On February 9th, U.S. President Donald Trump called the U.S. air traffic control organization to be out-of-date, also described this system to be a "wrong system" and will be considered to be more expensive. His point was that U.S. was spending a huge sum of Money on a system that is totally "whack". This meeting happened in White House and Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways and United Airlines attended this meeting. US Air Traffic Control(ATC) system is one of the most complex, busiest , reliable and safest system in the world according to Government Accountability Office. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) handles the U.S air traffic. This agency is trying to improve the aviation technology to the next generation, but there are some complex situation which need to be taken care of.
Raising Ticket Fees
The Federal Aviation Administration take care of 50,000 flights a day which contains approximately 700 million passenger every year. It spends about $10 billion every year to maintain the air traffic control, and has 27,000 air traffic control employees. The FAA has spend more than $3 billion in the NexGen air traffic system since 2007, and has come across many challenges. Chief executive of Southwest, Gary Kelly, told that the biggest aviation break through is to modernize the air traffic control system. He added that FAA is spending billions of Dollars to upgrade the ATC system but it is not giving any fruitful results. In U.S. most of the airline is a private organisation, Trump wants to increase the ticket fares, but the Airport and Airlines disagrees with the decision. The question remained unanswered that should U.S. restructure its ATC system.
Privatize Air Traffic control System
In U.S., the Aviation transportation in both a private and governmental organisation, but the air traffic control system is a governmental organisation. Trump also addressed FAA that government contracted systems are the wrong system, and the organisation is way over its budgets in the NexGen project. Trump was sure that the project will not be a good system. So, he wants to privatize the whole air traffic system. He will take driver feedback signs about this, whether the citizen of America is interested about the new policy, and whether they are satisfied with the service of the existing system.
The U.S. air traffic control system has placed many Variable Message Sign (VMS) across the airport. These VMS signs are very beneficial and works with LED. The correct information about the aeroplane, flight timings is constantly displayed on the signs. There is a new technology known as solar powered variable message signs which uses solar energy to power the VMS signs. These are more energy efficient and requires low maintenance. For the display of traffic management map these VMS signs are used.
Immediate action against Gulf Rivals to stem Job Loss
The CEOs of the three largest airlines company, Delta, United and American, asked the government in the meeting to take governmental action to freeze flights from Persian Gulf rivals or there will be a loss of jobs in an unjustified competition. The CEOs told in the meetings that the companies are losing a substantial business for the flights in Gulf airlines. The three Gulf airlines Etihad Airways, Qatar Airlines and Emirates received a subsidies of $42 billion in the last decade. The U.S. carriers are basically wants the gulf airlines to get loans without interest and subsidize land check for their government. Trump also mentioned that U.S. airlines is facing a huge competition from these foreign airline services. So, there should be a restructure of the system, some international policies should be adjusted to maintain a good economic condition in the country.
Time will tell what the U.S. president will do to make a change in these international policies. The question also remained unreciprocated about the ATC system.
