Some air traffic controllers weren’t working but had gotten paid as though they had worked full shifts

See Air-Traffic Staffing Rules Tightened at Reagan Airport After Fatal Crash: Investigators scrutinize irregular staffing in control tower the night of midair collision between Army helicopter and commercial jet by Andrew Tangel of The WSJ. Excerpt:

"In 2021, a serious close call involving Air Force jets, a Marine helicopter used to transport the vice president, and a commercial plane sparked an FAA investigation into the airport tower’s staffing, people familiar with the probe said. An air-traffic controller was juggling oversight of area helicopter and airplane traffic, despite a policy for two people to handle those responsibilities at that time of day.

The 2021 investigation found that some controllers weren’t working but had gotten paid as though they had worked full shifts—including a practice commonly known in air traffic as an “early shove.”"

"Since the crash, senior FAA officials have also told air-traffic facility managers that personnel must work all the hours for which they are assigned."

"An internal FAA review said the airport tower’s staffing wasn’t normal for the time of day and volume of traffic"

"At one point, only senior facility managers could allow the helicopter position to be combined early. The FAA later allowed lower-ranking tower employees such as supervisors to make that call so long as they considered factors like traffic levels, weather and VIP moments.

On May 20, 2021, the tower’s helicopter and airplane monitoring positions were combined before the normal scheduled time because controllers left early"

"The FAA spokeswoman said past cases of noncompliance with time and attendance requirements have been investigated and resulted in discipline."

Advice for DOGE: Privatize Air Traffic Control

By Dan Mitchell.

"Based on economic trends, I don’t want the United States to copy Canada.

But there is one big exception. As explained by John Stossel, we should copy our northern neighbors and privatize air traffic control.

I harbor a special distaste for government bureaucracies that deliberately try to screw taxpayers by playing the “Washington Monument game.”

So that’s a strike against the Federal Aviation Administration.

But let’s focus on the more substantive issue of how to maximize safety and minimize costs.

If those are the two main criteria, the answer is privatization.

Indeed, this is a great opportunity for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency if it wants to show how to save money and make things work better.

The above video has some of the details, but let’s also look at an article in City Journal by John Tierney.

Here are some excerpts.

America’s air-traffic control system, once the world’s most advanced, has become an international disgrace. …chronic mismanagement…has left the system with too few controllers using absurdly antiquated technology. The problems were obvious 20 years ago, when I visited control towers in both Canada and the United States. The Canadians sat in front of sleek computer screens that instantly handled tasks like transferring the oversight of a plane from one controller to another. The Americans were still using pieces of paper called flight strips. …It was bad enough to see such outdated technology in 2005. But they’re still using those paper flight strips in American towers… The basic problem, which reformers have been trying to remedy since the Clinton administration, is that the system is operated by a cumbersome federal bureaucracy. …after the Washington collision, could the second Trump administration and a new Republican Congress finally create a state-of-the-art system? …Experience in Canada and other countries shows that an independent corporation, able to issue its own revenue bonds because it’s funded directly by user fees instead of taxes, can modernize air-traffic control far more efficiently and cheaply than a government agency.

In an article for Discourse, Gary Leff adds his analysis.

…after 1978…the federal government no longer told airlines where they’re allowed to fly, and how much they can charge. …However, nearly every other element of the experience continues to be dictated—and even directly managed—by the government. …Elsewhere in the world you’ll find nonprofit organizations conducting air traffic control, with better technology to direct planes more effectively and efficiently. …The private nonprofit NavCanada (which rolled out electronic flight strips way back in 2002!) oversees not just Canadian airspace but also the North Atlantic. It operates much more cost efficiently than the FAA. And they’re way ahead technologically as well.

Leff’s article cites other policies that would improve air travel, so privatizing air traffic control is just one piece of the puzzle.

But it’s an important piece, so let’s wrap up our discussion with some passages from Dominic Pino’s column in National Review.

