Trump pushing to privatize ATC

I am against user fees completely. User fees will require a whole new bureaucracy of government workers to administer, and the net result will be close to zero. We already pay taxes on aviation fuel to support the FAA and it's services. I also agree more money is needed, and as such a moderate fuel tax increase is necessary, and can be easily implemented with minimal expensive since the system is already in place.

It should be noted, that last I knew the airlines already pay little in fuel taxes thanks to their powerful lobbyists.
 
What's interesting to me is how this appears to argue for -fewer- controllers.

Let's say this does result in fewer GA flights and eventually fewer airports. Do you really need as many low - mid level sectors / controllers? If you eliminated GA entirely, what would the controller / center / sector structure look like if at all it had to do was support commercial and military?

I'd love to know how the number of controllers in, say, Canada, compares to the number of controllers in the US. Obviously not raw numbers, but maybe... what... in terms of controllers / sq mile or something?

User fees may be designed to reduce traffic to a point where controllers can be fired. At least, that may be a consequence, and if so, maybe controllers should be on GA's side in this.
 
Mistake Not... said:
I'd love to know how the number of controllers in, say, Canada, compares to the number of controllers in the US. Obviously not raw numbers, but maybe... what... in terms of controllers / sq mile or something?
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I would think that controllers per unit of population would be more meaningful. However, I don't think Canada is a particularly bad example; I was under the impression that they still have a meaningful level of GA activity. Europe would be more appropriate if you want to see what the effect of crippling GA would be.
 
Mistake Not... said:
I'd love to know how the number of controllers in, say, Canada, compares to the number of controllers in the US. Obviously not raw numbers, but maybe... what... in terms of controllers / sq mile or something?

User fees may be designed to reduce traffic to a point where controllers can be fired. At least, that may be a consequence, and if so, maybe controllers should be on GA's side in this.
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I don't know the number of controllers to our north and how they compare staffing wise. What I can tell you is when a major wx system takes away the transcon routes and we have to get permission to route a larger than normal amount of planes through Canadian airspace we get hit with massive mile in trail requirements that slow the flow of traffic and drive the delays through the roof. This never happens if we can get south and stay in our territory. Delays a bit because of losing 1/3 of the routes sure but nothing like the delays by going north of the border. Maybe it's their staffing, or their equipment, or their training, or their union/work rules, who knows but it's not as good.

I can't speak for all controllers but this controller is not for privatization and dang sure not for user fees. I've yet to meet a controller (and I work with several) who've said they wish we were privatized and those GA FLiB's should be paying user fees.
 
GRG55 said:
The airlines will set up their own training academies or contract out to support the creation of pilot-mills. This is how the SE Asian airlines are dealing with their rapid growth, and Europe seems to be moving that way too. Train for purpose in specific aircraft types. A generation of computer systems operators.

That's how events like AF-447 happen...
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The problem is that such a system doesn't jive with the 1500 hour rule. In Europe and Asia, you can be type rated and in an A320 with 300 hours. The cost of training pilots to meet our minimums would be astronomically more expensive. Do the airlines really want to invest 150k in each prospective pilot, or more laughably, do they really expect enough people to invest that much themselves just to fly for a regional?

So if the airlines have the pull to get private ATC, do they also have the pull to get rid of the 1500 rule?
 
MD11Pilot said:
A good friend of mine lives in OKC and was asked to be part of a working group discussing privatization. He told me when we were discussing this the other night, that the issue of fees and the exact amounts were a major topic. He said that a GA plane in Canada pays $68/year and only pays for IFR services at certain major airports on a usage basis. He said that one of the ideas was to charge X amount for an IFR flight plan and X for a VFR flight plan ($10 and $5) and pointed out that when the amount of flights filing VFR flight plans would raise XXX dollars per year AND that the FAA likes for people to file VFR flight plans, that most VFR pilots would just not file thus losing that revenue stream and the safety factor. It was then discussed what about flight following? He said the discussion broke down over this issue and if they would charge each flight then. Very complicated system

ME, MYSELF and I personally would not oppose a single payment per year, PROVIDED I was entitled to full service for VFR and or Flight Following. But if I choose to ask for and receive flight following then I, for that yearly fee, would expect not to hear "Squawk VFR, radar service terminated".
As with all thing governmental, it will be slow and it will be messed up and most likely it will be an attachment to another bill.

Hey folks, there is a real pilot shortage so lets make it harder for people to come into the business and for the airlines just to develop their own training factories. Why you may ask when flying in certain areas of the country that you hear so many foreign accents at the locations of the big schools? My opinion is that GA is practically non-existent in their countries so they come here to learn.

