- NTSB collision assessment faults FAA
- How not to fix a broken air traffic control system
- TSA ends union representation for airport screeners
- Is Europe’s Net Zero 2050 down the drain?
- Europe’s eVTOL startups are fading away
- Atlanta’s last chance for a second airport
- Corrections to controller training article
- News notes
- Quotable quotes
NTSB Collision Assessment Faults FAA
In its preliminary assessment of the Jan. 29 collision at Reagan National Airport (DCA), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) take steps to prevent helicopter traffic from crossing arrival and departure paths at DCA (and, by implication, other airports). A ban would, at the very least, affect helicopter route 4, which the Black Hawk helicopter was using when it collided with the American Airlines regional jet on final approach to runway 15/33. While not calling for deleting route 4, Homendy argued that helicopters should not be permitted to fly that route when runway 33 is in use.
The preliminary report also delved deeper into what the FAA should have known about the hazards of such collisions. As Aviation Daily (March 12) summarized:
“Investigators also found that commercial aircraft and helicopters came within one nautical mile laterally and 400 ft vertically some 15,200 times on 974,000 operations from October 2021 to December 2024. On 85 occasions, the separations were less than 1,500 ft laterally and 200 ft vertically. There’s a serious safety issue here …Now we need to see [a] more permanent solution.”
Politico reported that the NTSB also found that airliner collision avoidance systems had triggered at least once a month to warn of an imminent threat of a helicopter collision at Reagan National. In addition, at the location where the approach to runway 33 crossed helicopter route 4, the difference in altitudes could be as little as 75 feet. “Seventy-five feet is very close—far too close,” Homendy said, adding that she is angry that it took a major fatal air crash to expose this problem.
As I wrote in last month’s newsletter issue, this horrible collision reflects a serious FAA regulatory failure. All the data on previous pilot reports and the new NTSB findings noted above were in FAA databases—but nobody noticed them or took any action to change this disaster waiting to happen. Moreover, in its role as aviation safety regulator, FAA management should have focused on the communications limitations at the DCA tower that evening, under which neither the airliner crew nor the helicopter crew could hear the controller’s communications with the other crew, meaning both crews lacked sufficient situational awareness. The reduced controller staffing at that hour of the day likely contributed to this reduced situational awareness. This, too, is a regulatory failure (illustrating the problem of combining safety regulation and air traffic control operations in the same organization).
A week before the NTSB’s preliminary report, aviation stakeholders testifying before the House Aviation Subcommittee proposed a stronger policy change than what Homendy suggested. Airlines for America President Nick Calio recommended that the helicopter routes around Reagan National Airport be closed and that other large airports be studied for possible changes to reduce the probability of helicopter/airliner collisions. His proposal was seconded by Paul Rinaldi, former president of air traffic controllers’ union NATCA. This makes very good sense.
How Not to Fix the US Air Traffic Control System
A large coalition of aviation organizations last month released a manifesto arguing for a five-point emergency program, four years ahead of the next FAA reauthorization bill. The agenda has five main points:
- Provide robust immediate funding for both new air traffic control (ATC) technology and increased controller training and staffing.
- Direct FAA to divest various legacy systems and use only newer systems in the ATC system.
- Realign and modernize aging ATC facilities.
- Implement new financial mechanisms to spend more from the Aviation Trust Fund, including through multi-year budgeting.
- Exempt FAA from government shutdowns to ensure ongoing funding and employment of air traffic control personnel.
Let’s look at these one at a time.
First, for Congress to come up with the “tens of billions” proposed by Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy on March 11 would require borrowing that sum, increasing the FY 2025 budget deficit and the national debt by that same amount. The honest way to increase FAA’s budget would be to increase the user taxes so that airlines and business jets would be paying for the improved services they hope would follow this big funding increase. All over the world air traffic control is funded directly by International Civil Aviation Organization-compliant weight/distance ATC fees. It’s the users-pay/users-benefit principle.
Furthermore, the increased funding would still be allocated and spent by an unreformed FAA, which decades of assessments by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the DOT Inspector General have shown is unable to procure and implement advanced technology, so much of the new funding would not be well-spent. The agency’s acquisition system is an ongoing failure, and giving it new billions to spend—without major reform—would be unwise. Moreover, as Sean Broderick pointed out in Aviation Daily, upgrading air traffic control systems would not accomplish very much if aircraft were not equipped to interface with it. Getting whole fleets upgraded can take several decades.
