- Discrepancy in air traffic controller numbers and resignations
- Post-mortem on advanced air mobility
- Update on ATC “privatization”
- Europe’s conundrum on air travel
- Scott Kirby is wrong on slots for Newark
- Is the moon race heating up?
- $20 billion more for ATC?
- News Notes
- Quotable Quotes
During the government shutdown, we read article after article about the loss of air traffic controllers. Not only were some controllers calling out sick, but some reportedly were taking part-time jobs to make ends meet, and others took the shutdown as an opportunity to retire.
Yet once the shutdown ended, the media were full of news stories, based on updates from the Federal Aviation Administration, that controllers were returning, as USA Today reported on Nov. 16, “FAA Ends Shutdown-Era Flight Limits as Controller Staffing Rebounds.” Aviation Daily on Nov. 14 headlined that, “FAA Freezes Flight Cuts as Controller Callouts Decline Rapidly.” Within a week or so after the government shutdown ended, airline flights were reported as being essentially back to normal, just in time for Thanksgiving weekend.
There is something wrong with this rosy picture. To begin with, recall that controller staffing pre-shutdown was far below FAA norms, with six-day workweeks and 10- to 12-hour shifts for controllers at some key facilities. If all controllers who were on the roster the week before the shutdown returned to their jobs within the week after it ended, many air traffic control (ATC) facilities would still be seriously understaffed and controllers would still be overworked. Instead of allowing a return to all flight activities as they were pre-shutdown, the FAA could have considered what it would take in terms of targeted flight reductions to reduce the number of six-day controller work weeks and 10-hour shifts.
Adding to my concern are statements by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during the shutdown. In Politico on Nov. 9, Duffy said the following: “I used to have four controllers a day retire before the shutdown. I’m now up to 15 to 20 a day are retiring, so it’s going to be harder for me to come back after the shutdown and have more controllers controlling the airspace. So this is going to live on in air travel well beyond the time frame that this government opens up.” (italics added)
Let’s do a bit of arithmetic here. The federal government shutdown lasted 43 days. The net increase in retirements, per Duffy, was 11 to 16 controllers per day. At the low end, 11 retirements per day times 43 days equals 473 retirements. On the high end, 16 retirements per day times 43 days equals 688 controllers retired during the shutdown. The average of those two numbers for Duffy’s retirement claims is 580 fewer air traffic controllers today than before the shutdown.
So how could air traffic controller staffing possibly be back to pre-shutdown levels? Secretary Duffy owes us an explanation. Perhaps Congress should ask him. If the system is actually staffed with 580 fewer controllers than it had before the shutdown, it’s hard to see how they could be safely handling pre-shutdown levels of air traffic.
Post-Mortem on Advanced Air Mobility
This year has turned out to be the time when reality imposed its judgment on the plethora of advanced air mobility (AAM) start-up companies. In a lengthy article in Aviation Week (Oct. 27-Nov. 9), Ben Goldstein summarized the many losers and the handful of survivors.
This trend was already underway in 2024, which saw the demise of Lilium, Rolls-Royce’s Electrical unit, Universal Hydrogen, and Volocopter. Then came 2025’s deluge of bankruptcies. They include the City Airbus project, Germany’s APUS Zero Emission, Spain’s Crisalion Mobility, Cuberg/Northvolt, Eviation, Guardian Agriculture, Overair, Supernal, and Textron eAviation.
Left standing are the U.S. big three: Archer Aviation, Beta Technology, and Joby Aviation. All three have decent funding, a path toward FAA certification, and some potential as ongoing businesses, whether only as producers of aircraft or also as operators. The same issue of Aviation Week had another article on the growing number of AAM companies in China, none of which appear to be planning to seek FAA certification. Both Joby and Archer aim to launch actual electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air service in the United Arab Emirates as early as next year, with or without FAA certification.
Why have we seen so many failed start-ups? It’s not because eVTOL (the primary aim of these start-ups) is impossible, because we see the survivors’ aircraft flying. One serious problem is the business model. Because battery-powered vertical flight requires a very large amount of power, and batteries are very heavy, an eVTOL’s payload and range are both very limited. Instead of the mass-market fantasy of “flying cars” and go-anywhere air taxis, this is looking more and more like a high-end luxury service for niche markets. In addition, most of the failed start-up companies probably had no idea of both the long time and high cost of obtaining FAA certification.