Get the federal government out of air traffic control. I’d call it “privatizing,” but if you want to call it “depoliticizing” air traffic control, that’s fine by me. The air traffic control system should not be affected in the slightest by which politicians are in power… Air traffic control is not a public good in economic theory. It’s a club good, which means it can be provided privately through a system of user fees. …Canada illustrates that the private alternative works: Canadian air traffic control has been provided by a nonprofit since 1996, at zero cost to Canadian taxpayers. …Privatization has been proposed for the U.S. on and off since the 1980s, so DOT doesn’t need to come up with any groundbreaking ideas or ask for more money from Congress.

Amen.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with the concept of “public goods,” click here. Pino is right. Air traffic control does not qualify.

There is no logical reason why we don’t learn from other countries and get politicians and bureaucrats out of this line of business.

P.S. Where we’re on the topic of airlines, click here and here to learn why we should blame government when passengers get hit with so-called junk fees. Leads me to wonder whether the annoying “resort fees” at hotels also are consequence of government interference.

P.P.S. Eight years ago, I shared a very amusing British video that mocked the notion of privatizing the air traffic control system. Since the video is very clever, folks on the left doubtlessly were amused. But folks on the right got the last laugh since the British system is now privatized and working very well."

Mayor Pete and the FAA’s Plan for Higher Fares

To alleviate air-traffic woes, the government proposes to commit an antitrust offense

By Holman W. Jenkins. Excerpts:

"The FAA last week called on carriers to cut flights 10% this summer in the busy New York region to accommodate its controller shortage, virtually guaranteeing higher fares and fewer choices. Yes, the Biden administration is committing the antitrust sin it accuses JetBlue and Spirit of."

"London City Airport now has a digital control tower allowing personnel to be used far more efficiently. Canada’s system has been commercially self-funding since 1996 and speedily incorporates new technology. The U.S. still relies on radar operators handing slips of paper to each other.

Reforming air-traffic control would actually be the best way to enhance competition. Fuel costs and delays would be lessened. Carriers could more quickly deploy planes wherever price signals dictate."

"Near misses at airports, apparently due to the post-Covid introduction of thousands of less-experienced workers, are being addressed the only way the system can: by slowing things down and aggravating customers."

"In 1993, Vice President Al Gore, as part of his Reinventing Government initiative, attempted a root-and-branch reform of the air traffic control system and succeeded—his idea was adopted in Canada. Donald Trump strove to revive the plan for the U.S. but was thwarted by a pork-barreling Congress."

"JetBlue and Spirit make a reasonable case that their deal would create more competition against the four giants that account for 80% of the domestic air-travel market. Their merger is remarkably unopposed by economists except a few cultists who long for 1978’s deregulation to be undone.

Justice’s opposition seems mainly a matter of adhering to an anti-merger bias the administration has adopted to appease progressives. Permeating its case is an unrealistically static notion of airline competition: Though airplanes are highly mobile assets, competitors somehow won’t descend on routes where fares go up if JetBlue and Spirit no longer are rivals."

More than 60 countries have turned their air-traffic control over to self-funding entities

See Can Pete Buttigieg Fix the FAA? by Holman W. Jenkins. Excerpts:

"it’s been a 30-year-event, starting when Vice President Al Gore, leader of the Clinton administration’s “reinventing government” initiative, valiantly tried and failed to remove air-traffic control from the federal bureaucracy and its pork-barreling congressional overseers.

By now, more than 60 countries have taken Mr. Gore’s 1993 advice, turning their air-traffic control over to self-funding entities. If the U.S. had done the same, it might have an ATC system of the 1990s, 2000s, possibly even the 2010s—instead of one from the 1980s.

Inept salesmen have called the process corporatization but it simply means handing controllers, radars and facilities over to a nonprofit that would charge cost-based fees to users of the nation’s controlled airspace. Such an outfit would be free to float bonds in its own name to install 21st-century technology while the 21st century is still in progress.

