User Fee post from FLYING

[oldShar]

Congressmen: Privatized ATC Won’t Include GA User Fees

Reps. Sam Graves and Todd Rokita say legislation calling for creation of a privatized ATC system won’t levy per-flight user fees on GA.

By Stephen Pope Posted 2 hours ago

ATC


Congressmen: Privatized ATC Won’t Include GA User Fees



Two influential congressmen and staunch supporters of general aviation have come out publicly to allay fears that a move to a non-profit, privatized ATC system would harm general aviation. Their promise? User fees for GA are off the table.

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Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Todd Rokita (R-In.), both active general aviation pilots, penned an editorial in The Hill to assure GA interests that draft legislation that would transition ATC out of the hands of the FAA and into a privatized corporate board won’t negatively impact general aviation.
“We have stood front and center in the fight against per-flight user fees on general aviation,” the congressmen wrote. “That position remains unchanged, and we would not even entertain this transition discussion if we found out it would harm the general aviation community.”
More than a dozen general aviation groups recently sent a letter to Congress calling for the release of the draft legislation, which is said to contain provisions for user fees. The congressmen say the rumors aren’t true and that GA pilots can rest easy.
“Ultimately, we want to ensure that these aviators reap the benefits of a modern, efficient air traffic control system,” they wrote. “It is true that our nation’s airspace is complex, and also that our general aviation presence is the largest in the world. But that does not preclude us from designing an Air Traffic Control Organization that is superior to any system in existence today,”
Graves and Rokita criticized the FAA for failing to meet NextGen deadlines, cost targets and promised benefits. “The status quo is not working,” they wrote, “and with each blunder by the FAA it becomes more apparent that the agency is simply not capable of implementing NextGen on its own.”
To critics who say privatized ATC like the systems that have been tried in Canada, the UK and elsewhere won’t work here because of the size and complexity of the U.S. airspace system, the congressmen urged GA interests to trust American ingenuity to get the job done.
“We must adopt our own way that meets the unique needs of our system and its users while continuing to operate the safest air traffic control system in the world,” Graves and Rokita wrote. “The United States led the world in aviation in the 20th century, forever changing the course of human history. Remembering that proud tradition gives us the confidence and resolve to overcome the challenges ahead. To pursue these aggressive reforms would set America on a path to continuing its global leadership in aviation for the next century. To fail would be to fall behind and allow other nations to lead. The bottom line is this: the status quo is not working, and the opportunity to reform it is one we simply cannot lose."

 

[rachelk.tailwinds]

Love it. I stand behind the move towards privatization 100%.

 

[Datadriver]

This sounds a lot like "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor"

 

[petrolero]

"Thank you for calling Lockheed Martin ATC"

If it's just given to a government contractor it will be the same **** in a different box. Incremental improvements, incremental cost reductions, nothing more. Honestly LockMart has done a good job with FSS and I don't see any reason they couldn't do the same with ATC.

But it'll be private about the same way the Civil Air Patrol is private.

And user fees may not be included this time, but once they have all the capability in place (roughly by 2020!), they'll slip it into some random bill. No one will give a **** except a few thousand pilots distributed across the entire country. We're a majority nowhere. AOPA will jump up and down and wave its arms but no one will notice.

 

[OkieAviator]

Not sure if people realize it but the training of ATC is privatized as well, currently held by SAIC. Having a vendor partner provide the ATC service really wouldn't be much different than it is now as Petroleo stated. Anything vastly different would first have to be proposed by the FAA and put into the form of an RFP/PWS and bid out.

 

[MAKG1]

Love it. I stand behind the move towards privatization 100%.

Might want to study what that means.

If you're behind "privatization" for making things better and costing less, you don't understand it.

There is no possible way privatization can improve ATC. All it does is add an additional layer of bureaucracy mediated by the COTR, and remove all accountability to the public. The BEST thing that happens is nothing. The contractor will miss deadlines just like the FAA did, for exactly the same reasons. And it will cost more because now there is a 70% or higher overhead added to everything.

Some examples of "privatized" government services are:

US Postal Service
Amtrak
Fannie Mae
Federal Reserve
National park concessions

What it isn't like is a private business. Not even close.

100%? You want the FAA to be like Amtrak? Be careful what you wish for.

 

[James331]

This sounds a lot like "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor"

That.


Our aviation system is NOT broken, let's not go "fixing" it until it is. This is the one good thing we can say we hands down kick the worlds azz in, it would be nice if we could keep the one thing in this country which honestly just works.

 

[OkieAviator]

There is no possible way privatization can improve ATC. All it does is add an additional layer of bureaucracy mediated by the COTR, and remove all accountability to the public. The BEST thing that happens is nothing. The contractor will miss deadlines just like the FAA did, for exactly the same reasons. And it will cost more because now there is a 70% or higher overhead added to everything.

