Privatizing Air Traffic Control

[Deleted]

Thoughts? 

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

So many deep questions from you today.

House finished? ;-)

(GRG runs for cover before a piece of radiant flooring or a fieldstone gets hurled her way.)

[Deleted]

House will never be finished, lol. Accepted this. Now pacing myself  

[billisonboard]

Individual contacts at each airport given to the lowest bidder? Or crony contacting? What could go wrong?

[emma1420]

Jun 3, 2017 19:40:44 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Individual contacts at each airport given to the lowest bidder? Or crony contacting? What could go wrong?

Exactly.  I really don't care to have my safety in the hands of the lowest bidder or some company trying to cut costs.

[bean29]

Jun 3, 2017 19:39:13 GMT -5 oped said:

House will never be finished, lol. Accepted this. Now pacing myself  

Lol, my DH had a burst of work on our basement before DS's Grad, then he putzed around on it and finished it for DD's Grad...he also got sick of the slow pace and hired a talented carpenter to finish it.

But, how long til your DD is done with HS?

[justme]

So are they all government employees now?

[NastyWoman]

Jun 3, 2017 19:40:44 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Individual contacts at each airport given to the lowest bidder? Or crony contacting? What could go wrong?

Maybe I should take up rowing. Like really, really serious rowing 

[giramomma]

Well, it looks like the president wants turn the FAA into a non-profit (according to the Washington Post)

It's one of those things that could be good or could be bad.

I tend to work for a fair amount of non-profits. Most of them pay market wages, or really close to it.

Our church supports a non-profit community center. What they've been able to do with the resources has been nothing short of incredible. (Legal, health, and job training..computer training, food pantry, one hot meal a day, personal care pantry, pregnancy crisis center).

Now, one of the non-profits I worked for did end up having some pretty bad financial difficulties and got absorbed by another non-profit.

It appears like everything else, the devil is in the details.

[giramomma]

I wonder if we could get something like having the FAA reorganized as a public authority.

There's a hospital associated with the flagship university. It got re-organized as a public authority..So it's governed by a board that is made up of university officials, law makers, and business people in the community.

They employees still pay into our state's retirement fund, even though, technically they are no longer state workers. However, they were also subjected to Act 10..which I didn't like. (But, I'd prefer that nurses and doctors have control over how many shifts in a row they are mandated to work..)

I'm betting the hospital is a non-profit agency, and nurses, doctors, and cancer specialists are not paid $8.00/hour to work.

[billisonboard]

A hospital.
A community center.

A national system of interconnected work stations.

[giramomma]

Jun 4, 2017 8:34:13 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

A hospital.
A community center.

A national system of interconnected work stations.

Could you clarify? Do you feel national non-profits don't work/are ineffective?

Or do you think that all national modes of mass transportation need to come under the jurisdiction of the feds?

[billisonboard]

Jun 4, 2017 8:56:57 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Jun 4, 2017 8:34:13 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

A hospital.
A community center.

A national system of interconnected work stations.

Could you clarify? Do you feel national non-profits don't work/are ineffective?

Or do you think that all national modes of mass transportation need to come under the jurisdiction of the feds?

I don't think looking at a one site local entity is a good indicator of how it might work if there were a change. I am not sure what would be.

I am not sure that a change in the way air traffic control in the country is handled is necessary. Is the system broke? If it ain't broke, I say don't fix it.

[giramomma]

Jun 4, 2017 9:10:40 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jun 4, 2017 8:56:57 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Could you clarify? Do you feel national non-profits don't work/are ineffective?

Or do you think that all national modes of mass transportation need to come under the jurisdiction of the feds?

I don't think looking at a one site local entity is a good indicator of how it might work if there were a change. I am not sure what would be.

I am not sure that a change in the way air traffic control in the country is handled is necessary. Is the system broke? If it ain't broke, I say don't fix it.

Apparently, it's not broke, but it could use some fixing..

From here: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plans-week-long-focus-on-infrastructure-starting-with-privatizing-air-traffic-control/2017/06/03/12aacb04-47c5-11e7-a196-a1bb629f64cb_story.html?utm_term=.7f6570b37801

Advocates of the idea argue that privatization would speed up glacial efforts by the FAA to modernize a system that still relies on land-based radar at a time when other countries have switched to GPS systems that allow more direct routes at lower costs.

Here's another article that offers positives and negatives.

They also mention this is the model that Canada uses.

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-air-traffic-control-20170415-htmlstory.html

[Deleted]

How do other non fed national non profits function?

[billisonboard]

Jun 4, 2017 14:06:15 GMT -5 oped said:

How do other non fed national non profits function?

I can't think of any that do anything close to a similar task.

[giramomma]

While I know wikipedia is not the best source for information, here's a nice article on Canada's system.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada

Note, they have some unionized workers.

They also privatized their air traffic controllers in 1996 as a response to modernize.

Seems they even managed to draw some international partnerships.

I would think at some point, the US would want to modernize technologies and save on fuel costs. With our current political thoughts, I'll say, though, that maybe having international investments won't be well received.

[Tiny]

Jun 3, 2017 19:28:43 GMT -5 oped said:

Thoughts? 

If it happens, I predict that the cost of flying will go up - substantially.   I also predict that some smaller airports may shut down - because they are not profitable.   I predict some larger airports will do more to serve their corporate masters than to serve the "public" who finances /uses them.   I predict there will be a whole new slew of superwealthy CEOs -- who will need tax breaks (or other government concessions)  to keep the airports/planes safe, up to date and  running!

I predict that in places where communities (homes) co-exist (are close to - as in next door to)  an existing airport -- they will get "screwed" - they will have no way to complain about noise or new runways - they will stop mattering to the Airport Powers that Be.      OK, now communities don't have much say - but atlleast the airports are forced to acknowledge the communities. 