We are FREE here...lets not mess it up please.
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It is CAN $68.00 per year for airplanes up to 3 metric tones gross used for non-commercial purposes. At current exchange rate that is about US $50 annually.
 
Bonchie said:
The problem is that such a system doesn't jive with the 1500 hour rule. In Europe and Asia, you can be type rated and in an A320 with 300 hours. The cost of training pilots here to meet our minimums would be astronomically more expensive.

So if the airlines have the pull to get private ATC, do they also have the pull to get rid of the 1500 rule?
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Yes.

There's nothing politicians like better than creating a crisis and taking credit for the changes needed to deal with it.
 
Bonchie said:
In Europe and Asia, you can be type rated and in an A320 with 300 hours.
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I met one of those pilots. His experience level was truly worrisome considering he held a 737 type rating. Thankfully I think he knew it too, and was chasing the U.S. ATP certificate and was soaking up knowledge from some good instructors and sources.

I'm not here to say "it can't be done" to those who've obviously done it, and many people were in the right seat of stuff with very few hours back when I started flying, but ... there's a "yikes" factor to a 300 hour airliner-typed pilot.

GRG55 said:
It is CAN $68.00 per year for airplanes up to 3 metric tones gross used for non-commercial purposes. At current exchange rate that is about US $50 annually.
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A snowball burning in hell would have a better chance than our government here being able to be that efficient at nearly anything. They'd never duplicate the Canadian system here. Not enough bureaucracy and make-work.
 
Having worked with/for .gov, the best part of privatization would be the elimination of the Civil Service system. It would be somewhat easier to fire someone incompetent. I'm trying to square this with the fact that an unusually high percentage of controllers seem competent. :) But if there's a bright side here, it's this.

OTOH, aren't we already to the point technologically where the controller doesn't have to be near the area served? If we go contract, who's to say the contract controllers have to be in the U.S? Wouldn't it be cheaper to outsource, to say, india? Yikes.
 
We should expect private sector companies to put in as much automation as soon as possible to keep their labor costs down. This is a dynamic you won't see in government. These cost reductions should make the ATC cheaper for all of us.
 
citizen5000 said:
We should expect private sector companies to put in as much automation as soon as possible to keep their labor costs down. This is a dynamic you won't see in government. These cost reductions should make the ATC cheaper for all of us.
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What automation will they implement that would be an improvement over the current system or NexGen? The only application of true automation is the automated tower and that is still in its infancy. Not to mention, NATCA isn't going to support a system that shrinks the controller workforce.
 
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citizen5000 said:
We should expect private sector companies to put in as much automation as soon as possible to keep their labor costs down. This is a dynamic you won't see in government. These cost reductions should make the ATC cheaper for all of us.
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As an active pilot and controller at the busiest stand alone TRACON, I disagree this is possible in our flying lifetime.

With that said, I've been known to be wrong.
 
Mistake Not... said:
OTOH, aren't we already to the point technologically where the controller doesn't have to be near the area served? If we go contract, who's to say the contract controllers have to be in the U.S? Wouldn't it be cheaper to outsource, to say, india? Yikes.
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They are hoping to test a remote tower this year at KFNL. I'm not sure where the controllers are going to be for this test, but the goal is to prove the concept of having tower controllers without a window (or tower).

In some ways I could see how this could save money, you could have one controller for multiple airports at really slow times (midnight to 4am or something).
 
ColoPilot said:
They are hoping to test a remote tower this year at KFNL. I'm not sure where the controllers are going to be for this test, but the goal is to prove the concept of having tower controllers without a window (or tower).

In some ways I could see how this could save money, you could have one controller for multiple airports at really slow times (midnight to 4am or something).
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A number of years ago when I was working at ORD I went to DC to test this exact concept. Result of the test is sure, it may work at a very slow VFR tower. No, it won't work at a busy/complex airport.
 
How does canada deal with fraud? Anyone can report my tail number, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to fake an ADS-B ID, whatever it is, since that probably wasn't a concern when the protocol was designed. Anyone know for sure?
 
citizen5000 said:
We should expect private sector companies to put in as much automation as soon as possible to keep their labor costs down. This is a dynamic you won't see in government. These cost reductions should make the ATC cheaper for all of us.
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Sorry friend, that would be an unrealistic point of view. Good try though.

Cheers
 
citizen5000 said:
Silicon Valley's NASA AMES is in the middle of the technology and testing: https://www.nasa.gov/ames/feature/3...lator-tests-the-future-of-air-traffic-control
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NASA is trying to solve an "excess spacing" problem that is more due to physical limitations than controller or equipment limitations.

