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Since I wrote to you last we’ve had two hearings of significance held by the House Aviation Subcommittee of Transportation and Infrastructure.
The first dealt with the state of Air Traffic in the FAA, the trust fund, the budget … all those nasty things that serve as an invitation for grandstanding by those who revel in bad news and realize good news won’t get them in the newspaper. And there was plenty of that. The transportation Inspector General, Ken Meade, made his usual dire proclamations while glossing over the progress that has been made. Representatives from the Administrator, various user groups, PASS and NATCA’s own John Carr were among the witnesses. John proffered excellent testimony on the real state of the trust fund, controller hiring, reduction in services, equipment deployment and modernization ... the list goes on. Copies of his prepared remarks can be found on natca.net.
The next hearing revolved around if it were a good idea to privatize our air traffic system and/or if we should go to a user fee system. We were not invited to this propaganda boondoggle although representatives from NavCanada and DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung (German ATC) were there to talk about just how great their ATC systems were and that we should let them help us with selling off ours. They stated that a little more diplomatically, but apparently you could damn near hear the fat cats drooling in the aisles while fantasizing about some sweet payola ventures coming their way at the expense of the largest and safest air traffic control system in the world.. Alas it didn’t go as well as many might have hoped when copies of a NATCA ad in Roll Call were held up on several occasions, much of the pro-privatization testimony was turned into an apples and oranges comparison of the US system to others and it was just generally not a good day for the sell-it-off-if-somebody-can-make-a-buck-off-of-it crowd. While this won’t be the end of the privatization parade by any means, overall it was mostly a good day for us.
An interesting fact came out of this hearing as well. Of the combined traffic of the top five Air Traffic operations (the US and the next four largest, who by the way are all privatized in one way or another) the US works 92% of the total traffic. Now think about that for a second … 92%. It makes you wonder how they have the gall to even suggest a legitimate comparison. Also of interest; the Committee Chairman. and driving force behind the subject of these hearings, John Mica, will once again be a guest speaker at NATCA in Washington. We hope to get all of the chairs of relevant committees and it should prove interesting.
Unfortunately I couldn’t attach a copy of the absolutely wonderful ad that the union ran in Roll Call and was used by numerous congressmen with great effect in these hearings. Kudos to the communications department and others at the national office who put that ad together on essentially no notice.
Aviation Trust Fund
The Weekly of Business Aviation: NATCA CHIEF REITERATES SKEPTICISM ABOUT CLAIMS OF DECLINING FUND BALANCES, April 18, 2005 Carr also reiterated NATCA's skepticism over claims of declining trust fund balances (BA, April 11/164), saying, "Some will attempt to cloud the issue by talking about trust fund balances that may decline as a result of certain policy choices or framing the issue as revenue per flight." But Carr disputed the long-held view by many Washington officials that each flight adds to the cost of the system. "The costs of providing air traffic control do not fluctuate on a per flight basis," he said, adding that ATC costs remain constant until traffic has become so congested that more personnel are needed. "If we are to discuss changes to the tax structure or how that revenue is distributed, it is essential that we consider the substantive data and not the rhetoric that continues to distract from a legitimate policy discussion," he said. See article below.
User Fees
The Weekly of Business Aviation, NATCA CONCERNED ABOUT "RUSH" TO CHANGE FAA FUNDING SYSTEM, April 18, 2005 National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has "grave concerns" about the "rush" to change FAA's current funding system to a user-fee system, John Carr, president of the controllers' union, told the House aviation subcommittee last week. "It is no secret that some believe user fees would remove the congressional oversight committees and elected officials from the decision-making process," Carr said. "We believe that the safety of our skies is a sacred public trust and it is the role of our elected officials to protect that trust."
Aviation Daily: U.S. Only Slightly Behind EU In ATC Plans, Dillingham Says The U.S. is generally not lagging behind other nations in air traffic control modernization, although Europe has a marginal edge in its long-range modernization planning, the Government Accountability Office's chief FAA expert said yesterday. The European Union nations are "inches farther along than we are" in creating a combined plan for a future ATC system, GAO's Director of Infrastructure Issues Gerald Dillingham told The DAILY after he testified at a House aviation subcommittee oversight hearing. The hearing was aimed at comparing FAA to privatized ATC systems in other countries, and subcommittee Chair John Mica (R-Fla.) said he is concerned that other nations are moving faster in their ATC modernization and reform efforts. Dillingham said both the EU and the U.S. are in the "planning and definition stages" for a future ATC system. The Europeans have "earmarked more money for the planning effort and [have a] shorter timeframe for completion," he said. Europe is "ahead right now, but it is not clear that they will remain ahead." GAO has launched a more in-depth study comparing FAA planning efforts with those overseas, and it will probably be released within nine months, Dillingham said. Regarding the existing system, "I wouldn't say [other nations' ATC] technology is ahead of ours in a general sense," said Dillingham. He said there are a few isolated areas where other nations are ahead, particularly in oceanic ATC improvement and controller-pilot data link, while in other areas FAA is ahead. Subcommittee Ranking Member Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) stressed repeatedly that comparing FAA to privatized systems is irrelevant because it is like "comparing apples and oranges." Mica also said comparisons are difficult because the U.S. system is many times larger than any other national ATC system, although he believes there are some efficiency lessons for FAA in privatized systems. Dillingham agreed there are some concepts and business practices that "are in fact applicable" to FAA. Dillingham told lawmakers that it appears that FAA's new Air Traffic Organization seems to be "turning around the modernization program," and some of the business practices from the privatized systems are being put in place in the U.S. He said these recent efforts "need to play themselves out a bit more" before a judgment can be made about exactly which practices should be incorporated from overseas. Dillingham released details of an extensive study GAO is conducting on the privatized or semi-privatized ATC organizations in New Zealand, Germany, the U.K., Canada, and Australia. All these organizations cited efficiency gains and cost controls that did not affect safety or modernization. Lawmakers were particularly curious about how the other systems are funded, and how they were affected by revenue declines that FAA also faced beginning in 2001. Dillingham said most of the privatized systems established a "rainy day" fund to mitigate revenue fluctuations, but these were mostly inadequate to cover the massive revenue drop caused by the airline industry downturn after 2001.
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