Renewed proposal to separate air traffic control from FAA
December 13, 2024
During a 12 December Senate subcommittee (titled US Air Traffic Control Systems, Personnel and Safety), lawmakers were presented with a suggestion that the FAA and ATC might part ways – an idea proposed by Donald Trump in 2017, and coming just weeks before the President Elect is due to resume office.
Held to “examine the impact of the Federal Aviation Administration’s ageing air traffic systems” and associated technical and personnel challenges, the hearing also considered “recommendations to strengthen aviation safety in the United States’ air traffic control system in light of increasing air travel demand and airspace users”. (The FAA anticipates “continued growth and congestion” in its airspace, predicting that air travel will rise annually by an average of 6.2%).
“Separating the provision of air navigation services from the civil aviation authority and butting the ANSP [Air Navigation Service Provider] at arm’s length from its safety regulator… is now the globally recognised best practice,” suggested Marc Scribner, senior transportation policy analyst at the Reason Foundation.
Just 19 of the world’s ANSPs (including the US, Japan and Singapore) operate as part of what Scribner described as “legacy civil aeronautics authorities that also regulate aviation safety,” with three more having moved out of government as an independent nonprofit or partially privatised company.
Scribner also sharply criticised the FAA Air Traffic Organisation (ATO)’s “institutional design,” citing a lack of technical and management expertise, “excessive bureaucracy labelled as oversight,” and its self-identity as a safety agency rather than as a technology provider. Proposing that nearly all the innovations relevant to NextGen (ATC development) come from industry, “these companies are regulated at arm’s length by the FAA – but the ATO is embedded inside the regulator,” he highlighted.
In September 2023, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s study into ageing ATC infrastructure determined that of the FAA’s 138 systems, 37% were “unsustainable” and a further 39% were “potentially unsustainable” – of which 58 were responsible for “critical operational impacts on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace”.
Addressing the subcommittee, Kevin Walsh, director of information technology and cybersecurity at GAO, highlighted that “while FAA has ongoing investments aimed at modernising ageing ATC systems, the agency’s progress to modernise some of the most critical and at-risk systems has been slow” – with the FAA “unable to demonstrate any actions [it is] taking” to address seven recommendations made in September.
The FAA has been approached for comment.