That's not how this industry works. The COTR is a just a liaison representative between the KO (Contracting Office) and the vendor. It's an administrative function, if there are issues with execution, invoicing or otherwise it gets worked with the KO, customer and vendor.

You're not actually incurring additional costs but rather saving money especially to overhead and wraps. I don't know what the current numbers are but at one point one of my customers had a wrap rate of over 2.25 for their government employees. That means for every $1 they paid their employees they paid another $1.25 towards benefits, G&A and any other overhead. Without going into the details of our wraps... just say it was much lower.

On top of that it allows the customer the flexibility to right size the staff through out the execution of the contract. So maybe they need 100 Full time employees (FTEs) one year, 50 the next... 75 the next. As a contractor we can provide that shifting staff among projects. The government would sit and do work the work with 100 people because they can't get rid of them as easily.

So the idea that you're going to have 70% additional overhead is just completely incorrect... and in terms of accountability... there is none on the government side.

 

[rachelk.tailwinds]

This sounds a lot like "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor"

Except completely the opposite. That was a phrase used to compel people to feel more comfortable about the government taking over the used-to-be private insurance industry.

Might want to study what that means.

If you're behind "privatization" for making things better and costing less, you don't understand it.

There is no possible way privatization can improve ATC. All it does is add an additional layer of bureaucracy mediated by the COTR, and remove all accountability to the public. The BEST thing that happens is nothing. The contractor will miss deadlines just like the FAA did, for exactly the same reasons. And it will cost more because now there is a 70% or higher overhead added to everything.

Some examples of "privatized" government services are:

US Postal Service
Amtrak
Fannie Mae
Federal Reserve
National park concessions

What it isn't like is a private business. Not even close.

100%? You want the FAA to be like Amtrak? Be careful what you wish for.

There is a difference between privatized and government-funded/government contracted. In a free market, consumers are able to be choosy about where they give their business, which is what drives competition. Take Walmart and Target for an example of this.

None of the examples you have here are truly private. The reason why these organizations are so inefficient is because they have very little need to compete because they are still government-owned/funded.

When I say I like privitazation, I mean it in the purest form of the word. The way I wish it could all work is that there are multiple ATC suppliers where only one can exist at an airport at a time. The owner/board of an airport would then get to choose which one they would like to contract and how they want that contract to be binding. Now these ATC companies have to win the bid somehow and all of a sudden we have competition.

Remember that story about the company in Texas which provided airport security in lieu of the TSA? When the two went head-to-head, the Texas group won in a competition over which was more effective and it was proven that the Texas group operated at a lower cost than the TSA. I wish I could find that story now...

Anyway, I'll leave it at that, I am often misunderstood here on topics like this. Ya'll think I'm some kind of crazed fascist when I really just believe in freedom.

 

[kgruber]

Congressmen: Privatized ATC Won’t Include GA User Fees

Not yet....

 

[Bob Noel]

The naivete of some people is simply stunning.

 

[James331]

Probably a good place to repost the "F' off with your user fees" link.

https://www.nbaa.org/advocacy/contact/?ISSUE=nbaa0086

 

[bradg33]

Camel's nose under the tent. Once one segment of aviation starts paying user fees, it's only a matter of time before we all do.

 

[Velocity173]

Privatization won't fix this problem.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/watchdog-air-traffic-controllers-needed-36529075

It won't get NEXGEN going any faster either. If they do privatize, they'll take the credit for NEXGEN after the FAA has already done most of the leg work for it. Everyone gives credit for LM taking over FSS when they didn't do anything but fall in on existing systems that the FAA had in place already. I knew people who went from FAA one day to LM the next. Got a raise too!

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

And, PBOR II was going to provide a means to fly small GA aircraft without getting a medical.

 

[frfly172]

Do you really believe that once privatized,that GA won't be brought into the system,with user fees?

 

[falconkidding]

I don't care at all for the FAA but how does privatizing atc benefit anyone...I don't think i've ever had a complaint about service or their capability.

Also Lulz at anyone who thinks userfees would stay away...

 

[MAKG1]

When I say I like privitazation, I mean it in the purest form of the word.

Yes, that's clear.

What you aren't getting is that that isn't what "privatization" means in this context. There will not be any competition on a regular basis. You will either have FAA "contractors" doing exactly the same thing the FAA does now at additional cost (since they now have to be supervised by a civil servant), or you will have the equivalent of the cable company. The former is more likely.

 

[James331]

....and just to reiterate, we're "fixing" something that's NOT broken.

 

[MAKG1]

That's not how this industry works. The COTR is a just a liaison representative between the KO (Contracting Office) and the vendor. It's an administrative function, if there are issues with execution, invoicing or otherwise it gets worked with the KO, customer and vendor.