Divestment of legacy systems has been proposed many times, and a step in that direction would be to implement a policy of best-equipped/best-served. Congress, under pressure from both the producers of ancient technology and various aviation user groups, has never supported such a change. It would be a small step in the right direction, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Modernization of aging air traffic control facilities is long overdue, but the barriers to doing this under the current funding and governance structure are formidable. First, as former National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Paul Rinaldi explained to the House Aviation Subcommittee on March 4, FAA towers now average 40 years old, TRACONs 27 years, and high-altitude Centers 62 years. There are very sound reasons for not replacing all 20 Centers.
Today’s technology enables controlling traffic anywhere in the USA from anywhere in the United States. Replacing 20 Centers with perhaps three or four new ones would provide redundancy, economies of scale, and all-new technology. But if this is left up to Congress, it will never happen. (‘You aren’t going to take away the ARTCC in MY state,’ we will hear repeatedly.) This would only be possible if Congress someday removes the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) from the federal budget and enables it to charge ICAO-compliant user fees and issue revenue bonds based on that revenue stream. Numerous countries have done this, and the larger ones have consolidated ATC facilities.
Financial tinkering with the Aviation Trust Fund might make a small difference, as might multi-year budgeting, but the ATO would still not be able to finance the procurement of new technology systems, as Nav Canada, NATS, DFS, and Airservices Australia all do. Those self-supporting air navigation service providers (ANSPs) can buy new technology in bulk and roll it out to all the relevant facilities over one or two years, not 10 to 15 years. That would make for a more consistent system, updated nationwide, which we never see with current FAA procurement “waterfalls.”
Finally, I have no problem with exempting FAA (or at least the ATO) from government shutdowns. That problem is unknown in our peer countries, where legislatures or parliaments don’t micromanage ANSP budgets.
In his Aviation Subcommittee testimony, NATCA’s Rinaldi reminded members of the air traffic control reform provision in the House FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. It provided “a viable framework for separating the Air Traffic Organization from federal appropriations, ensuring stable, predictable funding” via air traffic control fees and revenue bonding. The new ATO would have been a nonprofit corporation governed by a board nominated by a wide group of aviation stakeholders. It was modeled explicitly on the highly successful Nav Canada. That structure in this country would address all the concerns expressed by the broad coalition.
TSA Ends Union Representation for Screeners
By Marc Scribner
On March 7, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would no longer recognize the collective bargaining agreement between DHS and the American Federal of Government Employees (AFGE) covering Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners. Unions filed suit challenging these DHS actions on March 13. Setting aside the legal underpinnings of this decision and the ongoing litigation, this fight does raise interesting policy questions that Congress and the Trump administration should seek to address through more substantive legislative reform.
The March 7 public announcement followed a Feb. 27 memo from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in which she rescinded a 2022 TSA determination expanding collective bargaining rights to TSA screeners. Secretary Noem’s new determination serves as the basis for invalidating the seven-year collective bargaining agreement between DHS and AFGE that took effect in May 2024. As a result, DHS no longer recognizes AFGE as the exclusive, national representative of TSA screeners and has halted the collection of union dues through the DHS payroll system.
Secretary Noem suggests that she is simply returning to the original labor-management relations status quo when the TSA was created. Her memo cites a 2003 determination by TSA Administrator James Loy finding that TSA screeners are not entitled to collective bargaining rights owing to their “critical national security responsibilities.” Loy’s determination was challenged by AFGE at the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) and the FLRA upheld the 2003 determination. The FLRA reconsidered the issue in 2010 and once again sustained the initial 2003 determination on TSA collective bargaining. However, the FLRA held that an election for employee representation could be held for purposes other than bargaining.
In 2011, TSA Administrator John Pistole issued a new determination granting limited collective bargaining rights to TSA screeners. This limited representation and bargaining framework continued until 2022 when TSA Administrator David Pekoske expanded TSA employee bargaining rights to match those held by most other federal employees. Pekoske’s determination directly enabled the 2024 collective bargaining agreement between DHS and AFGE.
To be sure, the Biden administration greatly expanded bargaining rights for TSA screeners beyond what had ever before been contemplated by past administrations or the FLRA. The ratification of the 2024 collective bargaining agreement between DHS and AFGE also confirmed the fears of many early critics of the TSA, who warned of the potential to convert the agency’s nationalized airport screening monopoly into just another government jobs program.