A controller can easily reduce spacing on aircraft like in this demonstration but the rules don't allow it. They don't allow it mostly because of wake turbulence rules and runway occupancy limitations. Sure, you could throw everyone on an ILS at 2.5 miles in trail but you're gonna start having aircraft flip on their backs following a heavy. Anything less than 2.5 miles for airliners, you're gonna start having aircraft crossing the threshold with less than approved runway separation.
 
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ColoPilot said:
They are hoping to test a remote tower this year at KFNL. I'm not sure where the controllers are going to be for this test, but the goal is to prove the concept of having tower controllers without a window (or tower).

In some ways I could see how this could save money, you could have one controller for multiple airports at really slow times (midnight to 4am or something).
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If it is that slow, the tower is or should be close during the slow times.
 
Palmpilot said:
I would think that controllers per unit of population would be more meaningful. However, I don't think Canada is a particularly bad example; I was under the impression that they still have a meaningful level of GA activity. Europe would be more appropriate if you want to see what the effect of crippling GA would be.
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Canada isn't a particularly great example either. I think the active GA fleet is about 10% the size of ours, though that ratio may have changed since the registration update push here in the US.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Canada isn't a particularly great example either. I think the active GA fleet is about 10% the size of ours, though that ratio may have changed since the registration update push here in the US.
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Their population is also about 10% of ours, so it sounds like their GA is at about the same level per capita.
 
Palmpilot said:
Their population is also about 10% of ours, so it sounds like their GA is at about the same level per capita.
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I was thinking more in terms of the volume of traffic handled by their ATC system, and the demands placed on controllers, technology and how traffic is distrubuted across such a vast country. Admittedly, I know little of what goes on up there.
 
As for the "pay per flight" concept, I went flying with someone in Italy (to Switzerland and back). We were well over $100 US in fees before we even cranked the engine, and we had to make a stop in the payment office at the Swiss airport to pay for ATC tower services on arrival. Even at that, we saved enough money on avgas and avgas taxes to make it worth the fees to fly to CH for fuel. We probably spent 50% of the cost of the avgas we took on in airport, flight plan, and ATC fees.
 
citizen5000 said:
We should expect private sector companies to put in as much automation as soon as possible to keep their labor costs down. This is a dynamic you won't see in government. These cost reductions should make the ATC cheaper for all of us.
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FSS > AFSS. One was useful, the other isn't nearly as useful.

And my six month "personal project" just to get the latter to simply DELETE my online account after their database did something inappropriate to it and any change I made fired a database integrity error, was not exactly awe inspiring.

Try making position reports to a mountain RCO to AFSS and see if they'll keep an eye on the clock and start checking around if you don't show up in a few hours. The old FSS in DEN gladly did that for us mountain folk, long long ago.

I haven't figured out what's "automated" about AFSS anyway other than that god awful phone system that attempts to figure out what state you're calling from ... because voice recognition was just a BRILLIANT idea to implement on a phone system that'll be taking calls from pilots on noisy ramps and in noisy cockpits... whoever the moron was who came up with that idea should be shot.
 
denverpilot said:
FSS > AFSS. One was useful, the other isn't nearly as useful.

And my six month "personal project" just to get the latter to simply DELETE my online account after their database did something inappropriate to it and any change I made fired a database integrity error, was not exactly awe inspiring.

Try making position reports to a mountain RCO to AFSS and see if they'll keep an eye on the clock and start checking around if you don't show up in a few hours. The old FSS in DEN gladly did that for us mountain folk, long long ago.

I haven't figured out what's "automated" about AFSS anyway other than that god awful phone system that attempts to figure out what state you're calling from ... because voice recognition was just a BRILLIANT idea to implement on a phone system that'll be taking calls from pilots on noisy ramps and in noisy cockpits... whoever the moron was who came up with that idea should be shot.
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I don't know. That SE-SAR system seems like it's a good idea if you don't use FF. Haven't heard too many people using it though.
 
Velocity173 said:
I don't know. That SE-SAR system seems like it's a good idea if you don't use FF. Haven't heard too many people using it though.
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Sure, if you've bought and paid for your own privately funded satellite surveillance system, it works great.

You know what worked for free and didn't require a satellite tracker you bought and a subscription service for same?

Position reports along a known route, and someone writing your times on the whiteboard on the wall next to the phone at the local FSS.

It was all about the middle letter in FSS back then. Now it's about "see our list of Partners you can pay to feed our computers your data so we can take credit for the SAR activation".

Family and friends with access to your commercial tracker will do as good a job as AFSS reporting you overdue and your track not moving. Make sure they have the public number for AFRCC.

All of those "Partners" LockMart says they're working with, have a direct link to AFRCC anyway. No need to go through a middle man.

Easy fix, though. Let AFSS specialists enter reported positions via radio directly into the same system.