I predict that the next generation of McMansions will be built around "private" runways and airports which will cater to the rich - or wanna be rich.  Ok, this already happens... but I predict private "mcAirports" - cheaply made/run/maintained will spring up and become a blight - just like McMansions became. 

[Deleted]

The smaller airport thing was something i was thinking of... on the other hand, they are already more expensive and i haven't used them in so long I'm wondering if it matters? 

I did read today that this isn't something he can dictate and that earlier house efforts to do this pretty much died in the water, so I'm not sure if it will be happening any time soon? 

[giramomma]

Jun 5, 2017 17:00:10 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Jun 3, 2017 19:28:43 GMT -5 oped said:

Thoughts? 

If it happens, I predict that the cost of flying will go up - substantially.  

But with Canada's model, the price of flying went down because of the use of modern technology.

Like I said, the devil is in the details.

I wish some folks from Canada would weigh on the airports situation there...I'm sure some folks were around to airports prior to and after 1996. Can they confirm prices have skyrocketed? Smaller airports have shut down?

Not that I'm advocating one way or another.

It just depends.

This reminds me of a couple years ago...when professor types in my state lost their god-given right to tenure until they pass away. Oh, everything was going to fall apart. I was like FFS, people.

If they did a little research, professors would understand that the new tenure plan they were under was the SAME tenure plan MN moved to 30 years ago. Clearly the MN public university system has been able to find/retain professors. The university system in MN did not just blow away to smithereens, leaving only the flagship left.

But instead of really doing some research and having a wait and see approach and perhaps keeping an open mind about it, all the academic types were doom and gloom complaining about change, because if it's change, it must be bad.

The problem, too, with this approach, is that it pissed off our law makers. It gave them further ammunition to demonize the University system...giving the lawmakers another data point to talk about how out of touch professors were from the populous.

If the professors/academic types had an ounce of sense in them...they wouldn't have made such a big deal about it. It really would have gone a long way to repairing university/lawmaker relations.

[Deleted]

I would guess it might go down at large airports, and up at smaller ones. 

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Jun 5, 2017 18:58:34 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Jun 5, 2017 17:00:10 GMT -5 Tiny said:

If it happens, I predict that the cost of flying will go up - substantially.  

But with Canada's model, the price of flying went down because of the use of modern technology.

Like I said, the devil is in the details.

I wish some folks from Canada would weigh on the airports situation there...I'm sure some folks were around to airports prior to and after 1996. Can they confirm prices have skyrocketed? Smaller airports have shut down?

Canada's flights are 19/20 times considerably higher than the US.  I look for flights out of both Seattle and Vancouver (they are pretty much equidistant to me) when I make flight reservations.  I always check, but even accounting for exchange rate, same flights tend to be 20-30% higher out of Vancouver.  Sometimes, we will fly from Vancouver because there are better flights....like we did when we went to France last year.  The price was comparable to Seattle, but that was one of the few times this has happened.

In fact, the little local US airport usually has about 80% of the cars parked in long term parking with Canadian plates.  Many drive down, pick up a shuttle to Seattle and fly this way.

[Phoenix84]

The devil's in the details but Canada has private Air Traffic Control and it seems to work okay. I don't recall any air accidents with lots of dead Canadians.

Though I don't know if they let Virgil transport Snow Leopards.  

[emma1420]

Jun 6, 2017 11:12:51 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

Rural airports in the U.S. are subsidized, I believe.

Airport traffic control needs upgrading from ground radar to satellite radar.  I like to read about airplane disasters and our traffic control systems are overloaded.

They are, which is why one of my very republican Senators just came out against privatizing air traffic control.

[apple 2]

Jun 3, 2017 19:40:44 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Individual contacts at each airport given to the lowest bidder? Or crony contacting? What could go wrong?

Right!  My thoughts exactly.


Bad idea.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I read a good question on Facebook concerning privatizing air traffic control.  What happens if there is another 9/11?  How are you going to coordinate all these private entities when it comes to national safety?  I would imagine some of them are not going to be too thrilled if the government ordered them to ground their planes and therefore cut into their profits.

[Phoenix84]

Jun 5, 2017 18:58:34 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Jun 5, 2017 17:00:10 GMT -5 Tiny said:

If it happens, I predict that the cost of flying will go up - substantially.  

But with Canada's model, the price of flying went down because of the use of modern technology.

Like I said, the devil is in the details.

I wish some folks from Canada would weigh on the airports situation there...I'm sure some folks were around to airports prior to and after 1996. Can they confirm prices have skyrocketed? Smaller airports have shut down?

Not that I'm advocating one way or another.

It just depends.

This reminds me of a couple years ago...when professor types in my state lost their god-given right to tenure until they pass away. Oh, everything was going to fall apart. I was like FFS, people.

If they did a little research, professors would understand that the new tenure plan they were under was the SAME tenure plan MN moved to 30 years ago. Clearly the MN public university system has been able to find/retain professors. The university system in MN did not just blow away to smithereens, leaving only the flagship left.

But instead of really doing some research and having a wait and see approach and perhaps keeping an open mind about it, all the academic types were doom and gloom complaining about change, because if it's change, it must be bad.

The problem, too, with this approach, is that it pissed off our law makers. It gave them further ammunition to demonize the University system...giving the lawmakers another data point to talk about how out of touch professors were from the populous.

If the professors/academic types had an ounce of sense in them...they wouldn't have made such a big deal about it. It really would have gone a long way to repairing university/lawmaker relations.

Yeah, you don't want to piss off the people who write you checks.