The Alliance for Aviation Across America has submitted a letter to the editor in response to the New York Times editorial board’s recent video, which recommended that Congress model our nation’s air traffic control (ATC) system after Canada’s privatized NAV Canada.
In our response, Executive Director Devin Osting highlights the unprecedented coalition of 46 aviation organizations that strongly oppose ATC privatization and calls out the very real challenges NAV Canada is facing.
Most importantly, the letter stresses that privatization would fall hardest on small towns and rural communities across the U.S., where general aviation is a lifeline for critical services and economic connectivity.
Read the full letter below:
Dear Editor,
In your recent video, If You Fly Economy, You’re Paying for Someone Else to Fly Private (8/10), the editorial board recommended that Congress model the funding of our air traffic control (ATC) system after Canada’s privatized system, NAV Canada.
A broad coalition of 46 organizations representing every part of the aviation sector—including general and business aviation, helicopter operators, repair stations, airlines, cargo carriers, airports, and unions for controllers, airline pilots, flight attendants, and manufacturing and maintenance professionals— oppose pursuing ATC privatization at this time.
These groups have come together in unprecedented alignment because we now have the opportunity and the political will to make needed investments in personnel and technology and targeted reforms. A renewed debate over privatization would be divisive, as it has been in the past (such as when this very editorial board opposed it), and would squander the real, and I suspect short-lived, opportunity to address the most pressing needs in our aviation system.
Your video also overlooked the serious challenges that NAV Canada is facing. The unions representing air traffic controllers and airline pilots in Canada issued a scathing white paper outlining chronic underinvestment and short-termism, incentivized by the exact “funding model” the editorial board would have us emulate.
Most critically, privatization in the U.S. would hit hardest in small towns and rural communities, where general aviation is not a luxury—it is the lifeline for medical care, disaster response, and economic connectivity.
Lawmakers must now focus on modernizing the system we have, and not let this opportunity slip through our fingers.
Sincerely,
Devin Osting
Executive Director
Alliance for Aviation Across America