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A proposal to privatize air traffic control in the United States would help facilitate modernization of the decades-old air traffic control system, a model that has seen success in Canada, argues an analyst at the independent, non-profit American Action Forum (AAF).

Brianna Fernandez, a data analyst with AAF, says that because the Federal Aviation Administration’s funding is uncertain and enmeshed in political gridlock, upgrading the World War II-era, ground-based radar technology to GPS-based technology is close to impossible.

But privatization would correct that, she said.

“The most important problem to solve is the unreliable funding that (air traffic control) is facing now,” she said in an interview with Transportation Today. “Switching to privatization would stabilize the revenue stream and make modernizing technology possible.”

Fernandez examined the cost of implementing H.R. 2997, the 21st Century AIRR Act, which reauthorizes the FAA, and transfers operations of air traffic control (ATC) services to a separate not-for-profit corporate entity. The bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), would shift funding for air traffic control from aviation-related taxes and general funds to user fees levied on airline consumers for services rendered.

Fernandez says it works in other countries, and should be a model for how it works in the United States.

“Opponents of the legislation argue that separating ATC functions from the federal government will negatively impact consumers,” she wrote in her recent white paper: “Is it Time for the U.S. to Privatize its Air Traffic Control. “However, many other industrialized countries have made the shift and benefited from the change. By reforming their ATC, other countries have created fully self-funding systems with greater flexibility to modernize their technology.”

Fernandez pointed to Canada as an example.

Canada moved to a privatized ATC system, Nav Canada, nearly 20 years ago and was able to quickly modernize its air traffic technology in 2009 to an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast system, Fernandez noted. This ATC system determines an aircraft’s position via satellite navigation and then broadcasts its location for tracking purposes. While the FAA has begun to use the same system in automation platforms, there is no requirement for aircraft to be equipped with this technology until 2020, and many other modernization components of more updated ATC systems aren’t expected to be functioning until 2025.

In contrast, since 2007, Fernandez wrote, the FAA has invested $3 billion in a satellite-based GPS tracking technology, included in a program known as NextGen, but has not either identified the total costs of NextGen, or set schedules for implementing it. Current estimates put the total cost at $160 billion by 2030.

Canada’s system is seen as having increased efficiency in airline traffic, while also having decreased costs.

“Since it privatized its ATC services, Canada has implemented GPS technology, which has helped to lower costs to aviation users,” Fernandez wrote. Aviation taxes in the United States have slightly increased in the last two years. Nav Canada is also one of the safest systems in the world, and has won three International Air Transport Association Eagle Awards for the best ATC provider.”

Canada’s lower costs and higher efficiency can be directly linked to the use of satellite navigation, Fernandez says, because it allows aircraft to fly more direct routes and to more easily avoid inclement weather, resulting in fewer delays and less fuel use. Data from Global Air Navigation Services Performance Reports show that Canada has consistently lower aviation costs per flight hour than the United States. Between 2010 and 2015, average costs per instrumental flight rules (IFR) flight hours for the FAA’s Continental sector were above $400 per hour, while Nav Canada’s Continental flight hours averaged around $300 per flight hour.

While critics suggest that Canada’s air traffic is too small to be compared to the United States, Fernandez dismisses that idea.

“Canada is the second largest aviation system in the world, so it’s certainly a good model for the U.S.,” she says. “The FAA hasn’t had a reauthorization since 2007. This model would take the budget for ATC out of the political arena and stabilize it. Canada has done this same thing and has seen its user fees go down as a result.”

Similar systems exist in Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Fernandez wrote.

“Removing air traffic control from governmental constraints has allowed other countries to modernize their technologies at rates faster than the United States, while maintaining a safe system with lower costs,” she says in her paper.

“The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s proposal to transfer ATC services to a not-for-profit corporation and reform its funding structure would help to accelerate the modernization of the U.S.’ air traffic technologies and provide the flying public with the most efficient air transportation possible. Privatization would also provide ATC with the flexibility and funding it needs to be an innovator in the air navigation service space,” Fernandez concluded.

The FAA’s funding authorization is set to expire on Sept. 30.

In 2017, during his first term in office, President Trump announced his intention to privatize the U.S. air traffic control system, calling it “stuck, painfully, in the past.” The proposal never took off.

