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ATC Privatization Bill


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God what an a$$hole. Gets one more date night and a pocket full of cash on his way out the door. 

Just called my Congressman’s office.  Wish I had heard of this earlier.  Stephen Pope kind of called it in his last two editorials for flying mag. 

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1 hour ago, Oldguy said:

So has everyone seen the AOPA/GAMA/etc. notices about Shuster's 11th hour amendment into the re-authorization bill? Could be voted on as soon as tomorrow.

Flying Magazine sent me an email with a link to local Representatives, based on zip code.  The link is also on their website.  Everyone should send an email TODAY to their local representative asking him or her to vote to oppose the FAA Reauthorization Bill in its current form.

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I just talked to jimmy duncan's staff, as he is our congressman and also the former chairman and current vice chairman of the aviation subcommittee and the transportation/infrastructure committee.   His office seems to know all about it, so I'm hoping it will get cut out.

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On 10/21/2017 at 11:36 PM, Hyett6420 said:

To,fly ifr in europe below 2000kgs is free.  Met briefings are free, unless you want to talk to a forecaster, but most people never bother as we look at the online stuff, inc tafs and Metars.  There is a wealth of weather forecasting, rainfall,radar predictions, etc etc.  We dont have onboard weather downloads easily.

LANDING FEES:-

Our airports are not subsidised by government in any form as a consequnce all upkeep, inc ATC etc must be paid for by the users.  As our avgas already has a ton of tax on it we cant normally levy a charge on this to pay for the airfield.  As a consequence for a concrete airfield you will normally pay arpund 20-25 to land (thats UK pounds) 

HANDLING FEES

OMG what a damn rip off.  At the large airports they insist on a handling charge, this means that there is an FBO (normally only one)!who charge us a handlng fee.  This is normally 100 pounds plus, purely for ththe "privilege" of parking our aircraft on their ramp (which is compulsory so we have no damn option), and then offering us a door from the the ramp to the outside world.  No Pilots lounge like in Panama City for example.  These fees are normally imposed at the big town airports which unfortunately is where we as business people need to fly to.  

THATS where it is expensive to fly in Europe.  If all you do is fly IFR into and out of your avg concrete strip thn its not expensive, although the avgas taxes / prices.   If you fly VFR and only use small grass strips and buy the avgas at the strip then you normally dont pay a landing fee.  

Thats GA in Europe ina nutshell.  Oh did I say the UKs airtraffic is privatised, 50 percent owned by the government the rest private. ;)  

 

... in Germany you can't get free access to VFR landing charts (AF/D). That needs a ~EUR100 subsciption. Some airports do charge ATC/IFR fees for small airplanes below 2000kg (example EDDH). VFR flight following is not available. VFR traffic below 10k ft is on a separate frequency ("information") with very basic services. Most smaller airports shut down after sunset.

These are some more GA blessings from privatization ... and non issues for the big airlines.

Let's be happy about the ATC system and costs and freedom of flying in the US!

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One very important item that seems to be overlooked in this argument is the motivation (incentive) to privatize. I don't know the specific details but my question is "who is going to take over the retirement responsibility? The pensions for ATC employees? 

Seems like this is going the way of the Postal Service. They can't survive because of the long term obligations to pensions. ATC will fail the same way but if the government privatizes it, they can point the finger elsewhere. 

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Guest tommy123

Let's get something straight, the airlines have no interest in modernizing anything they just want to own the sky and keep everyone else out of "their" sky. I worked two major airlines and unless the FAA mandated it (TCAS) the airplanes had the avionics they came out of the factory with. I'm speaking of 20-30 year old airplanes. At American we still had 727-100 airplanes well into the 90s. I personally worked on one with 100,000 cycles. The avionics were the same old stuff. Modernization my butt.

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EAA’s auto generated letters are direct and to the point! I’m glad they have that function!! Thanks for posting the link. 

Writing letters to Congress this day and age is about the only thing we have left. It’s too bad the 3 people that my letter went to probably are really good friends with Shuster. 

-Matt

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On 11/20/2017 at 9:28 PM, apenney said:

Hi.  I'm new to Mooneyspace but wanted to add the following.  Sorry if this was already referenced but the conflict of interest is glaring: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/bill-shuster-admits-personal-relationship-with-lobbyist-117054

 

Nick Calio, Bill Shuster, Sandra DePoy, Annie Keech, Gil Keech, Valerie Nelson, Shelley Rubino and Marty DePoy are shown at the Heart’s Delight Vintner’s Dinner in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on May 3, 2013. | Photo by Alfredo Flores

 

What is surprising is not that the Chair of Transportation Committee is banging an airline lobbyist, it's the fact that you American didn't rise up and put an end to his political career.

Funny how democracy works differently in different country... 

Anyway, glad this second attempt of his was also shelved but it must be bloody tiring for EAA and AOPA trying to keep their eyes on this shoddy character's every move.

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9 hours ago, Tommy said:

What is surprising is not that the Chair of Transportation Committee is banging an airline lobbyist, it's the fact that you American didn't rise up and put an end to his political career.

Too much television and reality television has rotted the brains of Americans and this is just accepted behavior?  This is all now accepted behavior in Washington since the lobbying “boom” of the 1980’s.  He’s just greedy and Americans have accepted that as a fact of life.  If you visited his district you’d get a good sense that he cares nothing about his constituents.  

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