That'd get us back to almost the same level of service offered locally in the 70s-90s, only two shirt decades of AFSS "service" later.

They just won't know where local well-known landmarks are, and the pilot will have to give references off of a Navaid or Lat/Lon.
 
Mistake Not... said:
Having worked with/for .gov, the best part of privatization would be the elimination of the Civil Service system. It would be somewhat easier to fire someone incompetent. I'm trying to square this with the fact that an unusually high percentage of controllers seem competent. :) But if there's a bright side here, it's this.

OTOH, aren't we already to the point technologically where the controller doesn't have to be near the area served? If we go contract, who's to say the contract controllers have to be in the U.S? Wouldn't it be cheaper to outsource, to say, india? Yikes.
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Climb and maintain 1-2 thousand, contact center on blah blah blah, thank you come again
 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/trump-privatize-air-traffic-control/99216578/

I'm not really concerned about the whole political aspect of this. According to this article:

"Lobbying groups representing business aircraft operators, private pilots and small and medium-sized airports also oppose privatization. They say they fear airlines will dominate the corporation's board and that they'll be asked to pay more to support the system while facing reduced services."

This made me think about that woman that crashed in her Cirrus SR20 a while back:


This crash might've been avoided if they made one of those big jets go around and I just wonder with the privatization of ATC make matters worse for GA!
 
FloridaPilot said:
This crash might've been avoided if they made one of those big jets go around and I just wonder with the privatization of ATC make matters worse for GA!
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I've never had a jet that wouldn't go around, stall and spin my aircraft. That would be 100% on me, not them.
 
denverpilot said:
I've never had a jet that wouldn't go around, stall and spin my aircraft. That would be 100% on me, not them.
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Yeah, I have several issues with that crash, but none of them involve getting airliners out of the way. The big one is mission myopia, with a pilot obviously overwhelmed and insisting on landing at that airport.
 
FloridaPilot said:
This crash might've been avoided if they made one of those big jets go around and I just wonder with the privatization of ATC make matters worse for GA!
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I disagree. Yes there appears to have been ATC training at the time and yes private controllers will still need to train to certify. The instructor stepped in (I would have done so sooner but as long as humans are involved it will always be different) and tried to give control instructions to help her. The crash may have been avoided if she was trained properly. Let's start there. Let's assume that maybe she was, next after training, she needs to maintain proficiency to be able to fly the aircraft in the environments she chooses to frequent. In this particular case a busy Air Carrier/GA controlled airport. Next, if you end up not proficient and/or properly trained and need help, ASK for it. Declare an emergency and yes all air traffic would have been cleared out and she could have done whatever she wanted. This has nothing to do with FAA vs private controllers.

If anything, guess what a private controllers end game would be at an airport like this in the future? Expediting money makers or delaying them because a GA pilot sounds a little behind the airplane.
 
Radar Contact said:
I disagree. Yes there appears to have been ATC training at the time and yes private controllers will still need to train to certify. The instructor stepped in (I would have done so sooner but as long as humans are involved it will always be different) and tried to give control instructions to help her. The crash may have been avoided if she was trained properly. Let's start there. Let's assume that maybe she was, next after training, she needs to maintain proficiency to be able to fly the aircraft in the environments she chooses to frequent. In this particular case a busy Air Carrier/GA controlled airport. Next, if you end up not proficient and/or properly trained and need help, ASK for it. Declare an emergency and yes all air traffic would have been cleared out and she could have done whatever she wanted. This has nothing to do with FAA vs private controllers.

If anything, guess what a private controllers end game would be at an airport like this in the future? Expediting money makers or delaying them because a GA pilot sounds a little behind the airplane.
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Besides ALL of the history that led up to that crash, the one concept she didn't internalize that's ultra critical...

When you're out of your depth and PIC and someone asks you to do something you aren't sure you can do, "Unable" is damned powerful.

Say it, get it over with, and figure out a plan with the controller that you can accomplish safely.

We make a lot of fun of folks who need a "safe space" in our society, but there's one "safety word" all pilots should know and have in their back pocket like a referees yellow flag.

You don't have to pull it out and toss it on the ground very often, but if things are piling up and you're ever unsure of the outcome of the controller's plan for you... even if it's your own fault you don't understand or don't have the skill to do whatever they asked... throw the flag.

They'll work with you if they can.

The few times I've used it, I've never had a controller seem angry about it. It's a big hint to them that something's wrong, even if it's not with them, and it's with you.

Tweeeeeet! Blow the whistle, throw the flag, and pause the game.

Very rare to run into unhelpful controllers out there. Busy controllers who can't spend the time on someone who can't keep up, once in a while. But even that doesn't happen too often.
 
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