The airline industry has been pleading with the House of Representatives and the Senate to please do their job and provide guidelines and funding for an improvement of the air traffic control system (ATC). Unfortunately, they are just too busy to do their jobs and voted to do nothing with the FAA and the ATC problems.
Despite nearly a decade-old battle about improving the ATC system, Congress has once again decided to do nothing. They just passed a continuation of last year’s funding, the FAA Extension Act of 2008. It will run through March 31, 2009. This is just one more in a series of extensions to fund the FAA operations implemented since September 2007. The performance of the House and the Senate is simply disgraceful.
This means more of the same — more congestion in the New York airspace, more operations using decade’s-old systems, more deterioration of the ATC infrastructure, more late flights, more computer glitches, more legacy airline control of airports, more expenses when Congress finally acts and eventually higher airfares.
Let your congressmen and senators know you aren’t happy about their failures to get their job done.