However, while Secretary Noem is correct that the TSA’s initial determination forbade collective bargaining out of stated national security interests, attempting to restore that policy is likely more complicated. The big difference between 2025 and 2003 is that TSA’s screeners have been working under a collective bargaining agreement ratified by the federal government. The mere existence of this contract is a vast change in the labor-management relations landscape when the FLRA last considered the collective bargaining rights of TSA’s employees in 2010.
The Department of Homeland Security’s recent actions were quickly challenged in federal court. While the litigation plays out, Congress and the Trump administration should take the time to reflect more deeply on the policy tensions that led to this dispute. Specifically, they should reconsider the structure of TSA and its role in security screening.
Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 just two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Section 110(b) replaced the previous requirement that airport screening be conducted “by an employee or agent of an air carrier, intrastate air carrier, or foreign air carrier” and with a new requirement that screening “shall be carried out by a Federal Government employee” (49 U.S.C. § 44901(a)).
The TSA’s general security screening monopoly has few exceptions, the most significant being the sparsely used Screening Partnership Program that allows airports to apply to seek the services of private screening companies (49 U.S.C. § 44920). Just 20 airports are currently enrolled in the Screening Partnership Program, mostly small airports but also including Kansas City International, Orlando Sanford, and San Francisco International.
Growth in the number of airports opting for private screening has stalled. Many observers point to a complicated and time-consuming process, in which the TSA holds all the cards. A normal government contracting process typically involves a government agency issuing a request for proposals from qualified firms and then initiating a competitive bidding process. In the case of airport security, this might involve a sponsor airport beginning procurement from a list of security companies certified by the regulator and then selecting the firm that best fits their particular needs.
This is not how the Screening Partnership Program is designed. Instead, under current law, an airport seeking to opt-in to private screening must submit a detailed request to the TSA. The TSA, if it decides to grant the airport entry into the Screening Partnership Program, will then decide which security company it thinks best fits the needs of the airport applicant. The security company is then assigned to the airport—take it or leave it—with the contract being entered between the TSA and private screening company, rather than the company and the airport.
A reform proposal that Congress should consider is separating the provision of airport security from its regulation. The TSA’s dual mandate represents a fundamental conflict of interest. The risks of regulatory capture are further heightened when the national screening monopoly’s employees are represented by a single national labor contract. At the very least, Congress should modify the Screening Partnership Program to allow airports to select and directly contract with private security firms that have been certified by the TSA. Either of these reforms would lower the temperature of airport screening labor relations and attenuate the associated risks.
Is Europe’s Net Zero 2050 Down the Drain?
Several recent developments have led to questions being raised about the viability of previous consensus plans for European aviation to achieve “net zero” climate impact by 2050.
The first of these was an upward revision of the estimated cost of achieving that goal by a coalition of European airlines, airports, ANSPs, and others. On Feb. 4, this coalition released its updated Destination 2050 roadmap, with a $516 billion upward revision of the cost to $2.6 trillion. The majority of the increase was due to a much higher cost estimate for the projected volume of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Another factor was a much smaller role for hydrogen-based propulsion (which had been modeled as achieving 20% of the overall reduction but has been revised downward to only 2%).
The second blow came a week later when Airbus announced a five- to ten-year postponement of a hydrogen-based airliner prototype. Airbus had previously hinted that its ZEROe initiative, begun in 2020 with a goal of bringing to market a zero-emission airliner by 2035, was looking to be infeasible. It has cut that program’s budget by 25% and terminated some of its sub-projects, according to aviation trade union Force Ourviere, per Aviation Daily (Feb. 12).
Taking these developments into account, on March 3 International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh announced that the European airline industry will have to re-evaluate the Net Zero target. “We are going to have to revisit [Net Zero 2050]; we are not making as strong a progress on SAF as we thought,” he told the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading conference in Phoenix, AZ. He also let fly at European Union officials: “The EU is mad in its pursuit of environmental goals because it is completely disconnected from the economic impact.” He also predicted that there will be no major technology changes between now and 2050, and said that Airbus’s hydrogen-powered narrowbody airliner “was never going to happen.”