The current Trump administration is again focused on reforming air traffic control, following a recent spate of technical outages and staffing shortages as well as the January midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C. that killed 67 people.

But this time the goal is a multibillion-dollar investment in the Federal Aviation Administration — and talk of privatization seems to be on hold.

“To have a fight about privatization is just going to divide people,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during a press conference last month. “And what that’ll actually do is make sure that we don’t actually build a brand new air traffic control system.”

Aviation industry groups that once supported privatization are now uniting behind Duffy’s plan to modernize the system by upgrading antiquated equipment and “supercharging” the hiring of new controllers. The proposal has the backing of the Modern Skies Coalition, a collection of groups that includes the trade association for the major airlines, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and others.

But the recent travel disruptions have also resurfaced the argument of some FAA critics that the best way to fix the nation’s air traffic control system is to remove it from direct government control altogether.

How air traffic control is organized in Canada and beyond

Proponents of air traffic control privatization often point to Canada as an example. The U.S.’s northern neighbor privatized its system in 1996, when the government sold it to the non-profit NAV CANADA for $1.5 billion.

Canada’s air travel system had been fraught with delays, and privatization made it easier to buy new technology that improved air travel without having to go through a slow-moving public procurement process, said McGill University aviation law professor Vincent Correia. “The privatization aimed at finding a way to overcome those inefficiencies, most notably by having a more flexible approach when it comes to investments,” he said.

The system’s funding stream also changed. Canada went from paying for air traffic control largely through tax revenue to charging customers a fee based on the weight and distance of a flight.

According to Correia, privatizing air traffic control was the next move for an aviation sector that already had privately-held airplane manufacturers and commercial airlines. “So basically the step that was taken by Canada was to say, well, air traffic control is providing a service to an industry that is already privatized or mostly privatized in many regions of the world,” he said.

Other air traffic control systems that exist outside or partially outside the government include NATS in the United Kingdom, Airservices Australia, Airways New Zealand, DFS in Germany and Skyguide in Switzerland.

A 2017 report by the Congressional Research Service said other countries’ models don’t appear to show “conclusive evidence that any of these models is either superior or inferior to others or to existing government-run air traffic services, including FAA, with respect to productivity, cost-effectiveness, service quality, and safety and security.”

Win McNamee / Getty Images / Getty Images Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks at an event on May 8 unveiling the Trump administration’s plan for a new U.S. air traffic control system.

Still, there are private air traffic controllers working in the U.S. today. Through its Contract Tower Program , the FAA allows airports with limited air traffic to staff their towers with controllers employed by private companies. Just over half of all federal air traffic control towers are contract towers, mostly because they’re at smaller general aviation airports.

The U.S. privatization debate has foundered

Opponents of privatization say it hasn’t always worked out so well for the countries that have done it. They point, for example, to a 2023 report from the International Civil Aviation Organization that lowered Canada’s flight safety grade and a recent shortage of air traffic controllers .

Ed Bolen, CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, says a private system would be even harder to operate in the U.S., which has one of the largest and most complex airspaces in the world.

“When we look around at the performance in Australia, in New Zealand, in Europe, in the United Kingdom and in Canada, we see very small, not particularly complex operations compared to the U.S. and we see chronic delays,” he said.

Another worry is that privatization could disadvantage smaller airports and pilots who don’t produce the same economic impact as large airlines, says Jim Coon, senior vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association .

“That would be very detrimental to many small communities around the country that rely on these small airports for medical issues, for disaster relief, for businesses, because those airports don’t bring in the amount of revenue that the large airports that the airlines use,” he said.

The board of directors of NAV CANADA is required to have members selected by the airlines, general aviation, the government and workers’ unions.

The Covid-19 outbreak exposed another issue with privatization. Because some countries’ systems were funded by user fees, air traffic control operators ran into trouble when air travel dramatically decreased due to the pandemic.

But Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the libertarian think tank Reason Foundation, says the U.S. air traffic control system could be improved by turning it into what he calls a public utility. (The Clinton administration suggested transforming U.S. air traffic control into a quasi-government corporation in 1994.)

Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP / AP Air traffic control equipment is displayed at an event last month announcing the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul the system.

Currently, Poole says, travelers and airlines pay taxes that go to the U.S. Treasury, and that money then has to be appropriated by Congress to the FAA. In a public utility model, “the revenues would go directly to the air traffic corporation, whether it’s a nonprofit or a government corporation,” he said.

