There’s a whole network of radars and communication centers that are not part of any specific airport. How would you fund that through use fees at an airport?
A common fund?
That's what we have today.
In the US system, any revenue collection needs to be authorized by Congress. In fact, it is one of the arguments currently being argued in front of the Supreme Court about the tariffs.
The sooner things become intolerably broken in the U.S. the better off I think the rest of the world is. The U.S. kind of scares me right now. So much power, wielded by deeply incompetent, broken, and evil people. And those who aren't those things are demonstrably too weak to do anything about it. I have a sense that things will only improve once they hit an intolerable low. And the longer it takes for that to happen…
I completely agree. It's a good thing we're in a multipolar world now. The US (and its vassal states) have ruled terribly and the world suffered much over it. Sadly, there is still a lot of propaganda that needs to go away. A great world leader would spread genuine peace. Not corrupt other countries, start wars and shed blood. The USA has failed to even keep its own citizens safe and secure. All I worry about is that…
Less and less likely they’ll drag others down, the first trump presidency was a warning, it’s gonna suck in the rest of the western world but we’ll survive.
I can't deny that and maybe would even agree with that as an abstract theory, but I just can't stomach the amount of misery and death that would come along with this to ever use a word like "hope" to describe that outcome.
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I don't think this line of thinking has any merit. Genocides have happened before and yet modern genocides still make me sad for humanity and I wish we did a better job preventing them.
It's probably because a lot of smaller airports in the middle of nowhere would be hard to get coverage for. The current system sends controllers to where they are needed, not to where people want to work. Now, should more productive parts of the country be subsidizing air travel in less productive parts of the country? That's for you to decide.
Bear in mind you need radar coverage for overflight even if you don't land.
This is true, but do we have a need for random airports in sparse parts of the country that require government subsidies?
Pull all air traffic controllers from private airports and shutdown all routes for private jets, then this government shutdown will be done by tomorrow morning.
That’s not how it works, like at all. Private airports don’t have controllers, and the ones I presume you are thinking of (smaller PUBLIC airports) the controllers are either employed or funded by the FAA.
It's probably because a lot of smaller airports in the middle of nowhere would be hard to get coverage for. The current system sends controllers to where they are needed, not to where people want to work. Now, should more productive parts of the country be subsidizing air travel in less productive parts of the country? That's for you to decide.
"Now, should more productive parts of the country be subsidizing air travel in less productive parts of the country? That's for you to decide." I would say "no", personally. In the absence of a subsidy, the network of the rural airports would likely become sparser, but the surviving ones would have better economy and, as a result, infrastructure too.
Isn't that arguably want rural communities want, however? I believe they're the strongest advocates of small government, less subsidies and pulling oneself (ie, their community) up by their bootstraps, regardless of what reality is.
I don’t know US specifically but I know a bit about Canadian air traffic controllers. It’s a high stress but very well paying job with good pension etc. But I suspect there’s not a lot of opportunity to change to another job and get the same pay and benefits. So I guess I wonder what the end game is in resigning? Is it just people taking some pre-specified early retirement option, is it early career people that just…
Not really ATC specific, but at some point most people in most jobs can't deal with indefinitely not getting paid and will have to go do something else even if they don't have a good backup plan. Working retail, driving for Uber, etc, all have vastly better ROI at the moment than working ATC getting a $0 paycheck. In theory they'll get backpay and have better future earnings prospects than leaving for an uncertain career change. But that's probably not as comforting as it should be since it's uncertain when that will happen, or even if, since the government has unnecessarily gone out of its way to cast doubt on the promise of backpay.
The rules of the game have changed. The President has declared that it doesn’t matter what is in the bill - he won’t spend on anything in it he doesn’t like.
I know many of the people reading this will think I'm being hysterical. But there was a small voice in the back of my mind when the shutdown started wondering whether that version of the American government would ever reopen and that voice has started to become much louder in recent days. Specifically the combination of this, the handling of SNAP benefits, and this all happening in November just seems intentionally d…