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Folks.
Below is an Article from the San Francisco Chronicle today.
It is a report on how the Bush - Goverment tries to get out of the
financial responsibility to the ATC-system. At times when all the tax
money left flows into the defense budget , this is a step into a
dangerous direction.
The article cites that many other countries did privatize the ATC systems.
Friends . Let me tell you how that ended 2 years ago in Germany. Since a
privat system works only well when there is to make a profit, they
thought of how to make every aircraft owner pay for the existence of
ATC. Basically they came up with a yearly DM6000 Tax per personal
Aircraft. This was due whether you plane flies or not - just for the
fact that it is registerd in Germany and you might want to fly. (The
laws requiere everyone flying above 2000ft in Germany to stay in contact
with ATC.)
In case the ATC will be privatized I can see them already reaching out
for our money.
Hartmut
Below Article:
Bush hints at private controllers
New order changes Clinton air traffic plan
George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
President Bush has taken the first step toward possibly privatizing
air traffic control services, a move that delivers on a campaign
theme of injecting a business sense into government work but an
initiative that infuriates labor leaders.
He made the overture in a little-noticed executive order in which
he stripped air traffic control of its "inherently governmental"
designation, opening the door to privatization.
The order, signed last Tuesday, was not made public until late
Thursday and was largely overlooked under the weight of other
news. By Monday, however, labor had mounted a public
relations defense and began to lobby members of Congress to ask
that they defeat any Bush proposal that may be forthcoming.
"We find this dangerous and ominous," if safety is ever
compromised in a privatized system, said Ed Wytkind, executive
director of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.
Bush's executive order amended an executive order signed by
President Bill Clinton on Dec. 7, 2000, in which he redesigned
the air traffic control system to make it performance-based and
otherwise infuse it with efficiencies. Bush deleted Clinton's
four-word description of the controllers' work: "an inherently
governmental function."
...........
Twenty-seven nations have privatized their air traffic control
systems, he said, among them Germany, Switzerland, Australia,
Canada and New Zealand, as well as Great Britain.
John Carr, president of the controllers union, said the timing of
the Bush order is particularly surprising, coming so soon after the
tragedies of Sept. 11, when air traffic controllers played vital roles
for maintaining public safety.
"This action is a slap in the face to the men and women who
worked President Bush's aircraft as he flew from Florida to
Louisiana to Nebraska on Sept. 11," Carr said. "If this nation's
air traffic controllers didn't prove their mettle on that fateful
morning, when they landed 700 aircraft in five minutes and
almost 5,000 in two hours, then I suppose there's nothing we can
do to prove ourselves critical to this nation's safety and security."
The FAA some years ago did privatize small airport tower
operations, then called "level one." These included airports at
Chico, Redding, Santa Maria and San Carlos. The process,
however, was held up by a legal challenge from the union. Now,
the executive order reignites an old debate, said Rich Burton, the
union representative at San Jose airport.
"We know now that contracting out may be a reality to all of us,
and it's obvious to a lot of people that the privatization issue is
with us again. But I don't think the public will stand for it. Not
after Sept. 11," Burton said.
Phil Boyer, the president of another aviation union, the Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association, said, "We're absolutely
flabbergasted that the administration thinks that aviation security
and safety aren't a government function. This administration's
position is particularly incomprehensible at a time when the
government is taking airport security functions away from private
industry and consolidating homeland security into a huge new
department."
E-mail George Raine at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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