CNN article on problems in Air Travel, as seen by FAA

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:07:05 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:52:22 GMT, (John Kulp)
wrote in :


a. why is the FAA going ahead with the building of the system?

The former Clinton administration opposed ATC privatization.

It also opposed social security privatization which the Swedes have
done quite well


The current administration wants to privatize virtually every
government service. In the case of the FAA, privatization would
enable FAA to cut their workforce significantly, dodge liability
exposure, and open the federal coffers to by outsourcing to big
business.

How does that work? Why wouldn't the government just be getting out
of the business?


Big business benefits from government privatization. Consider
Halliburton's contract to do the Army's laundry in Iraq[1] for
example.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Depends on the contract.


Privatization also removes government accountability; private
corporations are not subject to FOIA requests, for example.

Why should the government be accountable for something they are no
longer doing. Private corporations are subject to their auditors,
customers, Sarbanes-Oxley and a whole host of other things.



b. why are the airlines backing that change?

The airline industry, including the airliner manufacturers, would like
nothing better than to remove congressional FAA budget oversight, and
wrest the balanced governmental allocation of National Airspace System
resources from US citizens, so that they can advance their air carrier
agenda at the expense of other airspace users. Airliner manufacturer,
Boeing, is also in the privatized ATC business.[2]

Why not if they can do it better and cheaper than the government,
which is a virtual sure thing. Who else but the government do you
know that is still using WWII technology like the FAA?