Air Traffic Control essays

Air Traffic Control essays What Seems to Be the Problem/Solutions? Eight of the countrys busiest airports have significant delays; unable to operate without delays even under optimum conditions(1). This has been a problem the FAA has been dealing with for a long time. Trying to step up to the plate, the FAA planned on spending well above 5 billion dollars to implement a program, not knowing then, but would bring discredit to the FAA even to this day. What seems to be the problem? How do we fix this problem without resorting to a major development plan, such as, the FAAs Advanced Automated Plan which by all accounts was, to little, to late. FAA in its annual aviation conference and forecast, predicts a 39 percent increase in takeoffs and landings by the year 2012. A rise in air travel from almost 26 million in 2000 to 36 million in 2012. The number of passengers flying each year on U.S. airlines is projected to rise from 733 million in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2012 (2). With this increase in air travel and the inability of the current air traffic system to even handle todays numbers, there has been a mad dash in trying to come up with solutions on how to revamp the air traffic control system. Some of suggestions came from some unlikely people, such as, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. His suggestion was to privatize the system. This idea fell into some major opposition from many freedom action groups, like the AOPA. The AOPA claims with privatizing the system air traffic controllers will give the airliners priority over most general aviation aircraft flying, which in turn will cause safety issues involving all aircraft (3). AOPA took the numbers from countrys currently using the corporate ATC system, like Canada, and analyzed the numbers and came up with its findings, published in Congressional Committee hearings on The Advancement of the Air Traffic System. Fi...