Control Tower Controversy brewing in the FAA

"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message
...
"Tarver Engineering" writes:
"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message
...
"Steven P. McNicoll" writes:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

I agree that you need "perfect" competition to yield perfectly low
prices, but perfect competition rarely exists in the real world as
it
requires consumers to have perfect knowledge of all alternate
products
and their prices. A regional system is far from perfect, but it
would
provide much more competition than exists now, but certainly far
from
perfect competition.

It wouldn't provide any real competition. The users wouldn't have
a choice in providers.

And right you are. ATC has a very limited clientele and
providing 365/24 service is very expensive. Until the day
arrives when you can walk into Radio Shack or Circuit City
to select which ATC provider you want to use, there isn't
any competition in the consumer sense of the word.

I would presume that any privatizing of ATC would involve the
Feds awarding a contract or contracts to the "most qualified"
bidder having the best price.

Who (objectively) determines and quantifies the qualifications?
One can easily envision contracts being awarded to the organization
that has made the largest campaign contributions (bribes) to the
political party in power at the time.

What would be the transition process? A contractor can't just
walk in on day 1 and tell all the controllers that they're on
the street and are being replaced by a machine.

That sinerio is why contractors are required, as the regular controllers
will no co-operate with the elimination of their work.

There'll be another set of contractors to handle the transition
from one contract to another?

What?

Have you ever been involved in the transition from one contractor
to the next for a continuing service contract?

Sure, Knutson and I gutted a governemtn contractor when we left Dryden.

Do it once and
you'll swear to never get involved in any such thing ever again.

I was also a contractor at Boeing in '97, when much tabbing was automated.

The departing contractor has no motivation to assist making the
transition go well...

That depends on what happens to the previous contractor's people.

I believe Federal ATC still has time to cooperate and keep the contractors
out.

Here is another possibility. Maybe the FAA filled so many key management
positions in safety areas with incompetent minorities and women that
privatization is the only way to clean it up? 8 years of Clinton filled
the Government at all directions with women, minorities and homosexuals
many of whom are incompetent or unqualified. Now they are entrenched
pushing social agendas rather than air safety. Maybe that is the real
reason for private takeover???

I understand the real reason for the NASA problems is retirement of
"white male" experts only to be taken over by unqualified minorities. It
is not politically correct to exam the possibility but it's looking like
NASA, the FAA and other high technology Government organizations are
suffering because of social agendas and politically correct hiring
practices.

Private companies with money and profit in mind are not so bound by PC
and social engineering.

Kevin Wetzel - ISP Toolz wrote:

"David H" wrote in message
...
Will Alaska (and other states with votes that the administration thinks
they can woo) also get an exemption from the recent legislation that
specifies that seafood inspectors are "inherantly governmental" and thus
can't be privatized?

The Bush administration sure does seem to have a major bug up its ass
about forcing ATC privatization - WHY? At the same time they're
declaring things like seafood inspectors are inherantly governmental
(not to mention those federal employees who screen baggage for nail
clippers). There's something here that doesn't quite add up. They seem
really, really intent on pushing ATC privatization. What's really
behind this?

Who stands to gain from ATC privatization? Are there major businesses
that do this now, and others that are quietly preparing to pick up some
fat federal ATC contracts? Do these companies have any connection to
the white house and friends?

"Follow the money...."


COMMENTS:
I completely agree that there is an alternative driving force behind this.
Once of the funny things that I see is that if the white house were to
privatize the ATC functions it would have just another person to blame
outside the government for its failure to fix security related issues, the
increase in traffic as seen at airports (delays, longer holding patterns,
etc). If they really wanted to fix this issue they should probably start by
giving airports more grants and funding to accomplish advances in ATC
instead of trying to privatize it and then point the finger later at the
contractors failures. The federal government has pretty much failed in
regard to making these systems better for pilots. Instead of changing the
people they should change the bogus TFR's that pop up out of nowhere and
serve no real purpose. Im tired for one of a government that restricts the
population for its own personal uses and gains (or the gains of those
elected). If each one of the elected officials in Washington were affected
by TFR's, privatization of ATC and other issues you can bet that the rules
of engagement would have changed and for one the ADIZ in Washington DC
(which serves no purpose to prevent terrorism at all) would have been
removed by now. As I see it at 400MPH they could'nt stop a jetliner in time
anyway with the size of the ADIZ. Anyway im not gonna ramble on. I think the
entire system needs to be looked at and changed.

