Air Traffic Control: Experts’ and Stakeholders’ Views on Key Issues to Consider in a Potential Restructuring [Reissued on December 9, 2016], GAO-17-131: Published: Oct 13, 2016. Publicly Released: Nov 15, 2016.
“Experts, aviation stakeholders, and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials GAO spoke to said that if Congress decides to remove air traffic control (ATC) from the FAA, many issues should be considered. Key issues identified, consistent with GAO’s past work, relate to: (1) organizational management, (2) funding and financing, and (3) transition time and related costs. First, organizational issues include defining roles, responsibilities, coordination, and ensuring workforce protections. Addressing these issues would affect the potential for success both of the ATC entity and of activities remaining with FAA, including safety oversight. For example, experts indicated that it would be key to morale to maintain existing employee benefits for both employees who remained at FAA and those who moved to a new ATC entity. Second, funding approaches for an ATC entity would depend, in part, on the type of organizational structure chosen, (e.g., public or private ownership), but most experts indicated a user-fee system should be implemented if a change occurred. Experts and aviation stakeholders raised issues associated with a user fee, including how to determine the level of fees and the impact of those fees on certain users, such as general aviation and cargo carriers. Both experts and stakeholders noted that the valuation ATC assets as well as the transfer of and, payment for, ATC assets will also need to be considered as well as responsibility for, and funding of pension and other liabilities. Third, experts estimated that it would take a number of years to appropriately develop legislation, as well as to negotiate, plan, and implement a transition and noted that there would be associated legal, financial, and other costs for such a transition…”