WSJ: Not enough runways so we must privatize ATC

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iWin
If you think there are more airport delays and cancellations than ever, you're right. The percentage of late flights has doubled since 2002. And as bad as things are now, they're about to get worse. The Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be 36% more people flying by 2015. If the U.S. doesn't dramatically expand the capacity of its overburdened air traffic control system, the airlines won't be able to keep up with demand and ticket prices will skyrocket.

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Some 40 nations, including Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Fiji, have taken their air traffic control systems out of their calcified government bureaucracies and created public-private partnerships or self-supporting public-sector corporations that can move more quickly and nimbly to meet challenges.
...
Since 1996, planes in Canada have been controlled by Nav Canada, an independent user-owned corporation that has unsnarled Canadian airspace. Nav Canada pays for itself through user fees and has thus been able to invest vast sums in new technology while cutting overhead, increasing staffing and raising the salaries of controllers. Airline-related delays have declined and customer service improved.

n the U.S., privatization isn't popular with the turf-protective Congress, but the alternative--building more runways--faces fierce environmental resistance, and even if overcome would take a decade to implement.

http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010612
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So if we just modernize ATC we won't need those silly runways! Right? Wait, what?
 
mikea said:
So if we just modernize ATC we won't need those silly runways! Right? Wait, what?
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Of course you won't. There will be less airplanes in the air, because the user fees will keep the small guys out.

I want to see the tune they sing when the small guys pay up and demand the same priority as airliners.
 
wsuffa said:
Of course you won't. There will be less airplanes in the air, because the user fees will keep the small guys out.

I want to see the tune they sing when the small guys pay up and demand the same priority as airliners.
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Fingers in ears. "Can't hear you! LA! LA! LA!"
 
Y'know, I've heard LOTS of good things about the ATC system in Fiji, so I'm sure we should emulate it.

This piece is so lame it's laughable.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Y'know, I've heard LOTS of good things about the ATC system in Fiji, so I'm sure we should emulate it.

This piece is so lame it's laughable.
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Wait! Didn't he mention the wunnerful ATC is BRASIL! :goofy:

....where they use a variation of Mare Daley's crisis management. In case of crisis find someone (an American) to blame!
 
They do allow you to reply to the opinion piece. Please avail yourself of this feature.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
They do allow you to reply to the opinion piece. Please avail yourself of this feature.
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I did. Interesting to see if it ever gets published. Most of the rebuttals bemoan the potential death of GA. The general public doesn't care about that. What I tried to point out is that improving ATC won't make much difference on airline delays, just as adding a lane of highway doesn't make rush hour disappear.
 
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Wow, that was in the WSJ? Must have come straight from the Airline Transport Assoc's PR department. Scary, because the vast majority of people lack the ability to read that article and assess it fairly. Heck, if it works in Fiji, it must be good for us, right?!!

I can't believe this whole concept of creating a new bureaucracy to administer some byzantine new tax structure makes sense to any sentient being, given the simplicity and efficiency of the current tax structure.
 
WSJ posted a (edited by them) response from me, and every response I read was highly informed and very factual--against Fund's article.

Glad they posted those.

Jim
 
wsuffa said:
I want to see the tune they sing when the small guys pay up and demand the same priority as airliners.
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Their tune will be empty the skies of anything except airliners.
At that point I'll be waiting to see the tune they sing after they are the only ones left and the delays keep getting exponentially worse.
Of course since runways aren't the problem, maybe if they dug up all but one runway at each destination city the delay problems would go away?

IMNSHO, their solution is only slightly less practical than stacking cheerio's on my table to solve the environmental problems on Venus. To quote Dr Who "What you're doing is interesting, it's wrong and it won't work, but it's interesting anyway..."
 
"privatization isn't popular with the turf-protective Congress, but the alternative--building more runways--faces fierce environmental resistance, and even if overcome would take a decade to implement."