This is why we are seeing non-eVTOL AAM concepts being developed and tested. One alternative is hybrid propulsion, which can significantly increase payload and/or range. Another is including actual wings on some of these aircraft for cruise flight. And once wings are taken seriously, we have seen Electra.aero demonstrate its blown-wing innovation that enables its EL2 to take off and land in less than 150 feet—and it’s a hybrid-electric. Its larger EL-9 can handle a 1,000-lb. payload and still land and take off in less than 300 ft. The U.S. Air Force is seriously interested in the EL-9. This kind of aircraft is a hybrid STOL.
Giving up vertical flight and battery-only power are two keys to more viable advanced air mobility. These lessons are being learned the hard way, but that is what competitive technology development requires. Imagine if a central planner like NASA had defined eVTOL as the “one best way” for advanced aerial mobility?
My ongoing effort to shift the terminology for de-politicizing U.S. air traffic control by ceasing to call it “privatization” (as opposed to a self-funded public utility) has thus far not caught on here in the United States. As I noted in this newsletter, I switched my terminology several years ago to “public utility” because that is what these air traffic control entities are in all serious proposals today.
Since last month’s newsletter, I’ve continued to do interviews, most notably with Scott Simon on Nov. 15 for NPR’s Weekend Edition, which mentioned privatization in the online version’s headline. The Washington Post editorial board endorsed the idea of corporatization and cited my work in an editorial on Nov. 23, but the headline used the word privatize. Similarly, my Reason colleague Marc Scribner and Cornell Prof. Rick Geddes were interviewed by Dan Levin for Straight Arrow News in a piece that noted the plan would be “more akin to a public utility” but was headlined “The Quietly Powerful Group Keeping US Air Traffic Control Privatization Grounded.”
I was pleased to see an earlier op-ed in The New York Times by Binyamin Appelbaum, which explained the FAA’s limitations and cited “stand-alone corporations in Australia, Canada, and Germany” without resorting to using privatization. Former U.S. Department of Transportation official Diana Furchtgott-Roth had a good piece in The National Interest headlined “How to Modernize America’s Air Traffic Control,” but the unfortunate subhead was “Privatizing air traffic control could help prevent flight delays over the holiday season.” Oh, well…
As I explained last month, opponents of last decade’s House bill to create a U.S. version of nonprofit air traffic control corporation Nav Canada repeatedly attacked this idea as being “for profit” and “dominated by major airlines,” neither of which was true. And the strongest opponents then (and now)—private aviation groups AOPA and NBAA—continue to attack air traffic control “privatization” as if that were the case. In fact, nearly all 95 countries that receive ATC services today from user-funded, de-politicized air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are neither private nor for-profit. That is why, two years ago, I began using the term air traffic control public utility, since that is what the vast majority of depoliticized ATC systems are.
So, to this newsletter’s readership group, I repeat my request from last month’s issue: If you support depoliticizing the low-tech, underfunded Air Traffic Organization, please don’t refer to this as “privatization.” That helps only the opponents of this much-needed reform miscast what is actually being proposed.
Europe’s Conundrum on Air Travel
Much of the discussion of air travel in Europe seems to be driven by environmental groups such as Transport & Environment (T&E), which calls for cancelling airport expansion plans, increasing taxes on airline passengers, and other measures. Most airport expansion projects are still going forward, but in parallel with that, the European Commission announced on Nov. 5 a plan to spend $400 billion of taxpayers’ money to greatly expand the current 12,128 km high-speed rail network between now and 2040. The stated goal is to shift travelers from short-haul flights to rail travel.
There is no sign in aircraft sale projections from Airbus and Boeing that air travel will not grow or shrink. T&E warns that if all French airport expansion plans were carried out, 38 million more people would travel through French airports by 2050, compared to a hypothetical no-build scenario. In its Nov. 14 article on this subject, Aviation Daily notes that the current Groupe ADP airport expansion plan would mean an increase by 2050 from 82 million to 105 million annual passengers.
A few European airports are attempting to limit increases in air travel. Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands is still battling airlines over its attempt to reduce the number of annual flights, ostensibly due to noise exposure. In Germany, Vienna Airport recently decided not to proceed with adding a third runway. But those anti-growth efforts are swamped by planned expansions. In non-EU member, the United Kingdom, long-sought runway additions have this year been approved for both Heathrow (LHR) and Gatwick (LGW). The ongoing expansion of Germany’s Frankfurt Airport (Terminal 3) will add capacity for between 19 and 24 million annual passengers. And there’s also the ADP expansion plan noted above.
