The ongoing crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport has uncovered the regrettable state of our nation’s air transport control system. Device interruption prevents air flow controllers from tracking or performs multiple 30 to 90 second intervals with the aircraft. Some controllers had to ask for leave to recover from the trauma, exacerbating staff shortages and forcing the Federal Aviation Administration to further curb flights in Newark.

The Newark crisis came after the deadly hollow crash in January followed the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in which air traffic control could be a factor. In 2023, a failure in the FAA's safety notification system forced pilots to force the agency to conduct all flights nationwide for the first time since 9/11. The near-collision hybrid post-surge was partly due to the shortage of controllers and the lack of preventive technology on airport runways that caused greater alarms.

An advanced security panel called a series of close collisions, depicting pictures of deteriorating ATC facilities and old-style ATC systems, many of which are so old that the FAA can no longer get spare parts.

The Trump administration's efforts to attract and retain controllers have doubled. Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, a former representative of Wisconsin and reality TV stars, recently called for hundreds of billions of dollars (the exact cost is unclear) to create a "new air traffic control system" over the next three years. At the April 8 press conference, President Donald Trump was involved with the phone Duffy, who was a lawsuit by airline CEO, union leaders and trade association executives, which led Congress to provide Congress with comprehensive funding to the project and simplifying requirements that would allow the construction of new facilities to be accelerated.

To be sure, given the serious conditions of the ATC system, throwing money to the problem has certain advantages. Over the past 20 years, the FAA's capital budget has both real losses and part of agency spending over the past 20 years, as the cost of operating a squeaky ATC system has consumed more resources. Additionally, according to congressional testimony from former head of the Air Transport Controller Alliance Paul Rinaldi, a complete 92% of the FAA’s capital budget is dedicated to maintaining old systems rather than funding new technologies.

However, the Trump/Duffy proposal is flawed in a number of ways, the most shocking of which is that it retains the current ATC government structure. Blue-Ripin Committee and independent experts have long believed that this structure is the fundamental source of the ATC problem in our country. In short, air flow control is a 24/7 high-tech operation trapped within the regulatory body. The FAA is subject to federal rules and regards Congress rather than traveling public as its customers.

Air control is not an inherent government function. Separating the aircraft safely is a complex but pure operation process that follows good rules. Just like running an airline or manufacturing a commercial aircraft, air traffic control can be performed by a non-governmental entity as long as it is supervised by a safety regulator - performing the function, which is yes Inherent government. The most compelling evidence is that most developed countries have now “compliantized” their ATC providers.

It is precisely because of the operational nature of air freight control that the federal government is actually very suitable for running the system. For example, budget rules require federal agencies to pay capital investments in advance for current grants. These rules prohibit the FAA from raising large amounts of investment over time. The slow speed of FAA technology deployment means that, within full range, new ATC systems may be outdated. FAA procurement culture is another constraint. Companies with transformative technologies strive to gain traction in an environment dominated by defense contractors and incentives for customized solutions.

The FAA is also suffering from political intervention. The agency must maintain expensive legacy systems, in part to accommodate powerful users who fail to operate the updated technology. Individual members of Congress will often block factories that the FAA no longer needs (thousands of dollars a year) and open new facilities that do need. Recently, Oklahoma lawmakers blocked legislation to authorize the second training academy for controlling personnel due to concerns that it would pose a threat to existing colleges in Oklahoma City.

Most importantly, current governance arrangements jeopardize safety because the FAA operates and regulates air traffic control systems. This is a clear conflict of interest and ICAO has directed member states to eliminate it.

Despite broad agreement on the issue, efforts to withdraw air flow control from the FAA to operate like a public utility have failed repeatedly. In 2018, despite the strong support from the Trump administration, the House refused to accept legislation approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which would transfer the ATC system to self-sufficiency nonprofit companies, and the FAA uses the FAA as an independent safety regulator. In 1995, the Clinton administration also tried not to transfer ATC to non-profit government companies.

The Clinton Administration's 1995 ATC Act died on its arrival in Congress, mainly because of the impetus of private pilots and outstanding owners of the company, who barely paid for the use of the ATC system. The same dynamic played out in 2018. In addition to protecting private pilots, the House bill retains a fee structure that increases the annual cost of $1 billion or more from a $65 million Gulfstream of Gulfstream to crowded passengers in coaches. Scepticized by the tribute of this massive private system Trade Association, which flew under the cover of a larger private hall, convinced Congress to keep air traffic controls for the last century.

The rest of the world is moving in a completely different direction. Although in 1995, only four countries were separated from aviation safety regulators, more than 60 countries now do this by creating independent government companies or other nonprofit providers. Canadian ATC provider Nav Canada is a model of home bills in 2018, with much more transportation compared to employee traffic in 1996. Despite its smaller scale, it beats the FAA's unit cost. Scott McCartney Wall Street JournalThe long-running "middle seat" column observed in 2016 that flying above the U.S.-Canada border is “like a pilot’s time travel” – you “leave the modern gas traffic control system run by the company and enter the one run by the government that the government works hard to catch up.”

Unfortunately, the crisis facing our country’s ATC system has given the Trump administration political leverage. The current proposal has been splurged, pledging tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer dollars in the aviation sector without being accompanied by reforms in the deeply flawed ATC government structure, which will support all aviation leaders in April 8 of all aviation leaders around Duffy, which will revolve around Duffy on April 8. However, without the efforts to reform structurally, more funds will not be able to resolve the potential crisis.