In the lead article in Aviation Daily for March 7, Guy Norris suggested that the lack of availability of SAF “is at the heart of IATA’s assertion that getting to net zero within the allotted time is impossible.” Lending credibility to that point was an announcement by two SAF producers—Arcadia eFuel and LanzaJet—that the EU itself is contributing to this problem. The EU requires eSAF plants to be located in countries where electricity on the grid is more than 90% provided by renewable energy or that the eSAF company must add enough renewable energy to the grid to support their project. (Aviation Daily, Feb. 27).
In another disturbing note for airlines, the revised Destination 2050 road map assumes that because SAF will be several times as expensive as jet fuel, the price of tickets will be increased enough that reduced air travel will contribute to 19% of the overall emission reductions.
And if that is not enough damage to air travel, consider what green groups will be lobbying for. In a guest editorial in Aviation Week (Feb. 24-March 9), William Todts, Executive Director of Transport & Environment, argues that governments should exempt zero-emission aircraft from landing fees, giving them free slots, and ultimately requiring that these be the only airliners allowed to fly to island destinations. Mr. Todts ignores the fact that most airports in Europe are tax-paying businesses and that landing fees and other airport revenue sources are critically important to keeping airports solvent. ACI-Europe should strongly oppose such proposals.
European eVTOL Startups Are Fading Away
In recent years, non-China investors have poured $13 billion into start-up electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) companies, with not very much to show for it. But of that $13 billion, $10 billion was raised by three U.S. startups—Archer, Beta, and Joby. So the remaining $3 billion was split among some 57 companies, according to SMG Consulting, which closely tracks this sector. The U.S. Big Three have flying prototypes or near-production models and are in the early stages of working with FAA on type certification. But the best-known players in Europe are dwindling.
Both Lilium and Volocopter filed for bankruptcy near year-end, and an attempted rescue of Lilium failed in February. Volocopter landed a new investor in March, after having laid off all its employees. Mighty Airbus put its City Airbus project on indefinite hold last month, deeming today’s battery technology inadequate to meet its requirement for range and endurance. The U.K.’s Vertical Aerospace managed to raise $50 million near year-end from a new investor, but whether it can raise enough additional funding to get certified remains an open question.
One mistake made by many startups was not coming up with a realistic operating model, with the right amount of passenger capacity and range to support a large enough market niche. Another appears to be an unrealistic estimation of both the large cost and long time needed to gain FAA or European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification. Batteries are very heavy compared with aviation fuel. And vertical take-off is very energy-intensive, as I learned in my first job after MIT, at Sikorsky Aircraft. The eVTOL idea has always struck me as dicey both technologically and economically. What can this much heavier air vehicle do better than helicopters? We’re still waiting for a good answer.
So we are now waiting to see how many millions of dollars and how many years it will take for Archer, Beta, and Joby to not only achieve FAA certification but also to find viable market niches for more than a handful of aircraft. SMG Consulting estimates that Archer and Joby will enter Type Inspection Authority for-credit flight testing within a year and achieve type certification in the first quarter of 2027, and actually launch service in the second quarter of 2028 (but under a best-case scenario, by the second quarter of 2027). That may sound overly cautious, but certification experts whose discussions I’ve read worry that even these best-funded startups have been unrealistic about the time and cost of certification.
Consequently, as Ben Goldstein reported in Aviation Daily (March 12), both Archer and Joby are planning to jump-start things in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Prior to receiving FAA certification, Archer plans to begin test flights in Abu Dabi later this year. Technically, these will be non-commercial market survey flights using its Midnight eVTOL. Goldstein notes that “It is not yet clear whether the Gulf Civil Aviation Authority will require its own certification or if there is a pathway to [commercial] operations on some other basis.”
Joby has the same basic idea, focusing on Dubai, using its S4 air taxi, starting in the middle of this year. While Joby still hopes to begin commercial service there in late 2025 or early 2026, “the company said in its Q4 earnings call . . . that the initial flights will be market test flights.”
Goldstein comments that “Neither Archer nor Joby has rolled out a conforming aircraft yet.” And he adds, “Investors and industry watchers have awakened to the reality that [eVTOL] service is still likely years away.” Accordingly, I think investing in networks of vertiports is quite premature.
