Up until about a decade ago, the FAA Administrator was always an aviation professional – either with a background as a pilot or an air traffic controller. Then some genius in the Federal Government decided that they would use non-aviation people in the position of Administrator. It is well known that the FAA Administrators in recent times have been females with a background in administration and zero knowledge of the operational side of aviation. Look what has happened.
The same situation occurred here in Australia. John Anderson de-skilled the CASA Board and ended up installing a Chairman with a marine background. The CASA Board became so useless it was abolished.
Look at what happened with Airservices. John Anderson put a farmer on the Board as Chairman, and was obviously intent on de-skilling the rest of the Board positions. The inevitable happened. That is, we are having the same problems in Australia as the US is having.
I wrote to the new Minister about 4 months ago suggesting that they place a retired air traffic controller on the Airservices Board. I even provided a name of a very competent controller from South Australia. I received no answer and I note that there are no people with air traffic control experience on the Airservices Board.