You’re right to note in “Democrats Don’t Mind Your Flight Delays” (Review & Outlook, Nov. 7), and elsewhere, that it’s unacceptable for air-traffic controllers to be going without pay during a government shutdown. But there are better solutions than to privatize our ATC system.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has affirmed on several occasions that privatization would distract from real solutions that, for the first time in decades, are within reach. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act invests $12.5 billion in ATC technology and workforce modernization. Additional legislation, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), would pay controllers through future shutdowns. These are targeted fixes that make sense.
You have advocated “freeing” controllers by spinning the system off of government—the Canadian model. That isn’t “some pie-in-the-sky idea,” but it would be imprudent. The Canadian Air Traffic Control Association has reported that Nav Canada, the nonprofit that runs the country’s air navigation, underinvests in personnel and infrastructure to contain costs.
The result is that across Canada, and especially in Vancouver, airports face chronic controller shortages and outages, leading to cascading delays. Control towers at two major airports are regularly closed when the only controller on duty takes a break. The International Civil Aviation Organization in 2023 gave Canada a score of 65 out of 100 in safety oversight, a steep drop from two decades ago, and lower than the U.S. in each category a year later.
The U.S. system isn’t perfect—but we shouldn’t be too quick to assume that other systems offer a better approach. Our priority ought to be solving shutdown-related pay issues. Upending the whole system to fix a problem for which there is a more-targeted solution isn’t the way to do it.
Andrew Langer
Institute for Liberty
Washington
Appeared in the November 12, 2025, print edition as ‘The Case Against ‘Freeing’ Air-Traffic Control’.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-case-against-freeing-air-traffic-control-duffy-canada-9bbbed72