Atlanta’s Last Chance for a Second Airport
By Baruch Feigenbaum
Last month, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that the city of Atlanta is considering selling two 10,000-acre second-airport sites in exurban Dawson and Paulding counties. The city bought the sites in the 1970s with plans to reserve them as potential sites for a secondary airport and has been managing them as public recreation sites. For the last year the city has been mulling an offer from the State Department of Natural Resources to put the tracts into permanent conservation.
To the city’s credit, it is carefully weighing any potential sale. Mayor Andre Dickens told the newspaper that it is a “complicated matter. It’s one of 100 years or more consequence.” “We made a wise decision to purchase them 50 years ago,” he said. “So I have to make a wise, critical decision on determining what’s the next step. I’m not ready to make that decision just yet. We are still analyzing.”
With 6 million people, metro Atlanta is the sixth largest U.S. metro area. Other than Atlanta, each of the 13 largest metro areas has at least two commercial service airports. Comprehending why the city has only one airport, requires an understanding of its relationship with Delta Air Lines.
Delta began as a crop-dusting operation in Macon in 1925 before quickly moving to Monroe, Louisiana. By 1941, Delta had started passenger and mail flights. It was looking to relocate its headquarters to a more central location. While the early favorite was Birmingham, Atlanta mayor William Hartsfield’s lobbying for the headquarters, Alabama’s aviation tax, and the city of Birmingham’s overtly racist policies caused Delta to choose Georgia instead.
As Atlanta grew, Delta grew. As early as 1957, the Atlanta airport claimed to be the busiest airport between noon and 2 pm each day. In addition to Delta, Eastern Airlines also operated a hub in Atlanta. In the 1950’s, Eastern’s Atlanta hub was the company’s busiest in the eastern region.
Almost from the day it moved to Atlanta, Delta relied more on hubs than Eastern. Even though it was the smaller carrier, Delta had the bigger Atlanta operation, generating local support. When Eastern ceased operations in 1991, the Delta hub became even more important. In 1998, Atlanta overtook Chicago O’Hare as the busiest airport in passenger volume. For most years since 2004, including the last several, it has also been the busiest airport by number of flights. After Eastern’s demise, AirTran and later Southwest operated smaller hubs at the airport. But they never rivaled Delta’s share of passengers. Today, the airline has an approximately 80% market share, operating approximately 1,000 flights per day.
In addition to its corporate headquarters, and its workforce supporting flights at the airport, Delta has TechOps, the world’s largest airline maintenance operation. As the largest private employer in the state of Georgia, Delta employees are located throughout the Atlanta community, particularly in the southwestern suburbs. When I worked on Capitol Hill, my boss represented the 3rd district of Georgia, which has more airline employees than any other congressional district.
Delta has meant more to the growth of Atlanta than any airline has meant to any other region. The only similar examples, albeit on a smaller scale, would be American Airlines hubs in Charlotte and Dallas.
Delta has also helped its favorability by running an outstanding operation. The airline is routinely ranked number one by passengers, placing at or near the top in on-time operations, fewest cancelled flights, best customer/employee interactions, and best tech. It is also the most profitable U.S. airline.
Delta has used its strength and goodwill to block a second Atlanta airport. When Propeller Investments tried to bring commercial service (likely Allegiant Airlines) to the Paulding County airport, near the tract of land the city owns for a second airport, Delta actively opposed the project.
But regardless of the number of airports, Atlanta needs to be able to accommodate aviation growth. Passenger numbers at Hartsfield-Jackson continue to increase. The airport handled more than 108 million passengers in 2024, its second-largest number ever. Yet gate space remains constrained. The airport has the 2nd highest turns (gate usage) per gate of any hub airport in the country.
Under the city of Atlanta’s current airport master plan, the city was supposed to build Concourse G between 2018 and 2024. Yet, the airport has pushed back construction. An alternate plan to extend Concourse F is on ice. The airport is in the process of modernizing and widening Concourse D, but that project will shrink the number of gates as the terminal is modernized to handle mainline, not regional, aircraft.
The airport will get a minor reprieve as Southwest Airlines, which due to poor financial performance, is moving its focus city headquarters from Atlanta to Nashville. However, the airline will still have a large presence in Atlanta. Southwest is only reducing its number of gates by seven, keeping its crew base, and continuing to operate more than 100 flights a day.
