U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

93–853 PDF 2015

OPTIONS FOR FEDERAL AVIATION 

ADMINISTRATION AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL REFORM 

(114–11) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

AVIATION 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 24, 2015 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

CRESENT HARDY, Nevada 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JARED HUFFMAN, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex Officio) 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon (Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

WITNESSES 

Matthew E. Hampton, Assistant Inspector General for Aviation, Office of 

Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 54 

Douglas Parker, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, American Airlines 

Group, Inc., on behalf of Airlines for America: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 64 

Craig L. Fuller, Vice Chairman, Federal Aviation Administration Management Advisory Council: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69 

Paul M. Rinaldi, President, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, 

AFL–CIO: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 76 

Robert W. Poole, Jr., Director of Transportation Policy, Reason Foundation: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 85 

Correction to prepared statement ................................................................... 93 

David Grizzle, Chief Executive Officer, Dazzle Partners, LLC, formerly Chief 

Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation Administration: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 94 

Dorothy Robyn, Airlines/Aviation Consultant, formerly Principal, The Brattle 

Group: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 102 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Hon. Rick Larsen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington, submission of the following: 

Unanswered Questions Regarding Possible Reform of the Nation’s Air 

Traffic Control System ................................................................................. 5 

Bullet Background Paper on Department of Defense Policy Board on 

Federal Aviation (PBFA) Response to Discussion Regarding Privatization of U.S. Air Traffic Control Services ..................................................... 11 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

Ed Bolen, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Business Aviation 

Association, written statement ........................................................................... 113 

Thomas L. Hendricks, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Air 

Transportation Association, written statement ................................................. 119 

Russell McCaffery, Dean of Transportation Programs, Broward College, written statement ....................................................................................................... 122 

vi 


Insert offset folio 1 here 93853.001
vii 


Insert offset folio 2 here 93853.002
viii 


Insert offset folio 3 here 93853.003
ix 


Insert offset folio 4 here 93853.004
x 


Insert offset folio 5 here 93853.005
xi 


Insert offset folio 6 here 93853.006
xii 


Insert offset folio 7 here 93853.007
xiii 


Insert offset folio 8 here 93853.008
xiv 


Insert offset folio 9 here 93853.009
xv 


Insert offset folio 10 here 93853.010
xvi 


Insert offset folio 11 here 93853.011
(1) 

OPTIONS FOR FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL REFORM 

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank A. LoBiondo 

(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Good morning. Thank you for coming. The committee will come to order. 

Before we get started on the business of the committee this 

morning, I want to express from myself, Mr. Larsen, Mr. Shuster, 

and Mr. DeFazio our deepest condolences to the victims and families of those who lost their lives in the crash of Germanwings flight 

9525 in southern France. 

We do not have a lot of details. We know it was a terrible tragedy. We will be closely monitoring the investigation. Aviation safety has and will always continue to be a top priority of this subcommittee. 

Over the last year, the subcommittee has held a series of 

roundtables and hearings on the state of our Nation’s air traffic 

control system and identifying the challenges the FAA has faced in 

modernization and NextGen implementation. While we are currently enjoying the safest air traffic control system in the world, we 

should be striving to also be the most efficient that we can be. Historically, the United States has been the leader in aviation. However, the record is mixed on where we stand today. 

For decades, policymakers and stakeholders have almost unanimously recognized the need to modernize our radar-based, World 

War II-era ATC system. The FAA has been attempting to modernize the system since 1981. The DOT Office of Inspector General, 

the Government Accountability Office, and numerous bipartisan 

Federal airline commissions found that FAA’s progress with delivering planned NextGen capabilities has encountered a number of 

delays, cost increases, and failure to provide promised benefits to 

the traveling public and industry stakeholders. 

In testimony before this subcommittee last year, DOT Inspector 

General Scovel warned that NextGen implementation costs for 

Government and industry, initially estimated at $20 billion for 

each, could double or even triple, and that NextGen implementation may take an additional decade, something I do not believe any 

of us believe is acceptable. 