Groups like T&E and the European Commission (EC) seem to be ignoring what is going on in the rest of planet Earth’s airspace. Air travel in India is growing by leaps and bounds, and many airport expansion projects are underway in that country. In the Middle East—especially Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—air travel is booming. Andrew Charlton, in his December newsletter, reported on the Dubai Airshow in mid-November. He noted that a “small order” for new aircraft in this region is 100, with an option for 50 more.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reports that Europe accounts for 26.7% of global air travel. So if the EC were to succeed in restricting air travel in its domain, three-fourths of the world would continue expanding air travel: the United States because of its affluence and the developing world (China, India, the Middle East), as their economies continue to grow.
I have written previously that the de facto premise of most climate activists and their followers in government is that every sector of every economy must reduce its share of greenhouse gases (GHGs), regardless of either how costly that is to carry out or the benefits of the activity that generates those gases. If I were an environmental policy central planner, my policy would be to figure out the cost per ton of GHG reduction in every sector of the economy—and focus first on all the low-hanging fruit. My guess is that the cost/ton in aviation would be on the high end, and the economic benefits of air travel would also be high. That would suggest looking for relatively lower-cost air travel measures rather than very costly measures, such as spending $400 billion to expand European high-speed rail.
For background reading on approaching climate change policy rationally, I once again recommend Steven Koonin’s important book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, BenBella Books, 2021. Koonin was Undersecretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Obama administration. Earlier in his career, he was a professor of theoretical physics at Cal Tech. He has held numerous governance positions at national laboratories.
Scott Kirby Is Wrong About Newark Slot Controls
By Gary Leff
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby recently laid out the major benefits that fixing air traffic control would mean for improving air service in the United States, reducing delays and cancellations. I don’t think the FAA as a service provider can ever actually do it – you need the regulator to be different from the actual air traffic organization. The FAA regulating itself has meant zero accountability for decades.
However, Kirby goes on to argue that there still need to be limits at Newark airport, where United has a hub. His point about “simple math” doesn’t imply the solution that he thinks it does.
“Newark, for what it’s worth, always should have been capped. I mean it was the only airport left in the world that was a large airport that was over-scheduled that doesn’t have slots. It’s the only one and it used to have slots and the reality is at Newark the FAA says in the best of times with full staffing on perfect weather day they can handle 77 operations per hour and they were letting it be scheduled at 86 operations per hour for hours in a row. And that is simple math.”
We should improve throughput at Newark, because there’s a lot of demand for air travel out of Newark. We can’t do that because of air traffic control and because we don’t build things in the United States well anymore.
However, if Newark is overscheduled, the answer isn’t to hand the exclusive right to operate most of the flights to United, blocking competitors and future new entrants, as a free gift (subsidy) from taxpayers. That’s what slots are – the right to take off and land at an airport, generally given for free, despite huge economic value. Slot controls allow incumbents exclusivity and block anyone else from competing with them. That airlines have succeeded in regulatory capture to make this standard practice doesn’t make it any less bad policy.
Here’s the better approach: congestion pricing.
Slots are a blunt rationing instrument (and a subsidy to the incumbent airlines). Since they’re “use it or lose it,” we get unnecessary flying on small planes hardly anyone wants to fly, just to squat on flight times. Prices encourage airlines to allocate flights to the right aircraft and the right routes that match passenger demand.
Think of a runway like a heavily used road approaching its capacity. As use approaches 100% of capacity, planes have to queue. Each additional flight imposes delay costs on everyone else, but the airline only internalizes its own delay cost. So airlines are incentivized to overschedule.
Slots try to deal with this by capping the number of flights in a period. Congestion pricing says: “You can operate whenever you like, but you must pay the actual total cost of the delay you impose on others.”
Slots are a crude cap: “X movements per hour.” They’re allocated via grandfather rights and use it or lose it. They’re adjusted infrequently and administratively. Once you have the slot, the flight becomes “free” regardless of the delay it causes.
