I see the union lackeys are bombarding the comments at the site. They will all need chiropractors after all the contortions thay are doing.
Sorry, when you are working on the clock, you shouldn’t be sleeping, period.
by Robert W. Poole, Jr.∗ and Chris Edwards June 2010 Overview A Brief History of Federal Funding Privatizing Airports The Crisis in Air Traffic Control Commercializing Air Traffic Control
Overview
The U.S. economy depends on safe, reliable, and affordable air transportation. Beginning in 1978, airline deregulation transformed commercial aviation from a luxury for the few to a service available to essentially all Americans. Air transportation is a hugely important part of the economy for business travel, tourism, and domestic and international trade.
The quality and cost efficiency of air travel relies critically on the nation's aviation infrastructure. That infrastructure includes commercial airports, which are virtually all owned and operated by state and local governments in the United States, and the air traffic control (ATC) system, which is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In fiscal 2011, the FAA budget will be about $16.4 billion.1 Of the total, $9.7 billion will go toward "operations," which includes $7.6 billion for air traffic control operations, $1.3 billion for safety regulation and certification, and $0.8 billion for other functions. In addition, the FAA will spend $3.3 billion in 2011 on capital investments in ATC facilities, equipment, and research. Most of the rest of FAA's budget, about $3.4 billion, will go toward grants to state and local governments for airport investments.
Many experts are predicting major problems with U.S. aviation infrastructure in coming years as large demand growth outstrips the capacity of available facilities. In addition to a rising number of airline passengers, the average size of planes has fallen, which increases the number of planes in the sky that the ATC system needs to handle. On the supply side of the aviation equation, the FAA has long had problems with capital funding, high labor costs, and an inability to efficiently implement new technologies. Major changes are needed because the increased air traffic will soon bump up against the limits of the current air traffic control system.
The United States should embrace the types of reforms adopted around the world to privatize airports and commercialize air traffic control services. Investor-owned airports and commercialized ATC companies can better respond to changing market conditions, and they can freely tap debt and equity markets for capital expansion to meet rising demand. Such enterprises also have greater management flexibility to deal with workforce issues and complex technology implementation.
There is vast foreign experience that can be drawn on in pursuing U.S. reforms, such as European airport privatization and Canadian air traffic control commercialization. The next section provides a brief history of federal involvement in airport funding and air traffic control. The subsequent sections describe the global trend toward airport privatization, the brewing crisis in air traffic control, and ways to reform the ATC system. http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/print/transportation/airports-atc