The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation heard from the FAA, pilots and air traffic controllers regarding the state of NextGen, the new air traffic control system (ATC) to be deployed across the U.S., this week. It’s not a pretty picture.
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Airline re-regulation? Anyone who has witnessed the battles between lobbyists representing various interest groups in Washington cannot be in favor of re-regulation. Innovation would grind to a halt. Our airline system would go the way of the American railroads. Consumer protection? That’s another story.
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About five months ago I lamented about our “can’t do” government. The hits just keep on coming — the FAA and our ATC once again have been subjected to no action. Anytime our government is involved, projects stall and costs rise. Heaven help us with our national financial bailout adventure.
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If anyone wonders why our air traffic system is in a steady state of decay, take a look at recent action and inaction in Washington DC. The 110th Congress punted funding decisions to the incoming 111th Congress with a limited continuing resolution that expires in March 2009 and a GAO lawyer concluded recently that the FAA has no authority to auction slots at NYC airports.
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The meltdown of the nation’s financial infrastructure over the past two weeks has generated a fix or bailout that may cost a trillion dollars. That is trillion with a “T” — a whopping amount of money. The cost to fix the air traffic control system and fully modernize it? Fifty two billion. A drop in the bucket.
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The controversy continues over whether or not the Department of Transportation should cap the numbers of flights in the New York airspace. Now the obviously overwhelmed New York Port Authority has joined the chorus of “Let’s do nothing.”
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To deal with New York’s chronic air traffic congestion problems, the Transportation Department has proposed flight caps and a novel auction for landing and take-off slots at JFK and Newark. But its approach has left the airlines howling.
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Thirty years after deregulation, the government is gumming up the works. Everything for which they are responsible is crumbling or working poorly with no solution in sight.
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