A monolithic private institution doesn't inspire confidence in me any more than a monolithic public one. I don't see the purpose in switching one for the other, and would probably rather see it run by the government.<p>If it was replacing the current system with one where you had 12 different companies competing with one another, maybe so but I don't really see the benefit in what I'm reading. But I don't feel strongly about it.<p>What worries me the most about this in some ways is how it seems to be focused on the large airlines and not on passengers and private pilots. This is the current trend that disturbs me the most about Trump and the GOP: they seem pretty blatantly to be representing large corporations and their own party rather than the public at large. The assumption seems to be that what benefits the fat cats is what benefits everyone.<p>I'm not anti-large-corporation per se, but a big part of the reason for democracy is to protect the average person.<p>I don't really see any arguments here other than "it makes the airlines happy." As if they needed more latitude.
Doesn't a lot of the expense of government run programs come from the retirement benefits? The government assumes the risk (pension) instead of the employee (401K).<p>As an aside, according to a controller I know, a lot of FAA employees are retiring soon and at about the same time. A large cohort of controllers were hired about the same time to replace the fired striking PATCO [1] controllers in the early 80's.<p>[1] PATCO Professional Air Traffic Controllers
> Donald Trump on Monday unveiled his proposal to hand over control of the U.S. air-traffic control system to a non-profit corporation, calling the current system an antiquated mess that doesn’t work and wastes money.<p>Did someone point out to this idiot that we are having a string of years where there are no deaths in domestic commercial travel. Whatever is happening in the US Traffic System appears to be working really well.<p>I also think that president holds a person vendetta against the FAA because it told him he could not land his plane somewhere or an air traffic controller delayed him by a couple of minutes.
While I would have liked to find a source other than the Cato institute for it (<a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-pursues-air-traffic-control-reform" rel="nofollow">https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-pursues-air-traffic-control-...</a>):<p><i>The airlines are for it, the key labor union is for it, aviation experts are for it, and the second-largest nation on earth did it. Canada privatized its system in 1996, and today the nonprofit Nav Canada is on the leading edge of ATC efficiency and innovation.</i>
There are already ATC towers that are operated by private companies, so in a way, this is just accelerating the existing trend.<p>That said, if it ain't broke, why bother trying to "fix" it? US air is the safest in the world, it's rules are literally written in blood. This is one area, where I'd like to see less, not more, privatization.<p>Safety, and not profit (or cost-reduction), should be the driving incentive for something so critical, and so fault-sensitive.
I caught a snippet of his comments, complaining about managing "thousands of flights" using "slips of paper".<p>It's been a few years, but I recall reading at least one article wherein was described how those slips of paper actually made a lot of sense. (It may have been one of the articles that made the rounds, describing the surprising endurance and resilience of paper-based work.)<p>The slips of paper supported both regular and immediate, ad hoc workflows as they were needed. Also, paper is immune to systems failures. Your electronic board goes down -- you still have all your flights at hand. Start spacing them and shoving incoming traffic into wider holding patterns.