Over the last few years, the aviation market has grown rapidly. Atlanta is no different. Avelo has entered the market with flights to New Haven. Eithad is starting service to Abu Dhabi. Frontier is adding service to Islip, NY. Skyteam partner SAS is flying to Copenhagen, WestJet to Edmonton, and AeroMexico Connect to Manzanillo. Delta is adding service to Fresno, Marrakesh, Morocco; Naples, Italy; and Tulum, Mexico. And that is far from an exhaustive list.
Ideally, Atlanta would build a second airport. Second and third airports are common in large U.S. regions. And it’s not just megacities such as New York and Los Angeles, which each have five airports. It’s peer metro areas like Dallas/Fort Worth (two airports), Washington D.C. (three airports), Boston (three airports), and Miami (three airports). It’s also smaller competitors such as Charlotte and Orlando, which each have two airports. The Atlanta metropolitan statistical area (population 6.3 million) is the only metropolitan statistical area with more than 4.5 million people that does not have a second airport. And while Delta has opposed a secondary airport in Atlanta, it serves both primary and secondary airports in Dallas, Washington D.C, Boston, and Miami.
And these second airports have not hurt the viability of the primary airports. Each of those primary airports is ranked in the top 16 airports by passengers, and each of the secondary airports (with the exception of Charlotte’s secondary airport in Concord which is relatively new) is ranked in the top 100 by passenger count. All of these airports are thriving. All the primary airports increased their passenger count between 2023 and 2024.
For airlines, the cost to use these secondary airports is typically lower than using the primary airport. The cost per enplanement at Dallas Love Field is $2.50 less than DFW. Newark is $3.00 cheaper than JFK. And Fort Lauderdale is $11.00 cheaper than Miami. Competition puts pressure on all airports to decrease costs and improve service.
But given the challenges of building a second airport paired with the city’s partnership with Delta, the city of Atlanta could take another step. Retain at least one of the two secondary airport sites but enter into an agreement to keep a second airport on ice as long as Delta agrees to expand Hartsfield-Jackson airport when passenger numbers and gate usage justify it. The agreement would need specific thresholds, to make sure that when passenger counts or gate usage hit certain limits, expansion could begin. The city of Atlanta needs to make sure it finds an agreement that works for Delta and for city residents.
Corrections to Controller Training Article
Shortly after last month’s newsletter went out to subscribers, I received a lengthy, polite email from a PhD psychologist with 30 years of applied research on air traffic controller training (and numerous publications in this field). I recognized his name as an expert in the field, but I was asked not to identify him in this follow-up article.
I begin by acknowledging several errors in the article. First, I stated that prior to 2014, the majority of controller trainees had been graduates of the Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program. I did not have specific figures in my files, and what I wrote was based on how CTI proponents had argued at the time the recruiting and hiring process was changed. It turns out that for 2009-2014 only 42% were CTI grads, 24% were former controllers, and 34% were from the general public (unpublished numbers). I made another error by stating that the AT-SAT test occurred after Academy training. In fact, it was and is a precondition of being accepted for training there.
My correspondent objected to how I described the decision to recruit more applicants “off-the-street” and provided a long history of attempts to identify barriers to applying for controller jobs. I recall from that time that there were one or two “barrier analysis reports” which found that the critical barrier to having more minorities being hired was differences by race in passing the AT-SAT. EEOC policy in 2012-14 required FAA and other federal agencies to attempt to reduce or eliminate any identified barriers. That policy led to an effort to revise the controller applicant testing process. The result was a two-hurdle process, with a non-cognitive test followed by the cognitive test (AT-SAT). How the former (the Biographical Questionnaire) was developed by an FAA consultant was not known to my correspondent. I don’t think this obviates the concerns expressed by CTI graduates who “failed” the BQ (or FAA never releasing the questions or how they were scored), but I can see that the professionals involved in much of this process had honorable intentions.
I appreciate my correspondent’s effort to set the record straight on this subject. And I’m very pleased to see the positive steps FAA took under Administrator Mike Whitaker to enable CTI schools to upgrade their curricula to enable their graduates to bypass the Academy and go directly to on-the-job training at a tower, TRACON, or Center.
Thailand Opts for Digital Towers
AeroThai, the ANSP of Thailand, is in its first year of implementing digital towers at its airports. The first-year plan is to equip five international airports and one other high-traffic airport. Besides increasing controller situational awareness, the plan will enable runway expansions without having to build a new tower. A second phase of the plan will provide remote tower services at lower-traffic airports, without having to station AeroThai controllers at them. This may be the first digital towers implementation to begin with high-traffic international airports and then move on to remote service for smaller airports.
