Trump announces plans to privatize US air traffic control system | Hacker News Reader

Trump announces plans to privatize US air traffic control system

bloomberg.com

50 pointspetergatsby87 comments

A monolithic private institution doesn't inspire confidence in me any more than a monolithic public one. I don't see the purpose in switching one for the other, and would probably rather see it run by the government.

If it was replacing the current system with one where you had 12 different companies competing with one another, maybe so but I don't really see the benefit in what I'm reading. But I don't feel strongly about it.

What worries me the most about this in some ways is how it seems to be focused on the large airlines and not on passengers and private pilots. This is the current trend that disturbs me the most about Trump and the GOP: they seem pretty blatantly to be representing large corporations and their own party rather than the public at large. The assumption seems to be that what benefits the fat cats is what benefits everyone.

I'm not anti-large-corporation per se, but a big part of the reason for democracy is to protect the average person.

I don't really see any arguments here other than "it makes the airlines happy." As if they needed more latitude.

"The New York metropolitan area is the single largest aviation market in the United States. Last year, there were nearly 33 million domestic origin and destination passengers that came to and from the three major New York airports (LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark). Nearly 60% of the total delays endured by these passengers are a result of today’s inefficient air traffic control, among the highest in the nation."

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/air-traffic-control-tech-...

I recommend you explain what benefit a transfer to private administration would offer, because the article doesn't actually make any statement about what would improve.

According to the article, which does not cite any study or even interview a single official or anyone from the airlines, there are two obstacles posed by the current "inefficient" system:

1) Antiquated technology, and 2) insufficient staffing levels.

To remedy these issues, we would need to look at solutions for the existing system and compare them with the new one.

I actually don't disagree that a private organization might be better; if the limits on staffing and equipment procurement are imposed by Congress, then it might be better for a private organization to simply raise rates on airlines to account for the increased costs.

>if the limits on staffing and equipment procurement are imposed by Congress, then it might be better for a private organization to simply raise rates on airlines to account for the increased costs.

Except the Airlines are the ones who would staff the board of the proposed non-profit, so that won't happen.

The parent comment asked what the benefits could be, since deaths seem low. I listed some potential benefits, written by someone who used to work in NYC air traffic control. The article says the FAA doesn't have the experience or expertise to manage an ATC upgrade.

I don't have a position on what would be the most effective way to get there. I am guessing more funding, either public or private, would lead to an improvement.

Sure, let me help explain the benefit of moving away from privatised government style external government contracting for software.

First government style contracting in high security scenarios lends itself to 10-20year contracts, no lie, anywhere from 10mil to 100mil a piece. The worst part is, the companies building the software companies are not software companies, they are dinosauric companies slowly dying.

Basically its the technological infrastructure.

So I work for a state mandated company thats an independent group, we actually set competitive markets and openly monitor but not as a government entity, but we are subject to follow state compliance rules as in, no employees who monitor the markets we set, are allowed to invest and profit in those companies in the stock market or have children or be married to people who do etc.

Anyways, in most cases though, because our security is high, we contract software much like the federal government does, and its horrific.

most of the issues you see with cascading flight cancellations, air traffic control issues, gas control problems etc, not being able to keep track of regulations well enough to streamline and lower barrier for new companies etc...is due to horrible..horrible software.

Privatizing and allowing companies to come in and truly compete and new software to come in takes away the 10million dollar ten year government contract software companies who do as little as possible and charge $200k for a new feature that should have been moldularized in the core functionality in the first place.

Want an API? How about 85 pages of doucmentation that took 150 meetings to put together, none by the actual software engineers...

This crap can't continue in large scale infrastructure where competition needs to come in and rescue the crippling energy and transportation issues that burden the people with horrible services and no other choices.

> A monolithic private institution doesn't inspire confidence in me any more than a monolithic public one. I don't see the purpose in switching one for the other, and would probably rather see it run by the government.