Charging per flight that approximates the marginal delay cost to others works better. When the system is uncongested, the price is low or zero. As demand approaches or exceeds capacity, prices rise sharply. Airlines operate a flight in that time slice if they are willing to pay – if the value of the flight to passengers and the airline is greater than the congestion charge.
That way, you get the flights that generate the highest value relative to the delay they cause. You also get natural spreading of flights to shoulders or off-peak times, reducing congestion and lowering their costs. Pricing can encourage the use of larger aircraft (“up-gauging”) to spread the cost out across more passengers.
A slot freezes peak delay – a “50 slots per hour” rule means you get 50 flights per hour, regardless of delay and irrespective of whether those are 50 regional jets or widebodies. There’s no incentive to move any of those flights 20 minutes to spread out peak loads.
Slots are also bad at handling weather events and air traffic control problems. Those might reduce an airport’s capacity from (say) 60 to 35 flights per hour. That’s when we get ground delay programs and ad-hoc rationing. Congestion pricing can do the work for you and prioritize the most valuable flights. Instead of stressing the system, airlines contribute towards paying for a better one.
Ultimately, the same price applies to everyone – incumbent airline or new entrant in the market. “Airlines would hate this!” Yes, of course incumbents would. They’re getting a valuable property right for free, and instead they’d be charged (though it could be done as revenue-neutral).
You’ll likely hear that “congestion charges” will just cement incumbent dominance, which is silly, because that’s what the current slot system does. The claim, though, is that incumbents have deep pockets to pay peak charges, while others get pushed out, worsening competition.
- Under slots, incumbents own peak access for free (or were often cheaply acquired in the past). They can sit on grandfathered rights indefinitely. New entrants are often shut out completely.
- If a new entrant sees high value in a particular peak flight, they can buy in. Under a fixed slot regime, there may literally be no access at any price.
- If policymakers still want to support entry (they will, usually for their own constituents rather than the public good), they can offer rebates for new carriers on specific routes and use competition policy to scrutinize predatory practices rather than locking in those practices with slots.
There will also be a class argument that peak times will become “rich people’s time slots,” with lower-income travelers getting pushed into inconvenient off-peak times or other airports. That’s often what happens now, getting pushed to Spirit and Frontier for lower fares at other airports. And lower-income travelers would face fewer delays! In any case, especially if congestion pricing encourages up-gauging, we’ll likely see more major carriers with excess capacity to discount – at peak times. But if you want redistribution, then do it explicitly, not via hidden cross-subsidies embedded in slot allocation.
A fair concern is that low-value flights that few passengers value – often on smaller regional jets to low-volume airports – will lose peak-time service. That’s because these flights are less valuable! But if we’re really going to design policy around these flights, don’t do it in a way that also inefficiently allocates flights, causing delays for the entire air system. Make the subsidy cost of these flights explicit rather than burying it.
A system that sets prices by day and time seasonally, by 15 or 30 minute increments, and is published in advance is easy for airlines to plan for. Then, major weather or air traffic control outages can have surge pricing with a capped multiplier (e.g., 2x). This is easy for airlines to deal with – they manage variable fuel pricing and demand risk constantly. And this will lower costs from ground delays.
Newark shouldn’t get slot controls. We should abolish them at New York’s JFK and LaGuardia and Washington National as well. They’re a rationing mechanism that locks in incumbents and treats all flights in the same time window as equivalent, regardless of the systematic delays they create. And they provide no real incentive to move a flight time or up-gauge.
And slots turn scarcity value into privately-owned assets of the airline, rather than revenue streams to improve system capacity. Congestion pricing does the opposite! Anyone can access takeoffs and landings if the value of their flight is high enough to warrant paying peak prices.
Editor’s Note: This article is a slightly condensed version of Gary Leff’s “View from the Wing” column published Nov. 21, 2025, and is used with the author’s permission.
While NASA continues to plan to launch its first SLS/Orion human lunar launch as early as February, some observers (including the editor of this newsletter) are very concerned about risking the lives of four astronauts on a spaceship that has flown only once (in 2022), and whose Orion capsule’s heat shield was partly destroyed during re-entry. Instead of fixing the heat shield, NASA is counting on an untested, gentler re-entry path to bring the astronauts back to Earth.
The only reason I can think of for this risky decision is the multi-billion-dollar cost of each SLS/Orion launch. By contrast, because SpaceX and Blue Origin space launchers cost a small fraction of that, they sensibly carry out repeated uncrewed test launches to be sure that when it’s time to launch people, every system and subsystem has had ongoing improvements to increase its operability and level of safety.
