Why Does the Government Run Air Traffic Control?
Air traffic control is probably something you don’t spend much time thinking about—but when you board an airplane, you really want it to work.
Unfortunately, the American air traffic control system is kind of a mess right now. It relies on outdated technology and is beset by staffing shortages. Fixing those problems is essential, but politics keeps getting in the way.
And even though flying is still the safest way to travel, the air traffic control system is now under more scrutiny after 67 people were killed in a midair collision near Washington, D.C., earlier this year. The full investigation of that incident is still ongoing, but the Trump administration wasted little time in promising to improve air traffic control. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump promised to “modernize this decrepit relic and give America the best, most advanced air traffic control system on Earth.”
Dorothy Robyn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former White House staffer, says the administration must do more than simply throw money at the problems. She tells Reason that air traffic control needs a complete overhaul, and that the system should be spun off from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has run air traffic control since the 1930s.
“Air traffic control is a 24/7 operation,” says Robyn. She says trying to run what amounts to a business out of a “regulatory agency” is a “fundamental clash.”
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Article from Reason.com
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