JetZero Gets New Support for Its Blended Wing Body (BWB) Airliner
Delta Airlines has formalized a partnership with BWB developer JetZero. The airline will provide operational support as JetZero develops its full-scale demonstrator, aiming for first flight in 2027. Among other things, Delta will assist in designing the BWB airliner’s interior, promising “dedicated overhead bin space for each passenger.” JetZero also announced earlier this month an agreement with RTX for the demonstrator’s engines, APU, and nacelles.
British Government Supports Second Runway at Gatwick
The U.K. Secretary of State for Transport announced on Feb. 27 that she plans conditional approval for London Gatwick Airport (LGW) to convert its main taxiway into a parallel main runway. LGW is currently tied with the Mumbai (India) airport as the world’s busiest single-runway airport. The plan would move the centerline of the taxiway 39.4 feet to provide the proper spacing from the existing runway. The estimated cost of the project is £2.2 billion.
Italy’s ANSP Adding Telecom Services
Enav, the partly investor-owned air navigation service provider in Italy, is in advanced talks to invest in telecoms service provider Sitti, reports Infralogic (March 10). Enav is reported to be negotiating a majority stake in the company, which provides it with a voice communication system (VCS) used for pilot-controller communications. Enav’s advisor on the deal, Intesa Sanpaolo, estimates Sitti’s enterprise value of €40 million. Enav is majority-owned by the Italian government but with private shareholders as well.
Paine Field Gets a Second Airline
The Seattle metro area’s second airport, which has been used exclusively by Alaska Airlines in recent years, has landed a second carrier. Frontier Airlines and Paine Field developer/operator Propeller Airports announced the news on March 4. Frontier’s initial routes will serve Denver (DEN), Las Vegas (LAS), and Phoenix (PHX). Paine Field is a former military base and is also the site of a major Boeing airliner assembly plant.
Argentina Further Liberalizes Airspace
Aviation Daily (Feb. 24) reported that Argentina has signed additional open skies agreements, adding the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Turkey. Chilean ultra low-cost carrier (ULCC) JetSmart is one of the airlines taking advantage of the change, basing additional aircraft in Argentina, with the total now up to 15, including A321neos. JetSmart operates both domestic and international routes in Argentina and now provides nearly 18% of domestic air service in that country.
Global Firms Compete to Develop Saudi Airport
ABDRN, Aeroporti di Roma, and Manchester Airports Group are among numerous companies hoping to be selected for a long-term public-private partnership (P3) to develop the new Taif International Airport in Saudi Arabia, Infralogic reports (Feb. 13). Up to 90 companies have submitted expressions of interest in the planned airport east of Mecca, scheduled to be in operation by 2030 with an initial capacity of 2.5 million annual passengers. The agencies in charge of the process are aviation authority Matarat Holding and the National Center for Privatization and PPP.
NASA Acquires GPS Signals on the Moon
On March 2, the Firefly Aerospace “Blue Ghost” lunar lander touched down on the Moon’s surface. The next day it received GPS signals from the satellite constellation in orbit around the Earth. The receiver was LuGRE, part of the Blue Ghost’s payload, developed by the Italian Space Agency. The signals were first received when Blue Ghost was in lunar orbit, 243,000 miles from Earth. This demonstration means that GPS and other systems are capable of being used for navigation on or near the Moon.
AENA Plans Billion-Dollar Investment in Canary Islands
Spanish airports company AENA has announced plans to invest $1.04 billion to expand and upgrade airports in the Canary Islands, including the two airports on Tenerife, as Aviation Daily reported (Feb. 10). Other airports getting upgrades include Gran Canaria (the largest) and Lanzarote.
Royal Schiphol Group Ups Investment in Brisbane Airport
The company that runs Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has increased its shareholding in Brisbane Airport Corporation Holdings (BACH) above 20%, entitling it to a second board seat. Brisbane Airport (BNE) is underway on a $3 billion expansion, preparing for the 2032 Olympic Games. BACH won a 50-year lease on BNE in 1997, with the option to renew it for another 49 years.
