Deregulation of the U.S. airline industry has resulted in ticket prices
dropping by a third, on an inflation-adjusted basis. As a result some 1.6
million people fly on 4,000 aircraft every day. Airlines carried 643 million
passengers in 1998, a 25% increase over 1993 and the FAA estimates that the
nationˇ¦s airline system will have to accommodate 917 million passengers by the
year 2008. The growth in air travel threatens to overwhelm the presently
inadequate air traffic control system, which has not kept pace with available
technology in navigation, communications, and flight surveillance.
Much of the equipment used for air traffic control today is based on
fifty-year-old technology; for example, analog simplex voice links for
communications and ground-based radar for surveillance, and VHF Omnidirectional
Range/Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) for navigation. The lack of system
automation imposes heavy workloads on human air traffic controllers and
increases the risk of accidents in heavy traffic situations.
Capacity limits are being reached in both airports and airspace, with
congestion delays in departure and arrival schedules reaching record numbers.
Funds to upgrade the air traffic control system are available in the trust fund
created to receive the tax applied to airline passenger tickets and the tax on
fuel for general aviation.
The General Accounting Office says modernizing the air traffic control system
will cost at least 17 billion for just the first 5 years of the FAAˇ¦s 15-year
National Airspace System improvement plan. It is the NAS that provides the
services and infrastructure for air transportation. Air transportation
represents 6% of the Nationˇ¦s gross domestic product, so the NAS is a critical
element of our national economy.
Given the size of the NAS, the task ahead is enormous. Our NAS includes more
than 18,300 airports, 21 air route traffic control centers, over 460 air traffic
control towers and 75 flight service stations, and approximately 4,500 air
navigation facilities. The NAS spans the country, extends into the oceans, and
interfaces with neighboring air traffic control systems for international
flights. The NAS relies on approximately 30,000 FAA employees to provide air
traffic control, flight service, security, and field maintenance services.
