NATCA contributes more money to their Political Action Committee than ALPA members do... even though they only have 1/3 of our numbers. They know what's up. That's why privatization NEVER gets off the ground. Ain't happening. BACK THE PAC baby!!

 

Consider me an early adopter :-D

 

From our AI overlords:

"According to several aviation experts, Canada is widely considered to have one of the safest Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems in the world, primarily due to its privatized system managed by Nav Canada, which allows for quicker adoption of new technologies and efficient operations compared to many government-run ATC systems."

https://www.google.com/search?q=whic...hrome&ie=UTF-8

 

You’re acting as though we don’t already have mishaps/mid-airs and the like caused by ATC. I doubt our safety record is any statically different than other western countries with privatized ATC.

 

I was waiting for someone to mention NavCanada. Our Citation operation would get a bill in the mail six months after we went there. Radio calls are short!

Im not sure the .gov is the best way to do it considering they literally lost a gazillion defense dollars. Maybe the gov can run the critical areas and leave enroute to private companies.

Take a look at NASA vs Space X as an example.

 

Kinda my point. And that does not make sense if you want competition. If the railway was owned by the state, and up for rent, a company wanting to compete with CSX could very easily buy a train. Now that CSX owns the rails, the only way to compete would be to first lay a railway system which is not only practically impossible, but a waste of resources, because there is a railway system alraedy, so CSX is safe in their monopoly. The same would apply if you privatised ATC, and without competition you might as well have the Gov run it.

 

No, It is more like ships and harbors. The ocean is plenty big, so ships aren't charged or controlled until they enter the harbor. Having competing harbor masters would not make sense, having one is a monopoly, and at that point it doesn't matter if it is private or state run.

 

Responded before I saw your reply. 🤐

 

The first bid might have competition, thereafter there would only ever be one bidder, the one that won the first bid, because no company could take over from scratch competitevely. What you would be doing privatizing ATC would be like setting up private toll roads. The government set up this whole ATC system, and now you let someone buy it with the promise they will maintain it, and charge the airlines for doing so. You would expect that company to invest and improve that system. Now it is time for a renewal bid. Do you expect the other bidders to pay the old company for those improvements? If you don't, there is a very high barrier to improvements, if you do there is a very high barrier to competition. And having multiple companies running a patchwork of centers is IMO an even worse idea. The only ones I know that are not straight .gov are NavCan and EuroControl. Neither have renewal bidding, and EC is pretty much an EU civil service. Both are monopolies.

The Colombia River pilots is an association of about 45 pilots, who are licensed by the state, again, a monopoly, and very regulated, no contract renewal by anybody else since 1899.

Source for the most other countries outsourcing ATC would be nice.

 

This is 100% not correct. The military does this all the time. Soemtimes the incumbent *assumes* they will be a shoe-in, but sometimes they get an ugly suprise.

The way the mil (and presumably other agencies) arrange such things is by structuring the contracts such that it *can* be awarded to a competitor in the future, to avoid the effective monopoly you suggested. .Gov may be dumb, but they're not *that* dumb.

For example, the initial award might be for facilities, hardware, software, and operations. Ops being the staff. But the facilities and hardware might be a purchase (or long-term lease), software indefinite lease with maintenance, and operations fixed term. You can swap out the ops and software independently of each other as needed.

Of interest, it's common for many of the employees to stay across contracts, by simply switching to the new company. I've also seen them not stay, because the new employer didn't want to pay enough... that could be a good thing or a bad thing short term but tends to even out in the long run.

As I've said a couple times already, it has to be structured properly, and it's still going to be as effecient pure private-sector business. But done properly, it's more efficient than .gov doing it with civil servants.