ATC to be privatized

[jethro99]

Just being announced by Cho and Trump.

Be prepared to provide a credit card number when filing a flight plan. Or taking off. Or landing. Or taxiing. Or calling anyone on the VHF/UHF.

Yearly subscription costs to be advised. When re-registering the N number they will need the credit card information.

It is going to be huge. America will be great again.

[Frank Giger]

Every President since Bill Clinton has tried to start up this user fee mess.

When the EAA and AOPA sends you a request to call and write your Congressman and Senator about it, be ready.

[Floatsflyer]

Just more BS and SFA from the largest wind turbine in history. As usual, no plan, no details, just another empty pronouncement to deflect from the real revelations to be released to the world beginning this Thursday.

Privatized ATC and modern implemented systems work very well in Canada because by comparison to the US, it's a small sparsley populated country with therefore far less users, therefore far less complexity required. There are reasons why this has not come to fruition in the US despite numerous undertakings by various governments in power to do so over many decades: Too complex and private interests are convinced there is no money to be made here after the billions it would take to establish and maintain the system.

Trumpster BS rhetoric blaming all the airline woes on ATC is fabricated nonsense defying all logic and common sense. The airlines themselves are mostly responsible for their own problems and being out of touch with and neglecting their customers.

This Trumpster pie in the sky has as much chance of happening as the building of THE WALL.

And one more thing. Where do you get the idea or the thinking that flying under a privatized ATC system will mean paying fees for every little thing you do. That never happened in Canada nor was it expected to. We pay a yearly fee which is about $72. Damn reasonable at twice the cost.

[Tom Charpentier]

When the EAA and AOPA sends you a request to call and write your Congressman and Senator about it, be ready.

We'll have a call to action as soon as there is a specific bill to oppose, which will probably be very soon. We have been fighting this latest proposal at every turn ever since it reared its ugly head towards the end of last legislative session and we remain deeply opposed. We will have a statement on today's announcement out this afternoon.

This goes well beyond GA user fees, which may or may not even be included in the initial roll-out of the program. This is about who controls the airspace, who gets access, and who gets funded. Last session's proposal (the basis for the Administration's plan) included a board of directors for this new ATC entity dominated by airline interests. It's not a recipe for maintaining an infrastructure that serves all users.

[Tom Charpentier]

Here is our statement: https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-news-...atization-plan

[Cary]

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, and I sure oppose both privatization and user fees, but this is not the forum I come to for political ranting. There's enough on that on Facebook.

Cary

[saber25]

I agree with RV builder, political advocacy is also my primary reason for being in EAA. Indeed, if this isn’t the forum for discussion on a policy that could have such negative impact on GA I don’t know what forum would be better.

While traveling around northern Europe for five weeks several years ago, we observed just one general aviation aircraft and that was in the vicinity of the Normandy coast. My friend in Freiburg Germany is in a flying club and the constraints and costs associated in that country make flying barely possible, even for someone with a well paying career.
As for improving the system for the airlines… as someone who was employed at a major carrier, it was obvious we created many of our own problems. It boggled my mind that at a major terminal we would receive our pushback at simultaneous times with our competitors. We would then trundle off to the parallel taxiway at KORD behind everyone else, enduring many minutes of delays as the preceding planes took off. Finally the 12:00 o’clock rush was off and the next race was an hour away.
It might also be noted that in 1965 when I first went to work at SFO, that airport had four runways. Decades later while holding somewhere over the Stockton area at a flight level with severe clear, I mentioned to my passengers that although we had clear skies at SFO, you couldn’t get a 10 pound load in a five pound bag. With the same four runways, the arrival rate was limited by blacktop while the airlines all wanted to land at the same time. I was paid to fly, management was paid to plan and manage. I doubt privatization will help them with either.

[Frank Giger]

A little reality check:

It's neither a Democrat thing or a Republican thing when it comes to Presidents and the specter of user fees. Presidents Clinton through Trump all advocated for it. So let's check our partisan outrage at the door; it's a disease of the office, apparently.

Second, the President can't privatize the FAA. That requires Congress. And the happy note is that user fees and privatization has failed to go anywhere when either Democrats or Republicans held sway there. There's a lot of bipartisan opposition to privatizing the FAA.

Third, what works in Canada is great for Canada. Here in the USA, there is never a tax that remains at a reasonable level once established. Right now it's not a political football because it doesn't exist. Once put in place, user fees will most definitely become one - it's easy to score points against aviation, after all.

[martymayes]

<< Political opinions snipped>>

And for those who say it works in Canada...you may wish to check with your European friends and find out how GA is faring there.

So........Europe had a booming GA industry, then they implemented "it" (privatized ATC and/or user fees) and GA collapsed? Am I understanding that correctly?

[rwanttaja]

Like the recent changes to the medical, the prospect of user fees is a subject that really should be discussed here, despite its political nature.

With THAT said, we should not attempt to categorize the flaws of the politicians or parties involved. Two basic reasons:

1. It tends to polarize the pilot community, and make it more difficult to focus our efforts to stop user fees, and;
2. It doesn't provide any path to actually solving the problem.

Categorizing the vulnerabilities of a particular politician or party as far as negotiation to prevent implementation may help, but saying that "User Fees are the product of Senator Joe Schoo, who is an ignorant poopyhead who has to be told to close his mouth after he yawns" does not.

Ron Wanttaja