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

Colin GrabowAir 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 over10,000 flights to be delayed and at least 1,300 canceled. While a damageddatabase 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 arelong-standing. Indeed, Congress mandatedtwenty 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 Generalreport noted that the agency has “struggled to integrate key NextGen technologies and capabilities”—a findingconsistent with other reports on the topic —and the particular system that failed this week apparently won’t be updated for anothersix 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 ’snew bookEmpowering the New American Worker:Regarding airline travel, Congress should improve efficiency and quality by transferring air traffic control duties to privately m...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs