Reacting to the deep frustration shared by millions over the dismal state of air travel, President Clinton created a new organization Thursday to manage air-traffic control and called for new pricing structures to make it costlier to fly during peak hours.
The president stopped short of privatizing air-traffic control, an idea long suggested by airline executives and industry experts as crucial to staving off gridlock in the sky.
Instead, his executive order establishes the Air Traffic Organization, which will be stewarded by a chief operating officer, governed by a five-member board of directors and expected to run with the same kind of efficiency that is the hallmark of successful businesses.
The move splits the Federal Aviation Administration into two divisions, one to oversee safety and regulation and the other to manage all functions of air-traffic control, from technology to control tower operations.
In announcing his plan, Clinton said the FAA “must be better structured to manage the high-tech, high-demand operations of a 21st Century air-traffic control system.”
Critics quickly attacked the plan as an inadequate response to an overburdened air travel system. Delays have increased 58 percent since 1995, and cancellations have risen 68 percent in that time, costing American companies and passengers more than $2 billion a year in lost time and revenue, according to the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group.
“This creates a PTA to oversee the FAA,” said Michael Boyd, president of the Boyd Group, an aviation consulting company. “This is just another bit of eyewash to make the public think they are doing something about it.”
Clinton also proposed charging the airlines higher landing fees during peak hours, a measure that would give airlines incentive not to cluster excessive numbers of flights into peak travel times. And he suggested dropping the excise tax tacked onto airline tickets as the means of paying for air traffic control, replacing it with a flat user fee.
Making up the five-member board overseeing the new Air Traffic Organization will be Nancy Kassebaum Baker, the former Republican senator from Kansas; John Cullinane, a computer software businessman; Leon Lynch, international vice president of human affairs for the United Steelworkers of America; Sharon Patrick, president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.; and John Snow, chairman of CSX Corp.
While Clinton said one of the Air Traffic Organization’s strengths will be its measure of autonomy, the agency still will ultimately report to FAA Administrator Jane Garvey.
The theory behind the new air-traffic control structure is that adopting a businesslike, efficiency-driven mind-set would hasten improvements to the air-traffic system, including the adoption of new technology.
For instance, the FAA is years away from switching air-traffic control-based radar to a satellite-based system that would vastly enlarge the amount of air space for flights.
The new, performance-based Air Traffic Organization conceivably could expedite the technology by eliminating much of the red tape that has bogged down the FAA’s air-traffic modernization effort.
Norman Mineta, former head of a White House appointed group, the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, that years ago predicted the congestion the system is experiencing now, called the plan a building block toward crafting new finance mechanisms for expanding airport capacity.
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“The performance-based organization is really at the doorstep of a corporation,” Mineta said. “It is the way to do it.”
However, Clifford Winston, an economist at the Brookings Institution, dismissed the creation of the performance-based board as a misguided government attempt to expand the capacity of the nation’s airways.
Winston said the U.S. Department of Transportation has failed to significantly boost the capacity of the highway system to meet demand, and that the new wrinkle at the FAA will be no different.
Clinton also called for a new way to pay for air-traffic control. Right now, excise taxes paid by passengers when they buy an airline ticket are directed to the FAA to help pay for the system.
Under Clinton’s proposal, which must be approved by Congress, the airlines would pay a flat user fee to the Air Traffic Organization that would better reflect what it costs to manage commercial air traffic.
Because the charge would be a flat fee, the new funding mechanism likely would be criticized by low-cost carriers because it would force them to charge higher fares. The excise tax charged now is 8 percent of the fare plus a $2-per-flight segment.
Under the user fee proposal, passengers would be charged a flat fee that industry officials estimate could range between $35 to $50.
“We will be keeping a very close eye on anything that would increase our cost and therefore increase our fares,” said Christine Turneabe-Connelly, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, a low-cost carrier.
Perhaps even more intriguing than the restructuring of air-traffic control was Clinton’s call for congestion pricing, which could strike at the heart of one of the biggest factors contributing to delays: airline overscheduling during peak hours.
In a four-part series on the problems plaguing commercial air travel, the Tribune described how airlines at O’Hare International Airport at times book as many as 37 flights in a 15-minute time period, when they can accommodate at best only 25 planes.
Clinton’s proposal would introduce congestion pricing through the landing fees airlines must pay. Currently, those fees are based only on a plane’s weight. However, Clinton’s plan would raise landing fees charged during peak hours, a proposal that could prompt airlines to pass on the fee to peak-hour travelers.
At O’Hare, travelers at United Airlines’ Terminal 1 greeted the notion of congestion pricing with mixed reactions.
“That would be great if you’re traveling with your family. But for work, you need to go during the busy times,” said Betsy O’Sullivan, who was heading home to Rochester, N.Y., after a business trip to Dallas.
Howard Nicholson of Iowa City, a research assistant in environmental health, said he would welcome cheaper flights during off-peak hours.
“I think that would be fine,” Nicholson said. “Most of the time I have to travel a day early anyway. We’d be able to get a half day’s work done before we left.”