Indeed; this is why almost all "let's privatize X" initiatives are ultimately pointless (or perhaps even counterproductive). They merely shift the monopoly-holder from public-sector to private-sector, without alleviating the "there is a monopoly" status. Indeed, the private sector's legendary efficiency advantage specifically occurs when there is competition, and is not some magical thing that is endowed to the private sector and forbidden from the public sector.

In some circumstances

> the private sector's legendary efficiency advantage

is in fact:

  the private sector's _mythical_ efficiency advantage

Right; my point is that your "some" circumstances are precisely those under which there is no competitive pressure.

(Which is to say, the private sector very much does have an efficiency advantage when there is a competitive market. Because only then is everyone in that market personally motivated, by the "vice" of greed, to be virtuously efficient. The only exception is what some people call a "monopoly par excellence"; a firm without competitors which nevertheless acts as though it has them.)

If even one company came in and wrote software with

1. an API written by a software engineer

2. code written post 1970s that knew how to write a for loop and allocate memory

Then we would all be better off....I promise...

Its hard for me to...describe how bad it is...

Can you clarify this a little? Have you seen or worked with ATC code? I can believe some of your other comments about poor API specs, old code, aging infrastructure, etc., but I'm curious about your loop and allocation comments. My understanding is mission-critical software often has very strict formal verifications and bounds checking processes it goes through, and one of the techniques in those conditions involves loop unrolling. The absence of loops doesn't (always) mean bad software if it's designed to save lives. Just wanting to understand this particular complaint.

What do you see these companies competing for?

Software government contracts from 10million- to around 100-500million a piece per state in which they are utilized in.

Basically its the technological infrastructure.

Anyways, in most cases though, because our security is high, we contract software much like the federal government does, and its horrific.

Want an API? How about 85 pages of doucmentation that took 150 meetings to put together, none by the actual software engineers...

One you step outside of silicon valley, or Seattle or the tech scene in NY, the world is a scary place, and there is alot of low hanging fruit to be had for software for the betterment of everyone.

Do you know how to write a for loop? ok good, you could probably do better...

I'm not joking.

My guess is that he has some personal vendetta against them for something that happened causing him to be delayed 5 minutes on his private jet.

not quite; a Republican Congressman has had this plan ready to go for some time, and it fits the theme of "infrastructure" so it was easy to do an announcement about it.

The personal vendetta, while probably true on some level, seems too easy of an answer. This is one of many privatization initiatives this administration is going to take.

The focus initially will be to find government run agencies that can be profitable in the private sector. Think in terms of toll roads/bridges for infrastructure, air traffic control and student loans to name a few. Whether or not if privatization is the right answer is debateable but it is probably going to happen in one form or another.

The question is: Who will benefit by owning these companies? Look to the privatization of the USSR as a worst possible outcome. Large former government run industries given to private ownership that instantly created a strong oligarchy class.

How well has democracy worked in Russia since that happened?

> How well has democracy worked in Russia since that happened?

It's worked great for the oligarchs! I honestly think the Republican party sees that as the ideal outcome: create a strong kleptocratic class that can use their wealth to perpetuate Republican control.

The article said this would be a non-profit company... but then again this is the US and look at all the non-profit multi millionaire preachers. Or the non-profit Goodwill with exorbitant salaries for execs.

It would have to have been from before his presidency - he doesn't fly around on a private jet anymore but a US Air Force plane that, not only because of the fact of it being a military plane, but also because it is the most important military plane when he's on it, is the exception to most air traffic control rules.

Doesn't a lot of the expense of government run programs come from the retirement benefits? The government assumes the risk (pension) instead of the employee (401K).

As an aside, according to a controller I know, a lot of FAA employees are retiring soon and at about the same time. A large cohort of controllers were hired about the same time to replace the fired striking PATCO [1] controllers in the early 80's.

[1] PATCO Professional Air Traffic Controllers

Yep, lots of the current controllers are retiring right now, and even more have their 20 years and could retire before the mandatory retirement age of 56 if things change in a way that makes it not in their best interest to keep working.

