It's airlines versus corporate jets in a Capitol Hill dogfight over the air traffic control system.
Contract controllers are a widely used but little-known part of the FAA's air traffic control system.
It is hard to imagine the air traffic control system functioning with its budget cut by 15 percent.
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"Weather is the great equalizer in the air traffic control system, " Church said.
One of the FAA's major projects during the next five years is to revamp the air traffic control system.
How in the world can our air traffic control system survive if air controllers are working ten percent fewer hours?
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For example, the interstate highway system, air traffic control system and even the Internet were the result of DoD projects.
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Closer to home, airlines have struggled this week with delays caused by a slowdown in the federal air traffic control system.
And Congress is torn over a bill that would help fund a satellite-based air traffic control system to ease aerial bottlenecks.
The second thing that we need to do is we've got to upgrade our air traffic control system, which is a little creaky.
"If they go ahead with this the UK will be the only country in the world to privatise its air traffic control system, " he added.
Now UPS is testing a technology designed to close that gap and, possibly, bring sweeping new efficiencies to the entire air traffic control system without compromising safety.
The bad news: The FAA wants to replace these taxes with a more complicated combination of user fees and taxes in order to upgrade the nation's aging air traffic control system.
The administration's funding authorization expires Sept. 30, and it needs more money to address the booming volume of air traffic, primarily because the air traffic control system needs safety and security upgrades.
The FAA says funding for the new fee system, combined with federal money, would shift the 40-year-old ground-based air traffic control system to a satellite-based, cockpit-to-cockpit system that is safer and more efficient.
In one corner is the ATA. They say the number of small aircraft and corporate jets exploded from 1, 800 to 18, 000 since 1970, jamming America's air traffic control system, but the fees paid haven't kept pace.
He said he was determined to "face up to the necessity of reform", an example of which is the part-privatisation of the National Air Traffic Control System (Nats) to be debated by the Commons on Tuesday.
Michael Boyd, president of Colorado aviation consulting firm Boyd International Group, is critical of the recommendation, saying the country could handle the current flight demand -- and cut delays -- by improving its air traffic control system.
The report calls for accelerating the use of the global positioning satellite system (GPS) in U.S. airspace and ultimately linking GPS and the air traffic control system to provide better and safer separation for planes flying in the United States.
According to the Air Transport Association (ATA), the industry group that represents commercial airlines, corporate jets and other small planes use about a third of the nation's creaky air traffic control system but pay for only about 6% of it.
Aviation experts contend that even if intruders were able to access a control tower and disrupt operations, the nation's air traffic control system is designed with multiple back-ups so that other facilities could pick up control of the affected air space.
Atlantic Southeast, which was sold to Skywest Airlines by Delta in 2005 but continues as Delta's connector partner, tends to get short shrift during weather delays by an Air Traffic Control system that would always rather delay flights with relatively fewer people on them.
What the NTSB uncovers regarding the FAA's safety certification program could have important implications for the agency's ability to handle other technology challenges, including the transition to a new air traffic control system and the introduction of unmanned aircraft into the national airspace, said Jim Hall, a former safety board chairman.
That brings me to my involvement with NextGen (Next Generation Air Traffic Control System) and gaining the opportunity to partner with the safety professionals at the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) in order to assist in moving the industry to the next level as it relates to operating safe and efficient skies.
In a presentation at the Black Hat and Defcon security conference in July, for instance, French security researcher Andre Costin presented vulnerabilities in the next-generation air traffic control system known as ADS-B that he said would allow a hacker with a software-defined radio to track and even spoof planes in the sky, potentially creating dangerous distractions for pilots.
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Take the chaos that has engulfed Brazil's airports for the past six months, the result of a creaking air-traffic control system operated by disgruntled air-force staff.
Actual flight performance has gotten more unpredictable because of problems in the air-traffic control system.
The FAA predicts that delays will increase 62 percent by the year 2014, given projected passenger growth and the antiquated air-traffic control system.
If all continues to go well, the results will be plugged into the airport's air-traffic control system for real within a few months.
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