As hardly a week goes by without some kind of close call report at a major airport, the pressure is now on government officials who have been crowing about the renaissance of air traffic control in the U.S. to come up with the goods.
I’m not expecting much and it would seem neither are they. We’ve moved from the ticker tape parade that followed a $12 billion allocation in the Big Beautiful Bill to the process known as “managing expectations.”
I will give the administration this. It’s the first time I can recall a big chunk of cash like that being specifically allocated to a single, well sort of single, purpose. A terrible catastrophe at the airport down the street from the Capitol, the same airport the funding allocators (Congress people) use themselves dozens of times a year and the same airport they made even more dangerous by increasing the number of direct flights to their home constituencies, greased the wheels for sure, but in the end it was a hopeful sign that some ATC modernization will happen. But after shaking the ticker tape from their hair, they quickly came to the inevitable conclusion that $12 billion won’t even scratch the surface of a problem that’s been kicked down the road for so long it’s become a hazard too big to ignore with a cost too high to even contemplate.
Remember those heady days six weeks ago when we were talking about a massive overhaul of the system, with shiny new radars and computers and new control centers, towers and all manner of state-of-the art gear? All that dialogue has disappeared. Last week Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took his first kick at the can and put it through the uprights by calling the $12 billion a “down payment” on the system revamp.
As the week wore on we got hints of where all this is headed with a report in the Air Current that suggests that whole chunk of money will be spent modernizing the communications links between all of the old towers and centers using the same clapped-out computers, monitors, radars and other gear. Don’t get me wrong. Getting rid of the floppies and running some fiber into the facilities will be a big help, but it sure won’t be the wholesale renovation we were promised.
There’s another thing about the way this was handled that may have some long-term effects on the funding of the system as a whole. In the past, the FAA would plan improvements long in advance and, with the understanding that they would take years to complete, asked for funding allocations on a year-by-year basis until the job was done. The allocations were therefore relatively small (think millions rather than billions) and shuffled through the system unnoticed along with funding for everything from paper clips to nuclear weapons.
But Duffy and cohorts made a big deal out of getting money “up front” to tackle ATC modernization, and while the $12 billion pathetically undershoots that mark it is enough to get the attention of those whose livelihoods depend on getting a slice of the federal pie.
Therefore I don’t think it was a coincidence that A4A, the lobby organization that represents the nation’s airlines, picked a former ski resort operator as its new president. Chris Sununu was named to the post last week. He left the slopes of Waterville Valley to become the governor of New Hampshire but with his recent experience he’s just as comfortable in halls of power in Washington as he is in the idyllic mountains of the Northeast.
As the new honcho at A4A, Sununu will be bending the ears of anyone in Washington who matters to ensure that whatever is in store for a “new” ATC that the interests of airlines be considered first. For the last couple of years, the group has been loudly complaining that private aircraft have been clogging up the system, particularly in Florida, by exercising the rights to use that system that are the very reason for their existence. “The non-scheduled and inconsistent non-commercial operations create challenges for our carriers because flight plans are being filed at the latest points possible and some flights are changing destinations enroute,” the former A4A President Nicholas Calio said in a statement in 2023. “All of this creates operational uncertainty for our carriers and the entire National Airspace System.”
You can bet that subject will come up whenever Sununu meets with Duffy or new FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford (a former Republic Airways CEO) to talk about how he’d like to see those billions spent. Undoubtedly that will mean emphasizing improvements that smooth the ride for airlines while pushing aside GA when it gets in the way.
So I hope we can expect to see a blizzard of news releases from AOPA, EAA, NBAA and other GA groups reminding the suddenly flush-with-cash DOT honchos of the crucial role GA plays in society and all the other umbrage that keeps the airlines from getting their way in absolutely everything to do with airspace management.
We can all agree that spending money on the system is a good thing, but we also have to agree that it should benefit all users of that system.
Don’t worry Russ. The current administration is not going to do anything that harms the high end business jet market. On the other hand, I fly my piston twin out of a Class B airport. They just tore our hangars down and told us to get lost. Expect more of that.
It sounds as if your airport needs some active airport association volunteers as well as an AOPA Airport Support Network Volunteer to know how to get appropriate support!
Rol Murrow,
former President 1980’s, Santa Monica Airport Association
Airport Support Network Volunteer, Lindrith Airfield E32
There are levels of business aviation that overlaps GA. There are small business operators that can afford that New Cirrus or maintain a twin. Meanwhile the rest of us are trying to keep our aging airplanes in the air and struggle to find hanger space at most small airports. We will be left behind with this admiration and it’s been happening no matter who is in charge.
In my old professional life, this was known as an “NP-complete” problem. And, like most problems of any complexity, throwing money at it makes the solution of any part of it all the harder, and less likely. No doubt, all that money will be spent. Equally certain is that GA, in my local vernacular, will still end up “sucking hind teat” (if not further aft).
I am becoming, in my waning years of logging hours, more convinced that for the majority of folks, the golden era of practical and affordable GA flying is truly on our six.
Right Back Where We Started From. Great song. But you can backtrack ever five years as far as you wish and hear the same…with soon forgotten individuals, and no results. When the photo op is there, they will all preach their new and grand plan, the same as we’ve heard during this past six months or so. Nothing talk except some excellent photo op time to secure an immediate place in the now projected ATC future…if only any of it could, or would really finally happen. How we doing on that big hiring push? Reality, not just talk. Huh??
The guiding philosophy behind this major legislation is to benefit the big hitters in every corner at the expense of the “least of these” in society. The Big Beautiful Bill is destructive at best and immoral at its worst. The spineless specimens who voted for it know that.
Again Russ, you nailed it. Kicking the can down the road is apt, but again, under the present regime, no one worth less than tens of millions matters.
Good thread on the GA squeeze. Modernization turns into “fair share,” then GA user fees. Might be worth speaking up now, before it’s locked in. I’ve already put this in the NPRM comments.