The Unfriendly Skies

John Fund reports on yet another thing to worry about in this modern age: a staggering increase in flight delays and probably service cuts by airlines. The problem? A completely outdated air control system - and no workable method to fix it.

If you think there are more airport delays and cancellations than ever, you're right. The percentage of late flights has doubled since 2002. And as bad as things are now, they're about to get worse. The Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be 36% more people flying by 2015. If the U.S. doesn't dramatically expand the capacity of its overburdened air traffic control system, the airlines won't be able to keep up with demand and ticket prices will skyrocket.

It ought to be an issue in the presidential campaign that the FAA isn't equipped to clean up this mess. "The FAA as currently structured is impossible to run efficiently," says Langhorne Bond, who ran the agency from 1977 to 1981. BusinessWeek reports the air traffic control network runs on software that is so outdated that there are only six programmers left in the U.S. who are able to update the code. The FAA's efforts to move to a satellite-based system have been plagued by cost overruns and performance shortfalls.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warns that if the U.S. doesn't do something dramatic to upgrade its aviation infrastructure, the results will be "devastating." Rationing is already rearing its head as airlines deal with capacity limits by eliminating marginal routes in order to focus on more-profitable ones.

This would mean that smaller airports will be a thing of the past - as is actually already happening. Fund points to the way Europe and Canada have fixed this problem - by forming either public-private corporations or even outright, self-supporting private concerns. It is working very well in Canada.

Since 1996, planes in Canada have been controlled by Nav Canada, an independent user-owned corporation that has unsnarled Canadian airspace. Nav Canada pays for itself through user fees and has thus been able to invest vast sums in new technology while cutting overhead, increasing staffing and raising the salaries of controllers. Airline-related delays have declined and customer service improved.

No matter how it is addressed, it needs to be done soon. Or the skies are going to get even more unfriendly than they already are.