[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 13, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H7321-H7322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           IMPROVING AVIATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, there are groups proliferating across 
America who want to improve our system of aviation. Most people are not 
anxious to get on planes these days, given the conditions on the 
airplanes themselves, the treatment they get, the charges to put their 
bag in the overhead or sit on the aisle--all of these things. It has 
become quite an unpleasant experience. And then you have the 
aggravation of delays that ruin your trip, your business meeting, and 
sometimes your vacation.
  Last week, I talked about the Citizens for On Time Flights. Now we 
have a new group, another new grassroots group. Imagine this. It is 
called Flyers for Fairness. Now they want to fix the system. Their fix 
is to privatize the largest, most complex, safest system of air traffic 
in the world.
  They say that we are trapped in the 1950s using World War II radar. 
Well, that is not quite so true. Actually, it is not World War II 
radar. We are still using radar. However, we do have a system where we 
can fly planes closer together, more efficiently use the airspace, 
called ADS-B.

  They would have us believe that somehow this thing is infinitely 
delayed and overbudget and not happening. Well, actually, we had a GAO 
report last week that said, actually, it is on budget and it is going 
very well and, in fact, it is operational.
  Well, then why aren't we using it? Well, because the airlines, many 
of them flying older aircraft, do not want to upgrade their GPS 
systems. It is very expensive: $200,000 per plane. We calculated it for 
American Airlines. To equip every plane in their fleet, it would cost 
them 40 percent of their baggage fees--40 percent of their baggage 
fees. Now, Wall Street wouldn't like that, so they don't want to make 
the investment.
  Just like the airlines haven't invested in their reservations and 
dispatch systems which have repeatedly gone down, stranding, 
cumulatively, millions of people over the last 5 years, but they say 
they could do a better job running the air traffic system.
  Well, actually, the statistics don't quite bear out the arguments of 
Citizens for On Time Flights, and Flyers

[[Page H7322]]

for Fairness, fake Astroturf groups actually funded by Airlines for 
America. In fact, this Flyers for Fairness is pretty funny.
  A guy named Alan Clendenin is the head of it. He won't say who 
finances the group. He is a former air traffic controller who 
vehemently opposed privatization as recently as June and now chairs 
this citizen group and is being paid a handsome salary by whom? I 
wonder.
  Now, here is the big problem with their argument. We have the most 
recent statistics on delays. Normally, the biggest cause of delays is 
weather. They would have you believe it is the air traffic system. It 
is not. In fact, the number one cause of delays in the United States of 
America today is airline operations. So that is right; the airlines 
themselves, when they schedule 15 planes to take off at the same time 
at one airport, when the airport can only take off 1 plane a minute, 
that causes delays.

                              {time}  1045

  When they mess up their crews' schedules and they do other things, 
that causes delays. When they fly decrepit aircraft and they have 
maintenance issues, that causes delays. Forty-six percent of the delays 
in June were due to airline operations.
  How is that going to be dealt with by privatizing the safest, 
largest, most complex, and sophisticated air traffic control system in 
the world?
  The second largest cause, as you can see from the chart, is bad 
weather. Actually, the FAA has developed a way to help deal with that 
and more efficiently reroute planes called Data Comm, which is in all 
of our major airports now so we can deal with it. So we have cut down 
on weather delays about as much as we probably can. There are always 
going to be weather delays.
  Then the ATC system itself, in fact, improvements are coming there 
with a very sophisticated electronic flight script, which will be in 
all of our control towers within 3 years. It is already in our en route 
centers. We are told that they are using paper strips. Well, the paper 
strips are actually infallible. They don't have computer malfunctions, 
unlike their reservation and dispatch systems which frequently strand 
travelers.
  The FAA made a business decision to have a much more sophisticated 
form of electronic strip which will help sort out traffic at dispatch 
on the ground, given the routes they are going to take automatically, 
and reduce congestion at airports and reduce delays in the future.
  So what would those private interests do differently?
  The bottom line is they would profit from it. That is all. They 
wouldn't make it any better.

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