I'm currently part of a hiring wave meant to replace those controllers. Around 1400 people are being hired in my bid alone. ATC has been my get-out-of-software plan, but depending how things shake out, if the compensation doesn't stay the same for newcomers, I expect I'll have to run back to software. I'm a little concerned that this new private entity will compensate the old timers to keep them on and keep the union on board, and throw newcomers under the bus for the sake of 'efficiency', which would keep things running short-term, and leave them with a sudden lack of talent in five or ten years. But I'm not an expert on how these things turn out, just highly cynical about a private corp's ability to think long-term.

Why. I don't get this at all. Why privatize? What is the benefit? All I see this doing is decreasing safety.

Simple. This is a union-busting move. This would squash the National Air Trafic Controllers Association[1] as a public union.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_Traffic_Controlle...

I don't think Republicans would mind busting a union but that is far from the primary motivation.

Private organizations are more efficient than governmental ones. Ideally the way they are managed/regulated will remain the same. It would be really neat to see some innovation here as well, with governmental agencies there really isn't an incentive to break the status quo.

edit: If you're downvoting at least comment with why you think this isn't the case

There is a reason that air traffic is tightly controlled, primarily there is massive public risk for minimal errors.

There is a saying that the FARs are written in blood, as in regulations aren't passed willy-nilly, but passed after there has been a serious incident.

Air traffic is one place where "Iterate quickly and break shit" doesn't work. What happens when in the name of "efficiency", one tower reduces current safety limits because "99% of the time these are unnecessary", then the one time it actually was necessary, you've got two jets about to make a head-on collision, or one quickly changes course, loses control, and crash-lands into a town.

There are absolutely improvments that can be made with the FAA, but privatizing ATC is definitely not one of them.

Well then don't iterate quickly. Ideally they would introduce some automation that removes human error.

I see what you're saying, but couldn't these same regulations be applied to private industry?

You don't necessarily need 0 governmental oversight for it to be private.

I find the proposal suspect, but this seems like fear-mongering. Planes are already built and operated by private companies, yet I don't see them "iterating quickly and breaking shit". Of course the FARs have much to do with that, but it's not like they'll stop existing.

Is this really that controversial? Competition only exists in Capitalism, if there's no competition, then there's little benefit to improve.

> Competition only exists in Capitalism, if there's no competition, then there's little benefit to improve

That's both insane and inane. There's a simple incentive to improve aviation safety that has nothing to do with capitalist competition: people don't want to die in plane crashes. Airlines, otoh, would be happy to be able to cut corners and save billions at the slight cost of a few dozen more customer fatalities per year. Putting Airline is control of ATC by proxy will ensure the latter outcome.

Yeah, but private orgs usually like to play fast and loose with safety regulations to cut costs and increase efficiency. I believe ATCs top priority should be safety, and efficiency should be secondary.

Without having multiple competing private orgs, what incentive do they have to be more efficient instead of sitting on their butts as usual?

(I'm not saying that privatization alone has no potential or that it is not necessary; I merely question whether it is sufficient.)

Over the last 30 years I have worked for or with for profit corporations, government agencies and the type of non-profit government formed corporation being discussed here. In general I haven't found for profit corporations to be intrinsically more efficient than government agencies of the same scope of mission. In fact many have been less efficient than the government agencies I have worked with. And many of the least efficient places have been the government established non-profit corporations. Take a look at the USPS, Amtrak, FDIC, or PBGC for examples.

I like the idea of government established nonprofits in theory, but as an additional option rather than the only choice. The idea is that they serve as a guard against excessive profiteering by private sector organizations. Municipal broadband networks are a good example of this in practice.

Seems to have worked for Canada. Non-profit private sector organization, and they don't seem to have any more air disasters than anywhere else.

Right, but why. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Is there any evidence that our current system doesn't work?

That is usually pretty powerful "evidence".

Doesn't really compare. The US sets de-facto global aviation safety standards; Canada does not. Regulatory capture of Canada's ATC wouldn't move the needle, this absolutely will.