Kevin Wetzel
ISP Toolz
http://www.isptoolz.com/

JJ wrote in message ...
Here is another possibility. Maybe the FAA filled so many key management
positions in safety areas with incompetent minorities and women that
privatization is the only way to clean it up? 8 years of Clinton filled
the Government at all directions with women, minorities and homosexuals
many of whom are incompetent or unqualified. Now they are entrenched
pushing social agendas rather than air safety. Maybe that is the real
reason for private takeover???

Nice try, Troll. Back to alt.atlanta or ny.politics now.

Sydney

"Snowbird" wrote in message
om...
JJ wrote in message
...
Here is another possibility. Maybe the FAA filled so many key management
positions in safety areas with incompetent minorities and women that
privatization is the only way to clean it up? 8 years of Clinton filled
the Government at all directions with women, minorities and homosexuals
many of whom are incompetent or unqualified. Now they are entrenched
pushing social agendas rather than air safety. Maybe that is the real
reason for private takeover???

Nice try, Troll. Back to alt.atlanta or ny.politics now.

Sydney

You know, it would go a lot further if you would just refute him rather than
engage in name-calling because you feel uncomfortable with something non-PC
he said.

"Tom S." wrote in
:

You know, it would go a lot further if you would just refute him
rather than engage in name-calling because you feel uncomfortable with
something non-PC he said.

Why bother to try to refute obvious lies? Another one hits the bozo bin.

--
Regards,

Stan

Matthew S. Whiting wrote:

And the profit motive. The latter can exist without competition. The
edge is certainly much sharper with competition as now it is that much
harder to make a profit, but making an even larger profit is still
pretty strong motivation.

I question this reasoning only because regulated markets haven't been shown
as all that efficient, and it's tough to imagine that private ATC would be
unregulated.

In theory, the "right" regulation would promote efficiency. But what's
"right" might not even be known. More, were it known, it still might be
politically "expensive", and therefore forgotten.

However, we should all be aware that there is one bit of "low hanging fruit"
for a private ATC venture from an efficiency perspective: kill smaller GA.
If the "benefit" factor in the efficiency ratio is anything like
"people-miles moved", getting smaller GA out of the ATC system would
improve the benefit/cost ratio.

- Andrew

Tarver Engineering wrote:

Automation increases productivity thereby reducing labor.

This is far from guaranteed, and there are many factors involved that are
relevant to this discussion.

Most notable is the idea of putting an airspace out to contract every few
years. Given the speed at which technological gear improves and cheapens,
any newcomer has an advantage in such a competition if the incumbent is
still depreciating the investment originally made.

Aware of this, any incumbent must depreciate any new automation over only
the contract period. This increases the annual cost of the automation,
possibly to the point where simply not investing in the automation becomes
the proper choice.

So, in fact, "more" competition in a regulated environment can work against
long term efficiency. This is just one of those oddities of regulated
markets. It is apparently an entire economic subdiscipline.

- Andrew

Tom S. wrote:

Payroll is where the money is.

And headcount is what gives unions and executives POWER.

This is very important. I actually spent some time working for AT&T
post-breakup. We were putting into place automation, as it happens, within
various divisions of the company.

Managers often resisted this for the "headcount" reason. In fact, one came
out and stated quite clearly, in one meeting, that he'd do everything he
could to cause our project to fail if it threatened to reduce his staffing
levels in any way.

On the other hand, on my exit interview I was told a story by the area
whatchamacallit. He told me of a time when he built a phone (this was
actually while at some company that AT&T later bought). He chose to use
internal components, priced in dollars, rather than TI components, priced
in pennies. That was because it was his job to promote "the company".

Of course, his phone was never released as it couldn't compete.

Weird place, with a lot of strange ideas of what is good or bad.

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Tarver Engineering wrote:

Automation increases productivity thereby reducing labor.

This is far from guaranteed, and there are many factors involved that are
relevant to this discussion.

In this spectific case however, Andrew's "factors" are specious.

It is that flight cancelled that costs the most; especially with the
operator having real time weather, but no way to engage ATC in real time
alteration of a flight track. (CONUS)

Tarver Engineering wrote:


"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Tarver Engineering wrote:

Automation increases productivity thereby reducing labor.

This is far from guaranteed, and there are many factors involved that are
relevant to this discussion.

In this spectific case however, Andrew's "factors" are specious.

Unfounded statement with no justification? I see how you've acquired your
reputation.

It is that flight cancelled that costs the most; especially with the
operator having real time weather, but no way to engage ATC in real time
alteration of a flight track. (CONUS)

How do you measure cost? In my mind, a flight lost costs more than a flight
cancelled.

Further, the cost of a cancelled flight is not incurred by ATC, be it
governmental or private. That's yet another problem with attempting to
measure "efficiency": where the benefits and costs are accrued by different
parties.

- Andrew