The airline industry has been pleading with the House of Representatives and the Senate to please do their job and provide guidelines and funding for an improvement of the air traffic control system (ATC). Unfortunately, they are just too busy to do their jobs and voted to do nothing with the FAA and the ATC problems.
Despite nearly a decade-old battle about improving the ATC system, Congress has once again decided to do nothing. They just passed a continuation of last year’s funding, the FAA Extension Act of 2008. It will run through March 31, 2009. This is just one more in a series of extensions to fund the FAA operations implemented since September 2007. The performance of the House and the Senate is simply disgraceful.
This means more of the same — more congestion in the New York airspace, more operations using decade’s-old systems, more deterioration of the ATC infrastructure, more late flights, more computer glitches, more legacy airline control of airports, more expenses when Congress finally acts and eventually higher airfares.
Let your congressmen and senators know you aren’t happy about their failures to get their job done.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
they are doing their job, they are keeping the FAA going, since Mr Bush would just veto all the bills they wanted.
see this http://www.rotor.com/Default.aspx?tabid=510&newsid905=59778
The ‘airlines plan’ is designed to put the burden of modernizing the ATC system, of which they use 90% plus, on general aviation, you know, the guys who their own person airplanes for fun. They user fees, segment fees, more taxes and anything they can to not pay for what they use.
I thought we all paid income taxes for things like ATC and road repair and building, marine terminals, etc. Yet, fees and specialized taxes go up and up and up and up.
The ATC system is DESIGNED for the airlines. Every time I want to fly from NY to points south I need to over fly NYC only on ONE route at a choice of TWO altitudes, neither of which promotes efficiency. That route is two legs of a triangle instead of the hypotenuse, and adds a minimum of 20 minutes, or $60 each way, each time I go. So I ALREADY pay $720 penalty because the ATC is designed for the airlines. I get NO priority – ever.
No they, and you, want me to pay even more, for a second class service. No way.
You want me to pay top dollar, then I want to be treated EXACTLY like the airline flight. I want my routing and my altitude and not to be re-routed completely out of my way and in most cases PAST my destination for the convenience of an airliner lined up into JFK. If you are going to raise my cost of operating in the ATC system to that of the airlines, then fair is fair, right? Should I not get the same service and consideration?