2 

While stakeholders unanimously support NextGen, they have 

been unable to agree on how to address these well-documented implementation obstacles. As Chairman Shuster has stated, the committee has an historic opportunity to drive the institutional change 

needed to ensure that we have the very best ATC system in the 

world. 

Three years of Federal budget disputes have included the FAA’s 

decision in April 2013 to furlough 10 percent of its air traffic controller workforce and nearly close 149 contract towers to meet sequester-driven budgetary cuts, the partial shutdown of the FAA in 

August 2011, and schedule delays and cost overruns that continue 

to plague FAA’s modernization and NextGen implementation efforts. 

These are distressing realities, but may be just the impetus needed to drive change—specifically, whether it is time to transform 

and/or transfer the air traffic control function of the FAA, currently 

managed by the Air Traffic Organization. 

The United States is the only developed country whose ATC system can become a political football, frequently held hostage to Federal budget disputes like the sequester, which threatens not only 

the ongoing operations of the ATC system, but also the successful 

implementation of NextGen. I believe, and I know Chairman Shuster believes, that unless we reform our ATC system’s governance 

and funding structures, we risk failure in implementing NextGen 

and its full benefits to the country. 

While there may not be consensus among stakeholders yet on the 

type of model that the U.S. should pursue, there is a growing consensus that comprehensive financing and governance reforms are 

needed. Furthermore, there is an acknowledgment that we are not 

fully using FAA assets and expertise readily available, including 

the FAA flagship Technical Center in my district, to their fullest 

to solve these vexing issues. We can and must do better. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses their thoughts on 

different opinions and options for reform of our Nation’s air traffic 

control system. Let me emphasize that ensuring we continue to 

have the safest aviation system in the world will drive the ATC reform debate in the months ahead. 

As the subcommittee seeks to address these longstanding obstacles to ATC modernization and NextGen implementation in the 

next FAA reauthorization bill, there are questions that we need to 

address at today’s hearing. Does the United States have the best 

governance and funding structure in place to deliver the most efficient, most modern ATC system while ensuring the safest system 

in the world? Have the ATC models used by other countries enhanced safety and efficiency, and if so, can the best attributes of 

these models be adopted by the United States without adversely 

impacting safety? 

And before I recognize Mr. Larsen for his comments, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise 

and extend their remarks and include extraneous material for the 

record of this hearing. Without objection, so ordered. 

Now I would like to recognize Mr. Larsen for any opening remarks. 

3 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Turn your phones off, 

please. Thanks. Thanks for calling this hearing to explore alternatives to FAA air traffic management. I appreciate the continued 

bipartisan cooperation as we move towards a timely FAA bill. 

Today we are going to hear from witnesses with a variety of 

ideas about how to improve efficiency and certainty in the management of our Nation’s airspace. I welcome any discussion of what we 

need to do to keep our airspace the most efficient and safest in the 

world. 

But before we address that, we do have to ask that basic question: What is the problem we are seeking to fix? The GAO reported 

last year that 71 of 76 aviation stakeholders said the air traffic 

control system is very to extremely safe. 

Today no one would argue the airline industry as well is the 

healthiest it has ever been due largely to the efforts of the industry 

and the FAA to improve efficiencies over the last decade. The International Air Transport Association projects airlines worldwide, in 

fact, are expected to make a collective $25 billion profit in 2015. 

IATA also suggests that U.S. carriers would continue to set the 

standard for financial performance, with the highest profit margins 

worldwide. That is good news since a healthy airline industry is 

critically important for international competitiveness. 

We are also living in the safest period in aviation history in the 

U.S. Every day, U.S. airlines safely transport about 2 million passengers around the country. And with the important safety improvements that Congress mandated following the tragic Colgan 

Air crash in 2009, the aviation system is getting even safer. 

