Reforming America’s Air Traffic Control system: Paul goes to the policy vault

Before heading up Rio Grande Foundation Paul Gessing headed up government affairs at the DC-based National Taxpayers Union. One project Paul worked on at the time has rocketed to prominence in recent months: the struggling US Air Traffic Control system. In fact, the Trump Administration recently promised to revamp the system and put large sums of money into it.

Paul has worked on a real solution: commercializing air traffic control along the lines of what Canada has done. Read an (old) policy paper here. In 2017 on behalf of RGF, Paul signed this letter to Congress. The fact is that having safety regulation and operations of air traffic control should NOT be under the same government agency.

What’s the solution? NAV Canada is the model. NAV CANADA is Canada’s air navigation service provider, a privately-owned, non-profit corporation responsible for managing Canada’s civil airspace and the North Atlantic oceanic airspace. They provide air traffic control, flight information, and other aeronautical services and do so in a safe manner.

If you don’t want to look at Paul’s old 2003 NTU policy brief, check out a much more recent document advocating for air traffic control privatization from the Cato Institute.

Like pouring more money into government run schools that have few incentives to perform, pouring more money into “reforming” air traffic control is a waste of time unless the incentives are changed.