Who should I blame for being stuck in Kentucky without a flight ... I have to miss my son's baseball game on Sat am.

Well a 2% reduction of a FAA budget led to a furlough. Can 2% of waste be found? I think so. Therefore I blame the FAA, or whoever made that decision to furlough.

Brad, I've been reading up on this and it is even worse than you desribe. They had a 10% furlough of ATC for that 2% reduction. However, corporate departments were not furloughed. Training, education, and corporate travel budgets were barely touched. The inability of the FAA to manage such a small decrease makes me wonder whether we should privatize the FAA. Their treatment of their "customers" was unconscionable.

Are you saying that the government was hurting the poorer worker, and lining the pocket of the bourgeois? I cannot believe Bush administration is still screwing the little man. [sarcasm intended]

That sucks. Hope you made it home eventually.

Yes, thanks.

Brad:

Are you saying that the government was hurting the poorer worker, and lining the pocket of the bourgeois? I cannot believe Bush administration is still screwing the little man. [sarcasm intended]

In all seriousness, I think they were going after the business traveler. It backfired in that it made it personal. It's one thing to increase your taxes and quite another to ruin your day.

Yes, I know and agree.

What is interesting is that even before RJ's post, the Senate had passed the Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013, allowing the FAA to allocate funds to stop the furlough. It seems there was a lot of money (c. $250M) in the FAA budget that was unallocated - is that down to the FAA, or to the people who set the budgets (Congress & the Administration)?

Anyway, the RFDA went through the House and has been enacted, and the USDoT on Friday past announced that it meant no more furloughs and keeping the 'low activity' towers open until the end of the fiscal year. But without any new money.

Hooray for Congress, huh? Acting swiftly when the effects of the sequester hit air travellers. As I'm flying over to the US in less than a week (Norlins, baby!!!), it even reduces the stress on us foreign tourists.

Of course, they did the exact same thing as soon as the sequester hit things like Meals on Wheels for the elderly, administering of chemo for cancer patients, pre-K education for kids from low income households...

Oh, well, no, I don't see that they did.

danivon wrote:What is interesting is that even before RJ's post, the Senate had passed the Reducing Flight Delays Act of 2013, allowing the FAA to allocate funds to stop the furlough. It seems there was a lot of money (c. $250M) in the FAA budget that was unallocated - is that down to the FAA, or to the people who set the budgets (Congress & the Administration)?

Anyway, the RFDA went through the House and has been enacted, and the USDoT on Friday past announced that it meant no more furloughs and keeping the 'low activity' towers open until the end of the fiscal year. But without any new money.

Hooray for Congress, huh? Acting swiftly when the effects of the sequester hit air travellers. As I'm flying over to the US in less than a week (Norlins, baby!!!), it even reduces the stress on us foreign tourists.

Of course, they did the exact same thing as soon as the sequester hit things like Meals on Wheels for the elderly, administering of chemo for cancer patients, pre-K education for kids from low income households...

Oh, well, no, I don't see that they did.

The FAA ATC furlough was unreasonable and could have been avoided. The decision to furlough ATC agents came from the Administration and was supported by Democrats, "plane" and simple. They reversed course when their arrogance was exposed (and the big money lobbied which supports your other point on other cuts).

In Canada and in other countries the FAA is privatized. You also use other technologies (Wi-Fi, cellular) much more efficiently. We are way behind because of bureaucratic incompetence / indifference.

Part of the basic issus is that it will still be a monopoly (you can't have competing ATC in the same airspace), and there is still a national level at which certain things have to operate.

So I am not sure that privatisation is the panacea, at least the terms and framework of any privatised aviation body would need careful consideration.

In the UK, we still have the CAA as the main regulator, which is a statutory corporation (like the BBC, set up and regulated by government, but run at arms-length). While the CAA is not privatised it is not taxpayer-funded. Instead it has to run on charges levied from customers.

ATC in the UK is run by a separate body, NATS, which started out as part of the CAA (but as it also dealt with military traffic involved the MOD), and was later split off so as to be distinct from its regulator, the CAA.

In 1998 NATS was part privatised, and the government owns 49%, an airline consortium owns 42%, staff own 5% and the rest is owned by an airport group.

That airport group only came in later, when NATS needed a bailout due to the drop-off in air travel after 2001. Half of the needed £130m came from them in exchange for 4% and the rest came from the government, in exchange for... it not failing.

Point being that it is not just a simple remedy to privatise something that clearly is a vital servoce.(vital enough for emergency legislation).

And if it really was just squealing from the FAA and DOT, why did Congress pass the law to allow the viring of funds? Surely they (by this I mean the fine upstanding Republicans who are not fooled by such chicanery from a Democrat administration) would have pointed out that such legislation was unnecessary. Instead they voted it through.

The point of the sequester - from both sides - as to cause pain. That was suppposed to lead to pressure on Congress to agree a budget, and on that basis both Republicans and Democrats set it up to happen as a means to stop the can from being kicked down the road. What this law has done is actually to keep the can being kicked. Rather than an emergency fix to stop air travellers protesting, perhaps they should have been working on a budget to solve the underlying problem and end the sequester.

In the US system we also pay airline fees that fund about 2/3rds of the FAA. They are on a per passenger per landing basis. It does raise the question: why should air travel be subsidized at all by general funds? Is it another example of government subsidizing the well off or is there some other reason? It also raises the question whether the per passenger charge is the right mechanism as the charge does not line up with the cost. (The cost is really based on per plane, and planes have variable numbers of passengers. A private company may try to line up its variable cost with its variable revenue. Yes, they would have to be regulated by a national body that should weigh in on these decisions.)

