Five years ago, Bob Poole and I wrote that Canada’s privatized air traffic control (ATC) system would be “a very good reform model for the United States.” U.S. policymakers—including the chairman of the House committee that oversees ATC—are now coming around to that view.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Read the rest of this post →The headquarters of Canada’s air traffic control corporation is becoming a busy destination for U.S. transportation officials and airline executives looking for a model to privatize U.S. airspace management.
John Crichton, chief executive of Nav Canada, has hosted more than a dozen U.S. delegations in the past 18 months as Congress considers stripping U.S. air-traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration—much as Ottawa did 19 years ago.
U.S. admirers—including Rep. Bill Shuster (R., Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee—advocate similarly extricating air-traffic control from the FAA and its parent, the Transportation Department. They say that would assure more reliable funding than the current mix of taxes and congressional appropriations, and could help advance NextGen, a $40 billion FAA air-traffic modernization program criticized by government watchdogs for being delayed and over budget.
Mr. Shuster has been preparing a bill that could establish a Nav Canada-like corporate structure for the U.S. He may introduce it as soon as November, people familiar with the matter said.