Runways for the highest bidders
In the current issue of Barron’s you’ll find an interesting editorial that suggests a way to end the chaos that has airports and airplanes way overcrowded and, therefore, more and more flights taking-off and landing way, way late. In this editorial, writer Thomas Donlan firsts suggests three key causes for the chaos: 1) airlines still trying to manage the effects of post 9.11 bankruptcy, hence squeezing as many folks as possible onto each flight; 2) the growing number of charter and fractional aircraft; and 3) the high-cost of the FAA to modernize it’s air control system, which will be out-dated the moment it comes online. Dolan makes a great point when he writes that: “FAA bureaucrats get paid for managing the chaos in the airways, not ending it.”
Dolan’s solution is to place a “practical limit” on just how many landings and take-offs can occur at any one airport, and then auction those off to the highest bidders, who can then buy/sell/trade as they see fit. It’s hard for a free-market advocate such as myself to disagree that it’s at least a strategy worth considering. It sure sounds better than Congress’s suggestion that an aviation czar be appointed and a flyer’s bill of rights rights written. As Donlan writes: “These are contradictory in spirit and toothless in fact.”
Dolan also argues that such a market-based system would put a larger burden on private flyers who he believes aren’t paying their fair share for the government’s aviation infrastructure. While this may seem true at a surface level, when you consider the tax revenue generated by the average fractional jet owner versus the average commercial airline flyer, I bet it may seem that the private flyers are paying way more than their “fare share.”
