Flyers for Fairness Stumps for a Modernized ATC System

Transportation Today discusses the 21st Century AIRR Act with Marc Scribner.

The average airline passenger in coach seating is being taken for a ride by wealthy corporate and private jet owners, say members of Flyers for Fairness, a recently formed group of U.S. transportation gurus who support efforts on Capitol Hill to reform and modernize the nation’s air traffic control (ATC) system.

Specifically, Flyers for Fairness supports the 21st Century AIRR (Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization) Act, H.R. 2997, which would spin off ATC operations currently overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) into a private, separate, not-for-profit corporation, reauthorize FAA funding and other programs, and spark major, much-needed ATC modernization efforts. Congress has until Sept. 30 to reauthorize the FAA.

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In fact, the proposed reforms are endorsed by “congressional leadership, the White House, airlines, the air traffic controllers’ union, every former FAA chief operating officer, nearly every independent aviation analyst, free market and taxpayer organizations, and former senior officials from every administration since Ronald Reagan,” noted Flyers for Fairness member Marc Scribner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

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Scribner explained that in a nutshell, NBAA thinks ATC reform is a giveaway to the largest airlines and calls it an extreme solution to a political budget problem. But what’s really happening is that NBAA is bankrolling opposition to ATC reform to preserve its massive ATC subsidies under the status quo, said Scribner, who has written about the topic in several CEI blogs.

“And who pays for these subsidies? All of us flying coach are forced to pay them under the current aviation tax system,” Scribner told Transportation Today.

Read the full article at Transportation Today.