The White House on Monday, June 5 unveiled its plan to privatize a significant portion of the Federal Aviation Administration and its workforce that deals with day-to-day air traffic control.
The responsibilities of owning and operating the air traffic control system would fall to a newly-created private corporation that would be funded through “user fees,” small charges attached to each plane ticket.
The ATC privatization plan is different than NextGen, which is the existing plan working to upgrade the US air system by enabling air traffic routing by GPS instead of ground-based radar, moving to all electronic communications instead of paper, and making airport operations more efficient.
ADS-B mandate kicks in 2020 regardless of ATC privatization proposal. That'll be the biggest contributor to the benefits POTUS is touting
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) June 5, 2017
The FAA would retain its primary responsibilities to set policy and safety for the aviation system.
#ATCReform is not a new thing. Clinton, Bush, congress attempted to reform air traffic control in the past https://t.co/VGLWQSIxpG @EnoTrans pic.twitter.com/xB1M3Nx96P
— Robert Puentes (@rpuentes) April 21, 2017
Privatizing the US air control system has been pitched before in the past, but no plans have been signed into law.