Zurich University Proposes GPS Augmentation
As recounted by Dana Goward in a guest editorial in Aviation Week (Feb. 10-23, 2025), researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Science have proposed a three-part enhancement of GPS to guard against interference and interruption of GPS signals. The idea is to combine GPS data with data from three independent sources: eDME, eLoran, and LDACS-NAV. These systems use different frequencies and have different failure modes, providing “ample redundancy” according to the researchers.
Boost in Pay for New FAA Controllers
U.S. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy has announced that new graduates from the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City will get a nearly 30% increase in starting pay for their on-the-job training. Per a Washington Post article by Ian Duncan (Feb. 27), the training wage will increase from $17.61/hour to $22.61/hour. The article noted that an outside study in 2023 found that about 30% of Academy students failed to graduate.
Boom Supersonic Begins Detailed Design of Overture Airliner
Following the last test of its XB-1 prototype, Boom announced that it has finalized the configuration of its planned Overture supersonic passenger plane. That plane is intended to fly at Mach 1.7 over water, and—the company hopes—Mach 1.3 over land, if its projected “boomless cruise” concept works out, and if current FAA regulations on supersonic flight over U.S. territory can be amended.
GAP Plans $1.3 Billion Investment in Jalisco Airports
Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico last month announced plans to invest $1.3 billion to modernize and expand its two airports in Jalisco state. The largest share will be spent to modernize and expand Guadalajara International Airport, including the addition of a second terminal. It will also invest in improvements to Puerto Vallarta International Airport.
Infrastructure Fund Buys Goldman’s Stake in AFCO
Infralogic (Feb. 19) reported that infrastructure investment fund Ardian has agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs’ stake in Airport Facilities Company (AFCO). The company manages 29 properties at 15 airports in the United States and the U.K. Many of these are cargo facilities and hangars at airports, including Austin (AUS), Baltimore (BWI), Hartford (BDL), and Dallas (DFW).
Sydney Airport Metro Being Delayed
Sydney Metro faces a delay in the completion of its new line from St. Marys to Bradfield, serving the under-construction Western Sydney Airport, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Instead of being ready to roll near the end of 2026, the 23 km line is now likely to open in mid-2027. The $7 billion project has experienced construction problems and labor union problems, as well as pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.
“Air traffic controllers are working on antiquated equipment in facilities that are falling apart. While the FAA has spent billions of dollars to try and bring its air traffic system into the 21st century, most of the technology is decades behind by the time it is deployed, requiring tech refreshes almost right away and diverting sustainment funds away from actual modernization. For instance, controllers still use paper strips and floppy disks. . . . At a time when your cell phone has massive computing power and can communicate with satellites, the FAA is still using paper strips and floppy disks to run our nation’s air traffic control. The United States has the greatest aviation network in the world. Its airspace is the most open for public use; it has the most commercial flights . . . . And yet it cannot be disputed that the U.S. air traffic system lags behind those of many other nations, like Canada, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom. The U.S. air traffic control is less efficient, less advanced, less agile, and some argue, less safe. . . . The question of whether FAA has the money it needs to modernize the system misses the point. The more appropriate question is, “Is the FAA even capable of modernizing the air traffic system or does Congress need to re-examine wholesale how the FAA is structured?”
—Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speech at Aero Club of Washington, Feb. 20, 2025
“That mission tries to capture two distinct functions of FAA: regulating safety and operating the air traffic system. The Administrator ought to be focused on the safety of the flying public, and I’m pretty sure that if you took a poll of Americans, you would find they would overwhelmingly tell you that they care more about keeping flying safe than they do about the efficiency of the air traffic system. . . . [There is] an inherent conflict in FAA being both the regulator and the operator. You can’t be the conductor and [also] play the tuba section. Sometimes as a regulator you really have to bring the hammer down, and it’s a lot to ask to bring the hammer down on yourself.”
—Michael Whitaker, in Christine Boynton, “Prioritize Safety Over Efficiency, Former FAA Administrator Urges,” Aviation Daily, Feb. 28, 2025
“Congress questions FAA about issues they (Congress) could easily fix by following ICAO guidance and the examples of other States—separate the service provider from the regulator and make it (the ANSP) a commercial enterprise. Had that occurred years ago, the current purges from DOGE would not be occurring for two reasons—the enterprise would already be efficient and it would not be within the government sphere.”
—Mike Gahan, email to Robert Poole, March 5, 2025 (used with author’s permission)
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