Taking advantage of decades-old advances in computers, networking and satellite navigation, the long-promised era of “free flight” would finally be inaugurated. Planes could fly more direct paths between origin and destination. Tighter, more accurate spacing would effectively increase airport capacity, reducing ground delays."

Flight Chaos Demonstrates Need for Systemic Changes in Air Traffic Control Policy

By Colin Grabow.

"Air travel in the United States was thrown into chaos earlier this week when a key system used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) went down, forcing over 10,000 flights to be delayed and at least 1,300 canceled. While a damaged database file may have been the proximate cause of this upheaval, the episode appears yet another indication of systemic flaws in U.S. air traffic control policy.

Technological deficiencies in U.S. air traffic control operations are long-standing. Indeed, Congress mandated twenty years ago that the FAA establish a plan for implementing the modernized Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) by 2025 in order to improve matters. The FAA’s technological woes, however, are unlikely to go away anytime soon. A 2021 Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General report noted that the agency has “struggled to integrate key NextGen technologies and capabilities”—a finding consistent with other reports on the topic—and the particular system that failed this week apparently won’t be updated for another six years.

Updated air traffic control technologies, meanwhile, are available in other countries right now. A key reason why: private management. As I wrote in the transportation chapter of the Cato Institute’s new book Empowering the New American Worker:

Regarding airline travel, Congress should improve efficiency and quality by transferring air traffic control duties to privately managed entities, as is done in numerous countries. A 2005 Government Accountability Office study, for example, concluded that commercialized air traffic control systems in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom had cut costs, boosted investment in new technologies, and either maintained or increased safety after being reformed.

My colleague Chris Edwards went into greater detail about the advantages of private management, citing Canada’s example in the 2022 edition of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers:

Dozens of nations have restructured their air traffic control systems to separate them from government budgets and political micromanagement. Canada privatized its system in 1996 in the form of a self‐​funded nonprofit corporation, Nav Canada. The Canadian reform has been very successful. Nav Canada has won three International Air Transport Association (IATA) Eagle Awards as the world’s best ATC provider. The IATA has said that Nav Canada is a “global leader in delivering top‐​class performance” and that its “strong track record of working closely with its customers to improve performance through regular and meaningful consultations, combined with technical and operational investments supported by extensive cost‐​benefit analysis, place it at the forefront of the industry’s air navigation service providers.”

In Canada, funding was changed from a government ticket tax to direct charges on aircraft operators for services provided. Nav Canada charges for terminal services, flying through Canadian airspace, and oceanic services. Those cost‐​based charges are a more efficient way to price ATC services than the U.S. system, which is mainly based on ticket taxes.

Nav Canada is a private monopoly, so there might be concerns that its user charges would rise excessively. But that has not happened. Indeed, Nav Canada’s real customer charges have fallen as efficiency has increased. The system is handling more traffic than before privatization, but with fewer employees. One reason for the good performance is that airlines and other aviation stakeholders appoint members of Nav Canada’s corporate board, and those stakeholders have a strong interest in increasing both efficiency and safety.

Another advantage of privatization is innovation. Nav Canada is praised for its development of new technologies. Robert Poole noted, “The technical expertise at Nav Canada has led to a thriving business marketing innovative ATC hardware and software and advising other air navigation service providers.” In a 2013 address, Nav Canada’s chair Nicholas Geer said that the company has “sold and installed our home‐​grown technology around the world from Australia to Hong Kong to Dubai, and all over the UK and Europe.”

Privatization, Edwards adds, would would provide the “flexibility, incentives, and funding needed for [air traffic control] managers to increase efficiency and pursue innovation” with attendant improvements in flight times, airspace capacity, and fuel costs.

The FAA’s ongoing struggles to incorporate advanced air traffic technologies aren’t a strange aberration but part of an established record unlikely to change absent systemic changes. Some in Congress have recognized the need to move towards a private model, but unfortunately have been stymied in their attempts to advance reform. Let’s hope that recent developments provide renewed impetus for such efforts."