The National Consumers League issued the following statement by Executive Director Sally Greenberg about passage of anti-consumer legislation extending the authorization on the Federal Aviation Administration in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee:
“Yesterday, in a near party-line vote the Republican members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted to give away our public airspace to the airlines. Under this proposal, the very entities that have suffered numerous computer outages that downed thousands of flights, would be in charge of the critical Air Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure.
“It is mind-boggling that in an era of record airline consolidation, members of the committee chose to give even more control to the oligopolistic airline industry. It is further troubling that, when given the choice to support an amendment to ensure that government representatives of the newly privatized ATC corporation act in the public interest, the committee again declined even this modest improvement, ensuring that the airline industry has full control of the ATC corporation.
“The National Consumers League urges members of the House and Senate to reject this radical and dangerous privatization proposal and to vote “no” on any bill or amendment that gives control of the nation’s critical ATC infrastructure to the airlines. We will continue to do all we can to oppose this anti-consumer, anti-competition legislation.”
Contact: Cindy Hoang, 202/207-2832, cindyh@nclnet.org