Americans flying home for Thanksgiving are no doubt relieved the government shutdown ended when it did. Still, the chaos at the nation’s busiest airports in recent weeks due to the lapse in funding at the Federal Aviation Administration made one thing clear: The government needs to get out of the air traffic control business.
This might be a jarring suggestion for those accustomed to thinking of the essential service as a government function. But governments around the world have been spinning off their air traffic control for more than three decades with great success.
New Zealand was the first to do so in 1987, when it redirected fees airlines pay for air traffic control from the government to a government corporation. That provider no longer had to beg for money and hope legislators would meet its needs when deciding between hundreds of budget priorities. The users of their services were paying directly.
Canada went a step further in 1995, creating a private nonprofit to manage the skies. Fully funded by user fees, it doesn’t cost Canadian taxpayers a loonie. And it has been able to successfully modernize its technology much faster than the FAA south of the border.
Reason Foundation’s Robert Poole, who has been indefatigable in arguing for the wisdom of getting the government out of air traffic control, reports that 98 countries have either privatized or corporatized their systems. Corporatization is the much more common choice. Either way, these countries have self-funding providers that can issue bonds for long-term modernization projects, rather than begging for tax revenue.
Currently, U.S. air traffic control is funded through a complicated system of excise taxes, trust funds and general tax revenue. But why should all taxpayers be contributing to this system when many Americans rarely use it? Top-end business travelers might fly dozens of times, but even with air travel at record highs, roughly half of adults in the United States don’t take a single flight in a given year.
A better system would place that burden on users — airlines, private plane owners and the government — who would pay fees directly to a non-government provider. They could then pass those costs to their customers as they see fit. Airline customers shouldn’t see any difference in the prices they pay for tickets. In fact, replacing the current system with straightforward user fees might reduce the system’s overall costs.
The federal government’s procurement and budgeting processes are good for some things, but efficiently modernizing complicated technology is not one of them. The FAA’s plan to modernize air traffic control, called NextGen, has dragged on since 2003. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report found that “past budget uncertainty has delayed the benefits of NextGen, creating a lack of confidence among industry partners.”
A spin-off does not mean the FAA would give up its powers for safety regulation. Lawmakers can ensure it still enforces those rules — without having to manage the world’s most complicated mix of air traffic on the side. The Federal Railroad Administration regulates train safety, but it doesn’t operate every rail signaling system in the country. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates car safety, but it doesn’t operate stoplights. Those modes of transportation would not become safer if those agencies took on those responsibilities.
Spinning off air traffic control is not a silver bullet. There are long-running problems with the recruitment of controllers that won’t be solved overnight. But it would remove many of the problems from this transportation system that is too vital to leave to politics.
Air traffic control should be a safe, boring business run by safe, boring people — not members of Congress or presidential appointees. That is how other developed countries manage it, with years of top-notch safety records to back them up. Their air traffic controllers never have to worry about going unpaid because legislators disagree about health care policy.
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