Study: Private air traffic control is good

CARLETON PLACE, Ontario, April 24 (UPI) -- A Canadian study says the commercialization of air traffic control operations can provide greatly improved performance in costs, safety and modernization.

The study, led by Glen McDougall, president of MBS Ottawa Inc., a consulting firm specializing in transportation policy, examined the performance of 10 international commercial air navigation service providers, or ANSPs, from 1997 to 2004. The study compared those operations to that of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The researchers said they found the greatest successes in systems that limit government "micro-management," encourage customer participation in decision making and maintain government oversight of safety.

In most systems the researchers found costs were generally reduced, service quality improved and several ANSPs utilized modernized workplace technologies.

"This research will have significance on the long term governance arrangements of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which remains a government department," the researchers wrote. "The FAA exhibits many of the restraints on performance that affected air traffic control provision in other countries before commercialization."

The study appears in the journal Canadian Public Administration.