美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Announces Plan To Privatize Air Traffic Control

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The White House announced a plan today to privatize the U.S. air traffic control system. This is part of the administration's focus this week on the country's aging infrastructure¹. President Trump² says the FAA has been trying to update the air traffic control system for years.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But after billions and billions of tax dollars spent and the many years of delays, we're still stuck with an ancient, broken, antiquated³, horrible system that doesn't work.

MCEVERS: The president's plan to modernize⁴ air traffic control by privatizing it has a number of supporters and some critics, too. Here's NPR's David Schaper.

DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE⁵: President Trump says the nation's air traffic control system is stuck painfully in the past.

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TRUMP: At a time when every passenger has GPS technology in their pockets our air traffic control system still runs on radar⁶ and ground-based radio systems that they don't even make anymore, they can't even fix anymore.

SCHAPER: Flanked by airline executives, the president said flight delays and air traffic control inefficiencies cost the nation's economy billions each year.

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TRUMP: We're proposing reduced wait times, increased route efficiency and far fewer delays. Our plan will get you where you need to go more quickly, more reliably, more affordably.

SCHAPER: The president's plan calls for a three-year transition in which air traffic control operations would be turned over to a private nonprofit entity⁷, similar to how it's done in Canada. The FAA would continue to provide safety oversight⁸ while the private entity would be run by a 13-member board made up of airport and airline executives, labor⁹ unions and other stakeholders.

PAUL HUDSON: The airlines would essentially¹⁰ be in charge of the skies.

SCHAPER: Paul Hudson is president of the passenger advocacy group flyersrights.org. He argues this could be risky¹¹.

HUDSON: Hardly a week goes by that they haven't had a - either a shutdown through computer outages or videos that show mistreatment of passengers. And it goes on and on.

SCHAPER: The Trump plan would eliminate ticket taxes on passengers, replacing it with a more direct funding scheme. And that concerns Democratic Congressman¹² Peter DeFazio of Oregon, ranking member of the House Transportation Committee.

PETER DEFAZIO: What fees are you going to pay to this private corporation to get on the plane? The airlines hate the ticket tax and want to do away with it, but what's the new system? What's that going to do to general aviation? What's that going to do to businesses aviation, cargo¹³? We don't know.

SCHAPER: DeFazio also worries that privatizing air traffic control operations could actually slow recent progress the FAA is making in implementing¹⁴ its new satellite-based system called NextGen. But Robert Puentes, who heads the nonpartisan think tank Eno Center for Transportation, disagrees.

ROBERT PUENTES: There's no doubt that moving to this independent nonprofit system would be able to deploy¹⁶ this new technology faster than the way that we're doing it right now.

SCHAPER: Puentes says years of uncertain budgets and partisan¹⁵ gridlock have slowed the implementation¹⁷ of NextGen, and he argues privatizing air traffic control would provide stability.

PUENTES: This really isn't about deconstructing government. This isn't getting government out of transportation. It's not selling off assets, anything like that. This is really about getting this very important investment done much faster.

SCHAPER: Nonetheless, some Republicans have joined Democrats¹⁸ in opposing efforts to privatize the air traffic control system in the past, so like many other elements of the president's agenda, this plan likely has some turbulence¹⁹ ahead. David Schaper, NPR News.