OA:
This should be a forum to debate issues. Its not a forum to sling off at guys that fit your description of having too much money.
Well said OA..
and top post Creamy...
To add another dimension to this debate and in context of Creamy's...
"...It just goes to show how fundamentally different the culture of Australia is compared to that of the USA...."
...the Yanks in the area of ATC are also in a world of hurt but their hurt is largely to do with an ever decreasing pot of funds and a Congress diminished in effectiveness due to divisive political self-interest...
Came across an article from the US Cato institute titled..
New Study on Air Traffic Control Reform
...which also links to a report just completed by Robert Poole from the Hudson Institute titled
Organization and Innovation in Air Traffic Control One of Poole's findings in the report actually praises countries like Australia for embracing self-supporting organisations, like ASA, to run ATC:
•Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and Germany are doing a better job of embracing new technologies for ATC. These countries have restructured their systems as self-supporting organizations outside of their government bureaucracies.
Unfortunately that would appear to be the sum total of comparison with Oz, as the report primarily focusses and promotes the US northern neighbour's (Nav Canada) ATC system as the model to which the US should espouse:
Airports and Air Traffic Control
Canada's ATC system has been fully commercialized.30 In 1996, Canada set up a private, nonprofit ATC corporation, Nav Canada, which is self-supporting from charges on aviation users. The Canadian system has been widely praised for its sound finances, solid management, and its investment in new technologies.31 The Canadian system is a very good reform model for the United States to consider. Nav Canada's corporate board is composed largely of aviation stakeholders.32 It has 4 seats for the airlines, 3 for the government, 2 for employees, and 1 for the non-commercial aviation industry. Those 10 stakeholders select 4 directors from outside aviation, and then those 14 select the company president, who becomes the 15th board member. To further strengthen governance, neither elected officials nor anyone connected with suppliers to Nav Canada can serve on the board. Nav Canada also has a 20-member outside Advisory Committee.
A number of studies have found that ATC commercialization has generally resulted in improvements to service quality, better management, and reduced costs.33 At the same time, air safety has remained the same or improved in the countries that have pursued reforms to set up independent ANSP organizations.
A thorough 2009 report by Glen McDougall and Alasdair Roberts compared the performance of 10 commercialized ATC systems and the FAA during the 1997 to 2004 period.34 They looked at large amounts of performance and safety data from the systems in the various countries and conducted over 200 interviews with managers, workers, and users of the different systems. The researchers found:
ANSP commercialization has generally achieved its objectives. Service quality has improved in most cases. Several ANSPs have successfully modernized workplace technologies. The safety records of ANSPs are not adversely affected by commercialization, and in some cases safety is improved. Costs are generally reduced, sometimes significantly. Other risks of commercialization—such as erosion of accountability to government, deterioration of labor relations, or worsened relationships between civil and military air traffic controllers—have not materialized.35
For the United States, a commercialized ATC organization would be more likely than the FAA to efficiently implement the major aviation infrastructure advances that the nation desperately needs. Air traffic control is more complex and dynamic than ever, and it needs to be managed in the sort of efficient and flexible manner that only a commercialized environment can offer. Countries like Canada have shown the way forward for air traffic control, and U.S. policymakers should adopt the proven organizational reforms that have been implemented abroad.
Hmm..this is getting a bit repetitive bloody Canucks leading the way again...
(like with the TSBC & Transport Canada
), must have something to do with the rarefied air in those northern latitudes..
Anyway thought this could possibly add another perspective to what is becoming a great debate..??