I’m encouraged to see both Blue Origin and SpaceX talking with NASA about alternative ways to get people and cargo to the Moon and back. Eric Berger reported in Ars Technica (Nov. 13) that NASA’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, asked both companies for more nimble plans for their respective lunar landings.
SpaceX disclosed that it has “shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.” Could that mean not using the flawed Orion capsules? Berger did not suggest this, but he thinks it might mean working with others beyond those directly involved with Artemis III. He went on to suggest two ideas that might be put forth by SpaceX: expendable Starships and using the company’s proven Dragon (presumably instead of Orion). For the former, instead of depending on propellant transfer in orbit (from one Starship to another), the idea would be to use expendable tankers, which would reduce their launch weight and might reduce the number of tanker missions by up to 50%.
Using SpaceX Dragons instead of Orion would increase safety and reduce cost, though Dragons would need a new heat shield for re-entry to Earth from lunar missions. Berger lays out a mission relying on a combination of Starships and Dragons, which is too complicated to summarize here, but none of its steps involves an SLS or an Orion. This would be a major change from using NASA’s minimally tested vehicles. It would also appear to eliminate having to use the costly (and behind-schedule) Lunar Gateway.
On Dec. 3, the Wall Street Journal reported on new proposals from Blue Origin. It has already been planned, for next year, to send a Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo mission to the lunar surface. This could be followed by a larger version of the cargo rocket to transport astronauts to the Moon in 2028 for a shorter stay than planned for Artemis III. The modified rocket would use storable propellants, which are intended to eliminate in-space fuel transfers. No details are available on that propulsion system.
NASA, per the WSJ report, “will evaluate proposals for a simpler astronaut landing on the Moon from Blue Origin and SpaceX, as well as any other proposals it might receive.” And assuming that Jared Isaacman gets confirmed promptly as NASA administrator, that assessment will be in good hands.
What About that “$20 Billion More” for ATC Modernization?
Aviation media reports late last month focused on DOT Secretary Duffy’s call for Congress to provide the “additional” $20 billion for air traffic control modernization that a broad aviation coalition has called for, all of them deeming the $12.5 billion in borrowed money that Congress provided earlier this year as merely a down payment.
Until now, when capital investments in the ATC system were called for, Congress allocated funds from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, whose dollars come from aviation user fees, primarily the airline passenger ticket tax. Aviation (or at least airlines) has long relied on user-funded infrastructure, for both airports and ATC. Highways are likewise supported largely by user fees, both fuel taxes and tolls.
The balance in the Aviation Trust Fund is expected to be around $20 billion by late 2025, but a large fraction of that will be drawn upon for the FAA’s 2026 operating and facilities and equipment budget needs. So what is the responsible answer to the “additional $20 billion” for ATC modernization?
Increase the aviation user fees. At a time when the federal budget is running a $2 trillion annual deficit, there is no justification for aviation to add to that total, which directly increases the national debt to unsustainable levels.
Port Authority Plans P3 for Newark Terminal B
Infralogic’s Eugene Gilligan reported (Nov. 13) that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s $45 billion capital plan includes using a long-term public-private partnership for its new Terminal B. Gilligan’s article noted that infrastructure investment firms have held discussions with Port Authority officials regarding the use of a P3 procurement model for replacing the aging existing terminal. The agency in recent years has used such P3s for new terminals at both Kennedy (JFK) and LaGuardia (LGA) airports. The capital plan also includes a new AirTrain Newark and an “EWR Vision Plan” for revitalizing the airport.
SpaceX Starship Cleared for Cape Canaveral Launches
Politico Space reported (Dec. 5) that the Space Force has cleared SpaceX to launch its huge Starship launch system from its launchpad SLC-37. SpaceX hopes to launch up to 76 Starship flights per year from that site within the next few years. Other launch companies expressed concerns about interference with their own launch plans, but the Space Force accepted SpaceX’s plans to identify any new “blast danger areas” that need to be cleared near SLC-37.
First Digital Tower in the Middle East
Hamad International Airport (HIA) in Qatar has received certification for the first virtual/digital control tower in the Middle East. The Virtual Tower was developed by Searidge Technologies, with partners ADB Safegate and NATS, the UK air navigation service provider (ANSP). The vTWR provides 360-degree views of the entire airport, which was not possible from its conventional tower. The new system has two controller workstations in the existing conventional tower and two in HIA’s Backup and Approach Training Center.
