U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he will not push to privatize the nation’s air traffic control (ATC) system, a goal set during the first Donald Trump administration.
During an appearance on NewsNation’s On Balance, Duffy told host Leland Vittert that privatization is not feasible.
“I could spend my time the next three and a half years fighting over privatization,” Duffy said. “I’m not going to do that.”
Instead, Duffy said he will “put every resource into training up more air traffic controllers to get them certified in their airspace in which they’re going to work, but also getting those experienced controllers to stay on the job, paying them a little more to not retire and continue to work for us.”
Duffy is overseeing a two-pronged effort to restore the nation’s ATC system, one focused on upgrading equipment and technology and building new facilities, and the other centered on closing the roughly 3,000-controller gap keeping many towers and centers understaffed.
Trump in 2017 proposed privatizing the FAA’s ATC workforce and said the current system is “stuck, painfully, in the past.” Nothing came of the president’s plan, however, and he has not raised the matter again during his second term.
Issue Settled, for Now
Trump and Duffy have been particularly focused on the nation’s ATC infrastructure since the January collision of an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The accident, which killed a combined 67 people, exposed long-standing problems coordinating military and civilian flights in the same airspace and heightened public awareness of near misses, particularly at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA), where the American flight was attempting to land.
This was not the first time Duffy has distanced himself from ATC privatization. In May, the secretary said the topic is “just going to divide people.” Giving it too much attention, he said, will only hobble efforts to improve the existing system.
There are already privately employed ATCs working in the U.S. through the FAA’s Contract Tower Program. They have the same qualifications and training as FAA ATCs, and they work mainly at smaller general aviation airports.
Supporters of complete ATC privatization point to the relative success of similar privatization efforts in Canada, as well as the private or semiprivate systems of the U.K., Australia, Germany, and New Zealand.
But critics note that those countries still experience delays, some of them severe, despite handling much less traffic than the U.S. Privatization could also hurt airport operations in underserved rural areas, since private companies would have little incentive to keep those locations adequately staffed.