The public utility could issue bonds to fund large projects — which the FAA can’t do — and streamline its procurement process, Poole added.

He also said the FAA, in its role as a safety regulator, would be more empowered to enforce safety infractions if air traffic controllers were not FAA employees. “So you have a better protection for aviation safety in this vital part of the system — air traffic control — which today in the United States unfortunately is embedded in the safety regulator and not at arm’s length from the safety regulator,” he said.

U.S. privatization likely not on the horizon

Former Republican Rep. Bill Shuster, who proposed legislation in Congress privatizing air traffic control in 2017, was advocating for the idea as recently as November, AIN reported . In December, the libertarian Cato Institute published an article urging Trump to privatize the system.

But within the aviation industry, calls to privatize air traffic control have largely faded.

Even the major airlines, once vocal supporters of privatization, have cooled on it. The trade group Airlines for America, which backed Trump’s 2017 privatization effort, co-signed a letter with other aviation groups in February opposing privatization, saying it would be a “distraction” from the planned upgrades to the air traffic control system.

Coon, with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, says the aviation industry is coalescing behind the Trump administration’s plan to modernize the national air traffic control system, largely leaving privatization behind for now.

“It’s been discussed for decades. There’s not consensus there,” he said. “But there is consensus now to modernize our system, and that’s what we want to do.”

Copyright 2025 NPR

Updated June 27, 2025 at 8:29 AM PDT

White House officials are providing new information about a step toward a tariff deal with China after President Trump announced an agreement without providing details.

During a Thursday White House event, Trump announced, “We just signed with China yesterday, right? Just signed with China.” Since then, White House officials have said that what was signed was not an agreement on tariffs.

One White House official, speaking anonymously, told NPR, “The Administration and China agreed to an additional understanding for a framework to implement” an agreement the two countries made in Geneva earlier this year. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, later clarified that the new agreement was about rare earth minerals, a Chinese export that’s key in a wide range of goods, from tech devices and airplanes. This is one aspect of what the countries have been discussing during tariff negotiations.

The new information comes after several chaotic months of back-and-forth tariff announcements followed by subsequent adjustments.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed Thursday evening on Bloomberg TV that China would “deliver rare earths to us.” He added that subsequently, “we’ll take down our countermeasures.”

In a statement, China’s Ministry of Commerce also acknowledged that “further details of the framework” have been established.

“China will, in accordance with the law, review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items,” they wrote. “In turn, the United States will lift a series of restrictive measures it had imposed on China.”

The tariffs on Chinese goods have the potential to be globally destabilizing, and at one point reached 145%.

At a meeting in Geneva last month, U.S. and Chinese officials announced they had reached a temporary deal that would bring U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%, with an Aug. 12 deadline to reach a more permanent agreement.

The high tariffs China and the U.S. imposed on each other’s goods rattled markets as American consumers faced higher prices on a wide array of products, like car seats and clothing, while American farmers feared Chinese consumers would buy fewer of their now more expensive food exports.

All of this happens against a backdrop of broader tariff uncertainty, after Trump on April 2 announced tariffs on goods from nearly every country, with some of those tariffs exceeding 40%. Days later, he announced a 90-day “pause” on those tariffs, bringing them down to 10%.

That “pause” is set to end on July 9, raising questions about what happens after that. Trump said he would reach longer-term individual tariff deals with countries during the 90-day period, but the only deal announced has been with the UK, signed last week at the G7 summit.

In his Bloomberg interview, Lutnick said that the U.S. is close to making tariff agreements with 10 major trading partners.

The White House is now suggesting that July 9 is a soft deadline for those agreements. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business on Friday that several important individual tariff deals will be done by Labor Day.

“Secretary Lutnick said yesterday that he expects 10 more deals, so, if we can ink 10 or 12 of the important 18, there are another important 20 relationships, then I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day,” he said.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Although the privatisation of airports (even in the US) has continued since the 1960s, so that now 15% or more of airports are privatised to some degree, the same is not true of air traffic control organisations (ANSPs) where it is less than 1% globally with only three organisations, two in Europe and one in North America, having any level of non-state participation.

There are many reasons for this, but ultimately it boils down to government distaste for handing over such a critical industry to the private sector, and that is most evident in the US where the FAA is progressing its own system, NextGen, for completion by the end of 2025.