Blue Origin Lands New Glenn Booster
On its second launch, Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster lofted two NASA payloads toward Mars and recovered the reusable booster for the first time. This was the first successful New Glenn booster recovery. Blue Origin plans to use it for many future launches, similar to SpaceX’s growing track record with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles.
Nav Canada Breaks Ground for Its First Digital Tower Center
Kingston, Ontario, is the site where Nav Canada has begun construction of an interim digital tower facility. The Kingston Digital Facility (KDF) is intended to lay the groundwork for a future digital tower center that is intended to serve up to 20 airports. Upon completion in 2026, the KDF will initially provide tower services for Kingston and one other airport, as the first digital tower facility in Canada. It is also the first stage in Nav Canada’s Digital Aerodrome Air Traffic Services (DAATS) initiative. Nav Canada’s technology partner on this endeavor is Kongsberg.
DOT Seeks Information on Dulles Airport Revamp
Responding to a White House request, the US DOT on Dec. 3 issued a Request for Information on plans to “revitalize” Washington Dulles Airport (IAD). The RFI includes the idea of public-private partnerships (P3s), like those that have been used to replace aging terminals at LaGuardia (LGA) and Kennedy (JFK) airports. IAD is an airport I avoid whenever possible, in part because of its slow, dangerous people movers called “mobile lounges,” which have no seats and are generally wall-to-wall with standing passengers and luggage. The airport really could use a serious rethink, and it could be a good fit for design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) P3s.
JSX Plans Passenger Service from Santa Monica
Public charter carrier JSX has announced daily flights between Santa Monica (SMO) and Las Vegas (LAS) to begin before the end of December. This will be JSX’s first route to use turboprop aircraft (ATR 42-600s). JSX holds options to acquire as many as 25 additional ATR turboprops, if its early routes are successful. Even if it is successful, the SMO-LAS route will not be long-term, since SMO is due to shut down entirely at the end of 2028.
Fengate Plans to Sell its ConRAC
One of the pioneer developer/operators of consolidated rental car centers (Con RACs) is planning to sell its pioneer project at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Infralogic reported (Nov. 26) that Fengate is in negotiations with BBGI Global Infrastructure to sell the LAX ConRAC and a public school P3 in Prince George’s County, MD. BBGI, which owns 56 P3s in the United States, Canada, and Europe, was recently taken private by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.
NASA Bans People from Next Boeing Starliner Flight
Ars Technica reported that NASA has approved renewed missions to the International Space Station for Boeing’s ill-fated Starliner capsule, but this first set of new missions will be for cargo only. Assuming this cargo-only mission is a success, Starliner will be approved to fly three passenger missions to the Space Station before the ISS is de-orbited, as planned. The original 2014 NASA contract called for Starliner to operate six crewed flights to ISS.
U.K. Takes Steps to Bolster GPS Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT)
In response to increasing levels of GPS/GNSS spoofing and jamming, the U.K. government has committed £155 million for three projects. First, £71 million will be invested in a new enhanced LORAN program, a system with higher power and a far different spectrum than used by GNSS. Second will be £68 million to continue the development of a National Timing Center aimed at providing nationwide timing that does not rely on GNSS. Another £13 million will fund a new UK GNSS interference monitoring program.
Eurocontrol Calls for Increased Use of Text Messaging
The 42-government agency Eurocontrol has called for air navigation service providers (ANSPs) and airlines to make significantly more use of controller-pilot-data-link-communications (CPDLC), Aviation Daily reported (Nov. 14). Greater use of text messaging would relieve congestion on voice radio communications channels. Eurocontrol’s Paul Bosman reported at a recent conference that in European airspace, flights average only two data link messages per flight, adding, “This technology has been available for 20 years; can’t we do better?”
FAA Seeks Input on Replacing ERAM and STARS
On Nov. 20, the FAA released a Request for Information (RFI) about creating a common automation platform that would replace separate systems that manage en-route flights (ERAM) and terminal-area flights (STARS). The Common Automation Platform (CAP) sounds good in principle, and FAA is wise to seek a single, state-of-the-art platform to replace the two older systems, developed during different time frames. FAA noted that it is open to several potential approaches to “re-architecting” existing platforms. Responses are due Dec. 19, which does not provide much time for serious brainstorming.