Interesting. The famous example is UK private railways that became bad very quickly. Again Canada is balanced.

Here's a helpful article: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/air-traffic-control-tech-...

The article's argument is that the current U.S. ATC system is understaffed and has antiquated equipment. It doesn't actually help explain what privatization would accomplish.

You get fired for complaining? (I'm only half in jest, here.)

Reduce the size of government.

Union-busting and multiple someones get to make a lot of money. All of them are likely funneling some of said future money into the pockets of those pushing for this privatization as well.

> Donald Trump on Monday unveiled his proposal to hand over control of the U.S. air-traffic control system to a non-profit corporation, calling the current system an antiquated mess that doesn’t work and wastes money.

Did someone point out to this idiot that we are having a string of years where there are no deaths in domestic commercial travel. Whatever is happening in the US Traffic System appears to be working really well.

I also think that president holds a person vendetta against the FAA because it told him he could not land his plane somewhere or an air traffic controller delayed him by a couple of minutes.

These people are not being fired, just being transferred to a new company. I believe they will continue to perform at the same level. And with a non-gov entity we also get the benefit of optimal resource allocation. A win-win for everyone. Only reason of opposing this would be personal vendetta against Trump.

with a non-gov entity we also get the benefit of optimal resource allocation

How do you figure?

Unless there are to be multiple competing ATC firms, such an efficiency gain is impossible.

Not referencing a whole field dedicated to this. Just sharing an anecdote. My father works for a government mining company. His job is that of a translator. Now no one use the language he was supposed to translate from. So he goes to office does some stuff and come backs home. We get govt housing and energy, medical (children till 25 and employees parent till death, two paid yearly holidays for the whole family.

And it pains you that the mine isn't privatized so that the new CEO can fire your father and buy himself an extra yacht?

> with a non-gov entity we also get the benefit of optimal resource allocation

Yes, we know this must be the ultimate truth, always, everywhere, because Ayn Rand says so.

> with a non-gov entity we also get the benefit of optimal resource allocation

I can only assume that you have never worked for a large corporation.

Not to mention that the phrase 'optimal resource allocation' is ambiguous in the extreme; what function are you minimizing?

Which must have happened before he became President. Air Force One gets to hear something before anyone else: "cleared to land".

Indeed he has something against air traffic in general.

I remember an article where it claimed someone told him to buy a house near airport and sue them for noise. According to Wikipedia he did it twice and lost twice teen sold the property.

Here is another article on same subject:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/13/luxury/trump-palm-beach-laws...

Maybe you're the idiot, if you think that passenger fatalities is the only metric that matters(note: it matters a lot!)

How can you know how well the US ATC is operating if you don't know how much money they spend? If they spent 10x what they currently do(but still had no passenger fatalities), would you say everything is great?

The average person can reasonably afford to buy a plane ticket to travel across the US. Right now, the odds of them dying is really low. In fact, so low that driving to the airport puts them in more danger than flying across the country.

We can take that system and throw it out and see if we can change it with zero guarantee of success to save all of $5 or maybe $10 (Just a guess). I don't know about you, but I am happy with the current system and it's costs.

You don't even know how much the current system costs, how can you be happy with it? This goes back to my statement about perhaps you are the idiot. Not because you are against this move by Trump, but because you have a strong opinion on it while knowing almost nothing about the system in question.

While I would have liked to find a source other than the Cato institute for it (https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-pursues-air-traffic-control-...):

The airlines are for it, the key labor union is for it, aviation experts are for it, and the second-largest nation on earth did it. Canada privatized its system in 1996, and today the nonprofit Nav Canada is on the leading edge of ATC efficiency and innovation.

Ah, yes, Cato Institute, that paragon of unbiased, reality-based thought.

Indeed . . . that is why I would have preferred another source. I have read very similar things from better sources, but I was not able to find them, today.

EDIT: Here is one from the Economist from last year describing NAV Canada in favourable terms as compared to the FAA.: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2170347...