Not surprisingly, the UK has led the way, as it did with airport privatisation, and its ANSP is part-owned by the government, which retains its golden share. Also a clutch of airlines within a consortium, the main airport, and staff. The UK is also home to a large private company, which is involved in ATC operation there and across the world.

The British system, known as NATS, is worthy of investigation, at least by other countries, but it is ridiculed by vested interests in the US, a country which is absolutely wedded to public sector control of this sector.

A new brush sweeps clean, and it is always possible that the current US administration will make some changes. But not quickly, as it remains embroiled in trade wars and trying to stop military ones.

The most likely progress in the US will be if the relevant authority, the FAA, chooses to permit remote control towers, as many other countries have. They are often built and operated by private companies, and can be very cost effective. They equate to the public-private partnership system that has grown in the US latterly as a way of building new airport infrastructure, and sharing the costs and rewards.

This is part one of a two-part report.

Your flight is delayed? Blame your government.

OK, it’s not always government’s fault. Sometimes it’s weather or mechanical problems. But often we suffer horrible flight delays because politicians won’t relinquish power.

In January, flights were grounded when the government’s “Notice to Air Missions” system broke down. That was just the latest incident.

America rightly prides itself on being on the cutting edge of innovation. But it’s the private sector that innovates. Government rarely does.

Asked if America’s air traffic control system is out of date, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg paused a long time before answering, “The system is continuously being upgraded.”

But the government’s been “upgrading” air traffic control for decades, promising to switch to a “NextGen” system that uses satellite navigation. But implementation keeps being postponed. Now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) won’t even say when NextGen might be done.

Air traffic control is still a lot like it was in the 1960s. Controllers use paper strips to track flights. Instead of using computers, they move paper around manually.

“This is your government at work,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth in my latest video. Furchtgott-Roth worked for the Transportation Department during the Trump administration.

I yell at her. “Air traffic control was in your department. You could have fixed it. You should have fixed it!”

She smiles and explains that although she had control of $1 billion, she wasn’t allowed to move those funds to where they were needed.

Government managers must fund projects pushed by politicians, like “Justice40,” meant to fix “underinvestment in disadvantaged communities.”

“Sounds like they mean well,” I say.

“It sounds a lot better to talk about social justice,” answers Furchtgott-Roth. “Nuts and bolts like computer hardware for air traffic control gets left behind.”

Computer hardware isn’t left behind in Canada. They got rid of “flight control with paper strips” years ago. That’s because Canada turned air traffic control over to a private company. They switched to an electronic system.

It’s not just Canada that did it. Dozens of countries have privatized or partially privatized.

Computer screens have replaced not-always-clear windows in many air traffic control centers. Controllers don’t use binoculars anymore because high-definition cameras let them see much more, especially at night.

A Government Accountability Office study found that in countries that privatized, there are fewer delays and costs are lower.

So why doesn’t America privatize?

Because our politicians get money from labor unions, who “advocate for keeping the same people in the same jobs,” says Furchtgott-Roth.

Another opponent is the private plane lobby. Under our current system, Congress makes sure that the big airlines, which you fly, subsidize private flights’ air traffic fees.

“If they have private planes,” says Furchtgott-Roth, “they should be able to pay their fair share.” Yes. Today’s pricing amounts to welfare for rich people.

A third obstacle is fear. “For-profit companies will cut corners and make flying less safe!” But this is nonsense. That GAO study found that safety stayed the same or improved in countries that privatized.

Also, “For-profit companies actually run the airlines!” Furchtgott-Roth points out.

The airlines get FAA supervision, but the main reason planes don’t crash is because the private companies don’t want to destroy their business by killing their customers.

There hasn’t been a commercial airline crash in 14 years.

By contrast, government-run airlines do crash. Aeroflot (the Soviet airline) killed thousands of people.

“What ensures high quality is competition,” says Furchtgott-Roth. There wasn’t any competition in the Soviet Union.

And there isn’t any at the FAA.

Today, computers controlling air traffic in other countries keep getting better. In America, privatization would reduce delays and make flying even safer.

But our arrogant politicians won’t allow it. They insist government run things.

Since governments rarely innovate, you must sit at the airport and wait.

COPYRIGHT 2023 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.