been a principled argument premised on the notion that government is inherently a bad thing. No valid reason has ever been provided for this. Because Reagan.
The GA opposition to this proposal is completely and utterly unfounded, and is wrong. This ill-advised AOPA, NBAA, and EAA position is going to HURT GA, not help it.
GA (especially low end GA) would fare much better in the long run by not only completely reforming FAA (just think the 2020 ADS-B fiasco, and “basic Med” still having completely unnecessary constraints, as well as the new massively bureaucratic AC61-98C Flight review 8710-1 process…).
It is now long overdue to completely overhaul and split out the present completely obsolete, dysfunctional, airspace denying, and horrendously over-expensive ATS system as a separate entity, to be better managed by real aviation people, not political functionaries, or the present FAA non-aviation oriented “deep state”.
I would agree with you except for the fact that the airlines, with their lobbying money, and Freight Dogs will run things for their benefit, and to the detriment of General Aviation.
,
Be sure that this is about money, not efficiency.
Trump’s administration will do as Canada has done, and will keep the taxes in place but privatize ATC and charge fees for services.
In Australia there is a fee for every step – clearance delivery, ground, departure, en route sectors, approach, tower. You want a practice ILS – $15. Landing fee $20. It adds up.
I remember a Minister of Aviation in Australia making a speech, congratulating himself and his Labor government for not having built more infrastructure (through privatization they actually reduced infrastructure, favoring commercial airlines and pressuring GA) and saving the taxpayers money due to diminished demand. What he didn’t say was that the diminished demand came about due to the brutal fees imposed on GA which put GA in the hands of the very wealthy and government. In Australia, the government wants people to fly on airlines, not privately, since GA is considered to be a bloated fat cat unfair privilege.
How would an ATC change affect BasicMed, which is not an ATC function?
IF a private ATC system had any sway over ADS-B equippage, wouldn’t it be more likely to want it, since it would allow it to cut its costs by supporting fewer radar sites?
There is also a really ugly component of the privatization plan that Tyson Weihs of Foreflight discovered in the last wording of the last proposal: It gives (free of charge) all of ATC’s assets to this private entity. It turns out that includes all navigation data. So that company could charge other companies to use it, which means that the data for your aviation apps, GPS, etc could suddenly cost a bunch, meaning the charges would be passed on to you.
I can’t think of a single positive thing for GA (or most of the flying public) that could come from this $100 billion giveaway of public property.