Saturday, August 13, 2005
The Breaking Dawn
The AOPA may just be getting a glimmer of what the FAA has planned for aviation.
There’s an interesting GAO report floating around with the rather unwieldy title of “Characteristics and Performance of Selected International Air Navigation Service Providers and Lessons Learned from Their Commercialization”. The link provided opens a PDF file. Open it, then word search for the term ‘fee’.
You will now see what has raised AOPA eyebrows; numerous mentions of fee-for-service. The GAO report seems to be paving the way for a commercialized ATC system including towers and centers, likely to result in greater general aviation fees. Couple this report with the current out-sourcing of Flight Service, the GAO report we referenced earlier, and the intent seems clear; the eventual outsourcing or commercialization of all ATC functions.
FSS controllers have been trying to explain this to AOPA for some time; the FSS contract to Lockheed Martin is the ‘gateway’ to other such contracts in ATC. It has been rumored that the FAA would like to be out of the ATC business by 2025, and LM people have been heard saying quite directly that, given the groundwork already in place for the FSS contract, it wouldn’t take much additional work to contract and operate the centers and tower approach controls.
That level of contracting faces significant political resistance from both Capitol Hill and the AOPA, who have sworn to resist any out-sourcing of these services. It will have to be done piecemeal. Expect it to start with the level 5 towers in about two, maybe three years. Then the FAA will work up the chain through levels 6 and higher until all that is left are the towers with associated approach controls (TRACONs). Once that point is reached the FAA will boast about how safe and efficient the contract system is, muting any objections.
Mr. Boyer has been penny-wise and pound-foolish. His lackey-like acceptance of the FSS contract will be a major stepping stone to the fees he fears most.
There’s an interesting GAO report floating around with the rather unwieldy title of “Characteristics and Performance of Selected International Air Navigation Service Providers and Lessons Learned from Their Commercialization”. The link provided opens a PDF file. Open it, then word search for the term ‘fee’.
You will now see what has raised AOPA eyebrows; numerous mentions of fee-for-service. The GAO report seems to be paving the way for a commercialized ATC system including towers and centers, likely to result in greater general aviation fees. Couple this report with the current out-sourcing of Flight Service, the GAO report we referenced earlier, and the intent seems clear; the eventual outsourcing or commercialization of all ATC functions.
FSS controllers have been trying to explain this to AOPA for some time; the FSS contract to Lockheed Martin is the ‘gateway’ to other such contracts in ATC. It has been rumored that the FAA would like to be out of the ATC business by 2025, and LM people have been heard saying quite directly that, given the groundwork already in place for the FSS contract, it wouldn’t take much additional work to contract and operate the centers and tower approach controls.
That level of contracting faces significant political resistance from both Capitol Hill and the AOPA, who have sworn to resist any out-sourcing of these services. It will have to be done piecemeal. Expect it to start with the level 5 towers in about two, maybe three years. Then the FAA will work up the chain through levels 6 and higher until all that is left are the towers with associated approach controls (TRACONs). Once that point is reached the FAA will boast about how safe and efficient the contract system is, muting any objections.
Mr. Boyer has been penny-wise and pound-foolish. His lackey-like acceptance of the FSS contract will be a major stepping stone to the fees he fears most.
# posted by Skywise @ 7:23 AM 
