Feb. 23, 2018
In response to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal calling for ATC privatization, NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association President and CEO Mark Baker quickly corrected the newspaper’s claims. “More than 100 mayors in every state, along with rural groups, airport organizations, chambers of commerce and others understand that under this highly controversial proposal, congressional oversight of the nation’s aviation system would be transferred to a private board effectively dominated by the airlines, and unaccountable to Congress,” they wrote. “The group would have the authority to target funds and other resources toward the large airline hubs, and make self-serving decisions about access to airports and airspace. This growing chorus of voices knows a fundamental truth: A plan to give away our ATC system – a natural monopoly – to the big airlines isn’t a substitute for air traffic modernization, and in fact will impede modernization.”
Read Bolen and Baker’s letter to the editor as it appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Any ATC Reform Must Protect Non-Airlines
A plan to give away our ATC system – a natural monopoly – to the big airlines isn’t a substitute for air traffic modernization.
Regarding your editorial “Private Jet-Setters Against Better Air Travel” (Feb. 15): You support a proposal to essentially give away the American taxpayers’ air-traffic control (ATC) system to the big airlines. You suggest that small communities won’t be harmed by this proposal. More than 100 mayors in every state, along with rural groups, airport organizations, chambers of commerce and others understand that under this highly controversial proposal, congressional oversight of the nation’s aviation system would be transferred to a private board effectively dominated by the airlines, and unaccountable to Congress. The group would have the authority to target funds and other resources toward the large airline hubs, and make self-serving decisions about access to airports and airspace.
Of course these are the same airlines that have dramatically cut service to small towns, which are responsible for the vast majority of their own flight delays and whose consumer treatment prompts one eye-popping news story after another.
The airline-takeover plan the Journal supports has prompted concern or outright opposition from a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers, think tanks on the left and right, the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office, a host of aviation and aerospace leaders (including hero-pilot Capt. Sully Sullenberger), consumer and passenger groups and a majority of American citizens.
This growing chorus of voices knows a fundamental truth: A plan to give away our ATC system—a natural monopoly—to the big airlines isn’t a substitute for air traffic modernization, and in fact will impede modernization.
Mark Baker
President and CEO
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
Ed Bolen
President and CEO
National Business Aviation Association
Washington
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.