I always thought the WSJ had pretty good writing. This statement makes no sense. The alternative to user fees is taxes; runways have nothing to do with it. User fees or not, we still need more runways.
 
gmwalk said:
I always thought the WSJ had pretty good writing. This statement makes no sense. The alternative to user fees is taxes; runways have nothing to do with it. User fees or not, we still need more runways.
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Wasn't the WSJ just bought out by Rupert Murdoch, the guy who owns FOX? I think this may be the start of a different slant on their editorial focus.
 
mikea said:
So if we just modernize ATC we won't need those silly runways! Right? Wait, what?
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With the new automated landing sequencing software being developed by Microsoft, runway capacity will be increased by landing airplanes in opposite directions at the same time on the same runway.
 
lancefisher said:
With the new automated landing sequencing software being developed by Microsoft, runway capacity will be increased by landing airplanes in opposite directions at the same time on the same runway.
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Gives the term, "Blue screen of death" a whole new meaning! :hairraise:
 
GA will dies soon enough all on its own. User fees will just hasten its decline.
 
Having flown about 35,000 miles this summer in the U.S. and Canada, the only flight delays I encountered were weather related. And the flight always eventually showed up. :( Schedule upsets don't upset me, and I really wanted to get bumped so I could have a free ticket. But, noooo.

Interestingly, friends who rarely travel complained to me about how bad the overcrowding/delays/cancellations were. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

The GA situation does bum me. I have looked forward to the time when I can be delayed by weather in my own airplane. But it looks like I'll end up paying fees for the privilege and won't have anywhere to land. Wow. Too depressing...I'm off to make some hot chocolate.

(Hate to sound apathetic, but I get bogged down trying to figure it all out. Heavy bureaucracy is never good. But they have the power to make the tunes whatever they want, and people believe it just because they have heard it so often. Like mentioned above, the general public isn't interested in general aviation.)

Oh...and too funny about Microsoft and the blue screen of death! :D
 
My own reply:
Respected sirs,

I'm sorry to inform you that, while your piece is partially correct in that our air traffic control system is out of date, it is grossly incorrect in its conclusions that this antiquated system is the cause of so much congestion and delay in commercial air travel today.

What would be the point of converting a 2 lane highway to 4 if the drivers all had to squeeze down to 1 lane to go through a 4 way stop? Absolutely none, right? Well, improving ATC, which is important of course, would be widening the highway, but the 4 way stop remains untouched.

As a private pilot, I deal with air traffic control regularly. Yes, they are busy, but even so, it is a very big sky out there, and it is vastly empty - except in a few, very important areas.

Where the source of the problems exist should be self-evident. Where, when you look at air traffic patterns, do congestions occur? Around major cities, of course. Why do the congestions occur?

Not because ATC is over-burdened (note, please that I am not saying they aren't), but because there is a physical limit to how much traffic can be squeezed onto a given runway in an hour.

It would be extremely unsafe to allow more takeoffs and landings to happen than already happen when at the major airport's busiest times, because there simply isn't anywhere else for those planes to fit. However, even when the local major airport to me is at its peak operation, I can easily and without delay get worked into the air traffic control system when I depart from my relatively small, and quiet, community airport.

Airlines know when their passengers want to fly, and book their flights accordingly, and contrary to popular belief, takeoffs and departures ultimately tend to fall into a first-come, first-serve arrangement. If you're ready to go 5 minutes early, you're not going to be kept sitting on the taxiway holding up the people slotted for 5 minutes ago, are you?

In short, what is needed most of all is more runways. At a major airport with 2 runways, adding 1 or even 2 more runways would increase the ability of airlines to get planes into the air, or on the ground, during the busiest times. Departures and arrivals could happen with greater frequency during those early morning and late evening rush times (and one or two additional tower controllers would round out the need for coverage), while during off peak hours, the airport could drop down to single or double runway use, send one controller home, and optimize efficiency.

Of course, the ugly truth here is that funding an ATC systems upgrade is relatively easy, compared to the public relations battle involved with any airport expansion.

Still, America's public will have to come to terms with the truth that they can't always have their cake and eat it too. If they want more efficient airline travel, they either need to be more willing to fly at off hours, or they need to give up precious land near the commercial centers of the country to allow more planes in and out when they want the planes to be flying.

Respectfully,
C. Haeberle
www.PilotsOfAmerica.com
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