Donald Trump on Monday unveiled his proposal to hand over control of the U.S. air-traffic control system to a non-profit corporation, fulfilling a long-standing wish of most airlines and calling the current system an antiquated, wasteful mess.
The proposal, part of a week-long push for his infrastructure plan, is designed to lower costs and improve efficiency of the system that oversees flights. It would transfer about 15,000 controllers and thousands of other managers and technical workers to a new government-sanctioned corporation, according to a plan Trump sent to Congress.
Trump used blunt language to attack his own Federal Aviation Administration, saying it wasted billions of dollars in technology and accusing it -- without offering proof -- of using equipment that dated back decades. His language echoed the arguments of such companies as American Airlines Group Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co.
“They didn’t know what they were doing,” he said of previous efforts to modernize the system. “A total waste of money.”
The plan drew immediate support from most airlines but faces some stiff opposition from private aviation groups and in Congress. Most Democrats and some powerful Republicans have resisted transferring this critical service outside of the government.
American, the world’s largest carrier, said it looked forward to working with the Trump administration “to make air travel cleaner, safer and more efficient.”
“The antiquated system we rely on today is inefficient and causes thousands of avoidable flight delays,” Shannon Gilson, a spokeswoman for American, said in an emailed statement. “If we aren’t able to modernize and innovate using the latest technology, the impacts to the traveling public will continue to grow.”
Political Foes
Representative Peter DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the House transportation committee, cited concerns about estimates that the plan would increase the deficit and diminish safety.
“There is no consensus on this short-sighted privatization proposal,” DeFazio, of Oregon, said. “Committee Democrats are working on targeted reforms to help speed up the FAA’s modernization efforts without privatizing the system. We hope these reforms will be bipartisan."