The Senate Commerce Committee held a fascinating hearing on Wednesday regarding air traffic control (ATC). The hearing showcased the momentum to proceed with ATC restructuring. Because aviation is crucial to the economy, such a reform would create wide-ranging benefits.
At this point, industry experts are ahead of Congress in thinking about ATC reform. At the hearing, some of the senators seemed short-sighted and parochial. They had not done their homework and they nit-picked instead of considering the big-picture benefits.
However, the witness testimony was powerful and so it hopefully helped sway the skeptics. America’s ATC needs a big upgrade to meet rising passenger demand. Airspace is getting crowded and our antiquated ATC is causing delays and wasting fuel. Other countries have improved performance by separating ATC from their governments. That is the reform that America needs.
The testimonies of former Democratic senator Byron Dorgan (here), Paul Rinaldi of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (here), and Jeff Smisek of United Airlines (here) were impressive. Kudos to them all for embracing change.
Dorgan heads an ATC reform group, and he clearly had done his homework. If he were still a sitting senator, he might be skeptical of ATC changes, but he now favors restructuring. He argued that separating ATC finances from the federal budget is a crucial step to take. His testimony illustrates that when politicians take the time to learn about policy issues in detail, they are more likely to embrace reform.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/air-traffic-control-modernization
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