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AOPA, NBAA Decry WSJ’s ATC Stand

By Mary Grady | February 19, 2018

A Wall Street Journal editorial last week said it would be a good idea
to privatize the air traffic control system, and singled out the
opposition by NBAA and AOPA for critique. “What’s really going on,”
the WSJ editorial board says, is that the business jet industry pays
just 0.6 percent of aviation user taxes, though it accounts for 11 to
13 percent of controlled traffic. “The industry would like to keep it
that way,” the board says. NBAA and AOPA were quick to respond in
their own defense. In a rebuttal posted on their website, NBAA says
the WSJ editorial is incorrect in a number of key statements.

The Journal says only one seat on the proposed nonprofit board for ATC
would be held by the airlines, but NBAA notes that eight of the 13
board seats would be held by “airline-centric interests,” with only
two seats for GA. The editorial singled out NBAA and AOPA and “the
lobbyists for the paupers known as the corporate jet lobby” for
opposing privatization, but AOPA’s rebuttal noted that the newspaper
“ignored more than 200 GA groups as well as more than 100 mayors in
every state, airport organizations, chambers of commerce, and others
who have reviewed the [ATC privatization] proposal and reached a very
different conclusion.” AOPA and NBAA have jointly submitted a letter
to the editor with their arguments against the points made in the
editorial.