Originally Posted by
invisible
Without discussing personality of the President and evil intention of airline executives, couple questions come into mind:
- Is privatization of ATC doable?
- How much average fees (i would assume departure tax) should increase to (this is important) entirely cover infrastructure modernization costs?
- How privatization of ATC would prevent repeating of 1981 incident?
Yes.
More than the airlines want to pay.
It wouldn't.
Originally Posted by
Syrgul
I don't know anything about subsidies or taxes, but if ATC is privatized, I could see airlines enforcing their own ATC companies in different airports where they have hubs. Which in turn would lead to those airlines preferring to fly only into airports where their ATC company is in control, in order to minimize costs, that turns into a reduction of routes across the board and individual monopolies in select regions.
I don't think that the privatization would see different ATC rates per airport necessarily, but the overall shift in costs and process is one that I believe would be bad for the overall airspace in the USA.
Yes, modernization is necessary. But the main problem the FAA has faced recently is political motivations around proper funding. Shifting to a privately managed operation would potentially remove some of the politics and replace it with other challenges to effectively and appropriately sharing the necessary costs of operating such a system.