The mechanism of the sequester was open to interpretation. Yes each budget grouping was subject to cuts, but the definition of a grouping was open to interpretation. Did the FAA have to cut x% of its air traffic control line item, or could it have just cut x% of its total budget? The FAA decided to interpret the sequester in the most narrow way possible so it would inflict the maximum pain on air traffic. This was a conscious political decision. The funding was corrected by explicitly saying they should interpret it differently, and not by providing more funds to the FAA. A private company faced with a similar decision would have made cuts to inflict minimum pain on its customers. That's exhibit 1 for privating the organization. Private companies go thru cuts all the time and figure out how to make them palatable to their customers and cause the least amount of disruption.

Like many Americans, I'm okay with the sequester so far. Perhaps the cuts down the road will be too severe, but we have to control the beast. Our deficit is forecasted to decline for the next 3 years, and this is part of the reason. If Congress can come up with a more sensible budget, I'm all for it. But in the meantime we have to control costs somehow and the sequester seems to be the only thing that we have right now.

Ray Jay wrote:In the US system we also pay airline fees that fund about 2/3rds of the FAA. They are on a per passenger per landing basis. It does raise the question: why should air travel be subsidized at all by general funds? Is it another example of government subsidizing the well off or is there some other reason?

Well, it's part of the economy, and business uses it a lot, and it helps tourism, and I don't know about your set-up, but there is a military and security aspect to aviation regulation as well.

It also raises the question whether the per passenger charge is the right mechanism as the charge does not line up with the cost. (The cost is really based on per plane, and planes have variable numbers of passengers. A private company may try to line up its variable cost with its variable revenue. Yes, they would have to be regulated by a national body that should weigh in on these decisions.)

You could change the basis of fees with or without privatisation. There are all

The mechanism of the sequester was open to interpretation. Yes each budget grouping was subject to cuts, but the definition of a grouping was open to interpretation. Did the FAA have to cut x% of its air traffic control line item, or could it have just cut x% of its total budget? The FAA decided to interpret the sequester in the most narrow way possible so it would inflict the maximum pain on air traffic. This was a conscious political decision. The funding was corrected by explicitly saying they should interpret it differently, and not by providing more funds to the FAA.

Each government department has its own rules (set by Congress) and budgets. I still don't see why a law was necessary if what you have said is the complete truth about the FAA. The correction was to release funds that were not allocated to the areas affected. If they could have been, no law need be passed, but a massive and public debate showing the interpretation was incorrect would have done it.

A private company faced with a similar decision would have made cuts to inflict minimum pain on its customers. That's exhibit 1 for privating the organization. Private companies go thru cuts all the time and figure out how to make them palatable to their customers and cause the least amount of disruption.

Some do, some don't. Sometimes they have a 'political' reason to pass on pain to customers to make a point. I suggest you look at RyanAir as an example of a private company that is incredibly reluctant to protect its customers from pain, but is also successful. Annoyingly so, but they are.

Like I say, privatisation is not some magic wand. Private companies, even those in competitive sectors let alone those with effective monopolies, can be obstructive, expensive, inefficient, idiotic etc etc. The key is really the framework, not the ideology behind the ownership.

Like many Americans, I'm okay with the sequester so far. Perhaps the cuts down the road will be too severe, but we have to control the beast. Our deficit is forecasted to decline for the next 3 years, and this is part of the reason. If Congress can come up with a more sensible budget, I'm all for it. But in the meantime we have to control costs somehow and the sequester seems to be the only thing that we have right now.

So those people affected who didn't have an effective and vocal lobby (as well as something in common with Congressmembers, such as a need to fly to and from work) can go jump.

As above, that's kids from poor families who could benefit from pre-K schooling when HeadStart gets sliced, or cancer sufferers who need chemo but who can't get it from their doctors because of slicing Health funding.

The sequester is only part of the decline in the deficit, but it wasn't really supposed to be a continuing feature. It was a negotiation back-stop designed to be something both sides would want to avoid. Hence it was supposed to be very painful, painful for every part of goverment to plan for and deal with, painful for people who used the government's services and painful for Congress (having to receive complaints about everyone else's pain, and seeing their favourite spending areas hit).

What is clear is that the priorities of who can politically be allowed to lose out to the sequester and who can't is interesting.

Danivon:

Each government department has its own rules (set by Congress) and budgets. I still don't see why a law was necessary if what you have said is the complete truth about the FAA. The correction was to release funds that were not allocated to the areas affected. If they could have been, no law need be passed, but a massive and public debate showing the interpretation was incorrect would have done it.

There was a massive public debate. Many said that the FAA has full authority and showed the exact legal language to prove it. The FAA chose a different interpretation. We couldn't wait for the courts to figure this out with expensive attorneys (paid by the taxpayers!) on both sides of the debate. Congress had to make it abundantly clear to get the FAA to change their position.

They did it without authorizing additional funds; they did it by allowing the FAA to use existing discretionary funds that were not being used!.

Danivon:

As above, that's kids from poor families who could benefit from pre-K schooling when HeadStart gets sliced, or cancer sufferers who need chemo but who can't get it from their doctors because of slicing Health funding.

It would be easy to fund the truly needy by using federal money more wisely. If you want to confuse the issue by playing the rich vs. poor card, go ahead. But I'm talking about government spending its money more efficiently. We can buy a lot of milk and vegetables by stopping ethanol subsidies. In fact, we can lower the expense of the milk by changing our agriculture policy.