Lockheed Martin Plans Commercial Orion
Aviation Week (Oct. 13-26) reported that the prime contractor for NASA’s Orion moon capsule is planning a commercial version. Lockheed acknowledged NASA’s contract for the Artemis moon missions, but with that program likely to be cut short after only a few launches, it is looking for possible commercial customers. I am happy to refer them to last month’s article on Orion’s potential shortcomings, beginning with its hardly-proven re-entry heat shield. If even half the problems cited by ex-NASA scientist Casey Handmer (in last month’s issue) are valid, my advice is caveat emptor.
Blue Origin Partners with Luxembourg Space Agency on Lunar Prospecting
Project Oasis was recently announced by the space launch company in conjunction with Luxembourg’s space agency. The plan is to remotely surveil lunar water ice to identify Helium 3, rare earth elements, and other resources that might support lunar production of materials and fuel that would not have to be transported from Earth. To the extent that promising lunar resources are identified, the project’s second phase, called Blue Alchemist, will experiment (here on Earth) with turning such raw material into useful materials that could later be produced on the Moon.
Airport P3 Activity in Brazil
In October, airport operator Motiva announced that its Brazilian airport concessions were for sale, with a value estimated at $1.8-2.2 billion. Twelve airport groups initially expressed interest, including the world’s second-largest (AENA Airports) and fifth-largest (Vinci Airports). In early November, AENA announced that it was working on a $986 million bond issue for its Brazilian airport P3 concessions. It also announced that its partially-owned Mexican airport company GAP would merge with its strategic partner AMP. It looks as if more airport deals will be forthcoming soon in Brazil.
Stockholm Arlanda Airport OKs Curved Landing Approaches
Aircraft equipped and certified for required navigation performance (RNP-Authorization Required) may be allowed to make continuous descent approaches on curved arrival paths at Arlanda. Swedavia expects that this will lead to more landings per hour and lower aircraft emissions. RNP-AR has been approved by Nav Canada for two airports in that country, Calgary and Toronto. I am not aware of any US airports approved by the FAA for this kind of landing
Newark Controllers Have Two More Years in Philadelphia, Per FAA
When the FAA shifted control of arrivals and departures at Newark from the troubled New York TRACON (N90) to the Philadelphia TRACON, 14 controllers moved to the Philly TRACON. The time period was indefinite, but on Nov. 17, the FAA announced that those controllers would remain at Philly TRACON for two more years.
“The economics of urban air taxis are difficult. An aircraft costing millions must fly many hours per day at high load factors to cover capital and operating costs. Battery energy density limits range and payload. Downwash, noise, and turbulence make rooftop or street-level operations problematic. Wind and weather limits reduce availability. Certification requires thousands of flight hours and proven safety redundancies. Air traffic management for autonomous or semi-autonomous craft is not ready. Public acceptance of low-flying craft over dense cities remains uncertain. . . . Supernal’s folding is symbolic. The era of hype is ending. The sector is moving into an attrition phase where many firms will fail, a few will survive, and the market will settle into niches. The original promise of eVTOLs as a mass urban transport solution is receding. The story now is about how a vision of the future met the hard reality of physics, economics, and regulation, and how an industry will be reshaped in the aftermath.”
—Michael Barnard, “From Kitty Hawk to Supernal: The Shrinking Future of eVTOLs,” Clean Technica, Sept. 11, 2025
“I enjoyed your piece in the Wall Street Journal [on ATC reform]. As someone on the front lines, I can tell you that things are certainly not getting better. The most frustrating part of my day is battling all the chatter on the radio. Many times we can’t get a word in edgewise. Meanwhile CPDLC (controller-pilot-data link- communications) just sits unused. It’s very rare for controllers to use it for anything other than frequency changes. Many of its numerous functions are not even activated, including free text messages. One concern I have is that the feds are going to spend billions on a new elaborate ground-based system, when a better and less-expensive aircraft AI system may be just around the corner. While I seriously doubt that the ground-based network will be eliminated any time soon, I could see significant reductions in the need for hardware, particularly on the en-route part of the system.”
—Greg Ross, email to Robert Poole, May 10, 2025, used by permission. Mr. Ross is a 737 captain for a major U.S. airline.
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