And the Wall Street Journal (paywalled): https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-canadian-air-traffic-contro...

And the Financial Post (part of Canada's National Post): http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/u-s-lo...

There are already ATC towers that are operated by private companies, so in a way, this is just accelerating the existing trend.

That said, if it ain't broke, why bother trying to "fix" it? US air is the safest in the world, it's rules are literally written in blood. This is one area, where I'd like to see less, not more, privatization.

Safety, and not profit (or cost-reduction), should be the driving incentive for something so critical, and so fault-sensitive.

I caught a snippet of his comments, complaining about managing "thousands of flights" using "slips of paper".

It's been a few years, but I recall reading at least one article wherein was described how those slips of paper actually made a lot of sense. (It may have been one of the articles that made the rounds, describing the surprising endurance and resilience of paper-based work.)

The slips of paper supported both regular and immediate, ad hoc workflows as they were needed. Also, paper is immune to systems failures. Your electronic board goes down -- you still have all your flights at hand. Start spacing them and shoving incoming traffic into wider holding patterns.

Judging by how the privatization of rail traffic in the UK worked out - terrible idea!

The situations are not remotely analogous.

The UK's privatised air-traffic system is a model studied Worldwide; the stakeholders include a group of seven airlines, yet it remains non-partisan and is amongst the most efficient globally.

Outside of NavCanada, does anyone know if there are any other private entities that manage ATC?

From the Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2170347...):

Over the past couple of decades more than 50 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, have privatised (or at least “commercialised”) their ATC services, . . .

I'm cautious to say this is a good idea, but I'm also optimistic the private sector would be more efficient than the public sector.

I too look forward to the grand efficiencies that can only come from upholding share holder value above customer safety. Flying will be so much more exciting.

It would be a non-profit corporation. This doesn't have anything to do with increasing shareholder value.

But it would be controlled by a board, which would include representatives of the big airlines, and several other seats that could likely end up controlled by the same. So, effectively, I'd expect them to end up beholden to airline company shareholders moreso than the agency currently is.

Just because there's no incentive to reward shareholders doesn't mean there isn't incentive to maximize efficiency. Too many people wrongly assume that just because it says nonprofit that they are instantly humanitarians working toward the betterment of society.

> This doesn't have anything to do with increasing shareholder value.

> The plan drew immediate support from most airlines

> the White House said the 13-member board of directors for the new corporation should be made up of appointees from industry stakeholder groups

How about having directors nominated by those who actually pay the bills, the passengers?

So are the RIAA/MPAA and the NFL until recently.

When did we decide efficiency was the goal of air traffic control? I want the thing to be effective and reliable, efficiency is way down the list here.

Do you think government performs better in that regard than well regulated private industry? There are plenty of air-traffic control horror stories, and it appears to be systemic: https://www.rt.com/usa/312138-secret-faa-study-chronic-fatig...

Don't forget to take everything RT says with a pretty major "grain of salt."

As in, RT doesn't allow content that doesn't criticize America to be published.

Right, but part of efficiency improvements would probably include some level of automation, which would be more safe in the end.

lot of hedging there.

What you're referring to is a research project, not a deployable one.

I agree it's worth researching. Common industrial research grants with a mixture of government and private funding can perform the research and develop it.

And those improvements may be deployed to the sector whether it's private or not. There's no need to pre-emptively privatize the industry to perform R & D.

Perhaps efficiency was a bad word. The private sector is able to make changes and fix problems faster than the public sector. Easier to fire a bad controller, or fix a problem in a private environment.

Yes cause it works so well with health insurance, right ?

Privatizing something does not magically make it more efficient. The market tends to produce more efficient solutions than government because it tries many different approaches simultaneously, and they compete against each other. This probably won't work for air traffic control because it will be so regulated that innovation will be impossible (if innovation was even possible there in the first place). Furthermore, I doubt that the air traffic control market will be highly competitive - regulation will probably drive the market to cartel conditions.

In all likelihood this will result in a small price decrease coupled with degraded service.

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