You're not actually incurring additional costs but rather saving money especially to overhead and wraps. I don't know what the current numbers are but at one point one of my customers had a wrap rate of over 2.25 for their government employees. That means for every $1 they paid their employees they paid another $1.25 towards benefits, G&A and any other overhead. Without going into the details of our wraps... just say it was much lower.

On top of that it allows the customer the flexibility to right size the staff through out the execution of the contract. So maybe they need 100 Full time employees (FTEs) one year, 50 the next... 75 the next. As a contractor we can provide that shifting staff among projects. The government would sit and do work the work with 100 people because they can't get rid of them as easily.

So the idea that you're going to have 70% additional overhead is just completely incorrect... and in terms of accountability... there is none on the government side.

OK, I'll bite.

Excluding the AFSS consolidation, how much did LockMart save the government when FSS was privatized?

 

[OkieAviator]

OK, I'll bite.

Excluding the AFSS consolidation, how much did LockMart save the government when FSS was privatized?

If you really wanted to find out you could FOIA the Lockheed contract to get the value and yearly spent amounts. Then you could compare that to some metric of the previous years when it was government driven. The government amounts are usually presented to congress so you'll have to search through quite a bit of information to find those numbers.

As with anything there will be two sides, you'll have contracts that make sense and save tax dollars and you'll have the ones that don't and become extremely bloated tasks that the government continue to throw money at. It's up to the government to come up with solid performance based requirements... if they can't do that then there's a chance they're not sure what they want in the first place.

 

[Lindberg]

None of the examples you have here are truly private. The reason why these organizations are so inefficient is because they have very little need to compete because they are still government-owned/funded.

When I say I like privitazation, I mean it in the purest form of the word. The way I wish it could all work is that there are multiple ATC suppliers where only one can exist at an airport at a time. The owner/board of an airport would then get to choose which one they would like to contract and how they want that contract to be binding. Now these ATC companies have to win the bid somehow and all of a sudden we have competition.

Remember that story about the company in Texas which provided airport security in lieu of the TSA? When the two went head-to-head, the Texas group won in a competition over which was more effective and it was proven that the Texas group operated at a lower cost than the TSA. I wish I could find that story now...

Anyway, I'll leave it at that, I am often misunderstood here on topics like this. Ya'll think I'm some kind of crazed fascist when I really just believe in freedom.

I'm as much a free-marketeer as they come. But even Milton Friedman believed in public goods. Viewing the pilots and flying public as the consumers, the ATC system in general is not only non-rivalrous and non-excludable, but you couldn't make it exclusive without seriously impacting safety (unlike say, tollroads, which are exclusive for those who pay while only inconveniencing the rest). You seem to view the airports as the consumers, and that may be valid for the provision of tower services, but not the rest of ATC. And we already have private towers all over the country.

 

[JoseCuervo]

When I say I like privitazation, I mean it in the purest form of the word. The way I wish it could all work is that there are multiple ATC suppliers where only one can exist at an airport at a time. The owner/board of an airport would then get to choose which one they would like to contract and how they want that contract to be binding. Now these ATC companies have to win the bid somehow and all of a sudden we have competition.

There would be nothing more INEFFICIENT than 300-400 local cities/owners/boards trying to put out bids to ATC contracors.

Talk about a system that would be corrupt and expensive.

I am guessing you have never submitted bids to a local government agency. Those are licenses to print money by the contractor. And the local board is completely unaware of what they are asking for.

 

[OkieAviator]

There would be nothing more INEFFICIENT than 300-400 local cities/owners/boards trying to put out bids to ATC contracors.

Talk about a system that would be corrupt and expensive.

I am guessing you have never submitted bids to a local government agency. Those are licenses to print money by the contractor. And the local board is completely unaware of what they are asking for.

If this came to fruition then it would be a federal bid under DoT and not individual cities/counties. Would actually probably be it's own IDIQ since there would be a lot of uncertainty about what they want/need and would have to phase it in through various task orders.

Please direct me to some contracts where I can print money. Would like to bid on a few of those!

 

[wilkersk]

I don't think we can afford to play Obama-Care with our ATC system at this point in time. I'm very suspicious of anyone who thinks they can solve all problems with any generations old bureaucratic system with one swell poop!

Besides, we have so much invested in "Next-Gen" ATC, why would we re-invent the wheel at this point? Baby steps people, baby steps! After all Rome wasn't built in a day, so they tell me.....

 

[Bobcat1]

Privatization is NEEDED! That way the airlines and the military will end up owning the ATC infrastructure and drive all of you rich little puddly jumper hobby pilots out of the skies.

It's safer that way. Do it for the children.

(Sarcasm font off now for those who didn't get it!)