In an attempt to gain support for the plan, which fell short in Congress last year, the White House said the 13-member board of directors for the new corporation should be insulated from industry stakeholder groups. Critics had charged the proposal last year gave too much power on the board to airlines.
The plan is part of the White House’s goal to transform U.S. infrastructure. Later this week Trump is expected to travel to Ohio to garner support for his strategy -- a key campaign promise -- to channel $1 trillion into the nation’s roads, bridges, inland waterways and other public facilities.
Trump’s View
Even though the FAA is spending more than $1 billion a year on air-traffic modernization efforts, Trump has embraced the spinoff because it jibes with his vision of shrinking government and making it more efficient, said DJ Gribbin, a special assistant to the president who gave a briefing on the plan Monday morning.
“All of those elements line up very nicely with the president’s view” of how to run government, Gribbin said.
Trump’s harsh words about the current system overstated some of the problems the FAA has encountered in recent decades, according to agency records and reports by the Transportation Department’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office.
More than 50 years after the creation of the U.S. air-traffic system, “the government is still using much of the exact same outdated technology,” Trump said.
Upgrades to System
While airlines would prefer the FAA adopted technology faster, the agency has gone through multiple generations of upgrades to its radars, communications and computers, according to the reports. The FAA has already installed a network to monitor planes using satellite navigation instead of radar, though most planes aren’t yet equipped with the devices.
The president said the current system causes “flight delays and crippling inefficiencies, costing our economy as much as $25 billion a year in economic output."