At the same time, NextGen implementation has faced hurdles. 

And I want to be clear: FAA is making progress. In fact, GAO reported last year that only 5 of 76 aviation stakeholders said they 

had little to no confidence in the FAA’s ability to implement 

NextGen. 

At this time last year, we were uncertain when we would see a 

plan for implementing DataComm. Now, in response to a tasking 

by Chairman LoBiondo, the FAA has a plan, with industry support, 

to implement DataComm. At this time last year we were uncertain 

about the path forward for performance based navigation, or PBN 

procedures. Now, again in response to our tasking, the FAA has a 

plan, with industry support, to accelerate PBN procedure implementation. And the list goes on. 

Airlines are making money. The system is safe. And the FAA, 

with close congressional oversight, is making progress on NextGen. 

So the question has to be asked, what is the problem we are trying 

to tackle when we talk about reforming our air traffic control system? 

Well, when I talk to 10 stakeholders, I hear about 20 different 

problems. When I talk to even just 1 stockholder about proposed 

solutions, such as a private corporation model, I immediately think 

of at least 14 issues, including: What bargaining protections would 

apply to employees in the new entity? Would employees maintain 

Federal benefits? 

How would the new organization work seamlessly with the FAA 

to move NextGen forward? What kind of liability insurance would 

the new entity have? How would the new entity coordinate with 

4 

the Department of Defense in time of crisis? And would small communities be guaranteed service as the new entity gains efficiencies 

by closing towers? 

Mr. Chairman, with your permission I would like to enter, with 

unanimous consent, another 57 questions I have, for a total of 63 

questions, into the record. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. I thought the limit was 60. 

Mr. LARSEN. Make it 60. You pick the three you do not want. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

5 


Insert offset folio 12 here 93853.012
6 


Insert offset folio 13 here 93853.013
7 


Insert offset folio 14 here 93853.014
8 


Insert offset folio 15 here 93853.015
9 


Insert offset folio 16 here 93853.016
10 

Mr. LARSEN. Thanks. So I want to make sure that we are all 

clear on whether we should address many problems with one solution or whether we should be addressing these problems individually. We must make sure the FAA authorization is not a science 

experiment because with 2 million passengers in the skies on any 

given day, we must remember what is at stake if we make changes 

to our safe air traffic control system. 

If we resolve to go big in this bill with significant air traffic reforms, we have to do it methodically, with a clear statement of the 

problem that we are trying to solve and a clear understanding of 

how to solve it without compromising safety in any way. 

Finally, I want to note something that is not a surprise to anyone 

here. We have 6 months to pass an FAA bill. There are many 

issues to address with ATO reform. I do not think any of our witnesses will tell us today that the diverse interests in this industry 

are coalescing around a single proposal. 

Without that happening, I find it difficult to foresee an on-time 

FAA authorization bill if we tackle this topic. If stockholders want 

to push for a proposal, they need to put something on the table or 

risk heading us down the chaotic path of multiple short-term FAA 

bills, as we have had before the most recent authorization. That 

will only contribute to reform proponents’ claims about the damaging impacts of unstable and unpredictable funding. 

And I am hopeful we can make progress on these issues today. 

And before that, I would as well like unanimous consent to enter 

in the record DOD Policy Board on Federal Aviation in response to 

discussion regarding privatization of U.S. air traffic control services, essentially, a DOD statement of issues they would like to address should we move forward on any planned privatization, commercialization, or whatever other term we want to give it. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

11 


Insert offset folio 17 here 93853.017
12 

Mr. LARSEN. With that, I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. I would now like to recognize Chairman Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Chairman LoBiondo, for holding the 

hearing today. And let me start off with what Mr. Larsen has 

pointed out. We have got 6 months to act, and to everybody that 

knows Washington, pressure is a great thing for us to have here. 

It energizes us and gets us going to work. So that pressure is there, 

and we need to make sure we take advantage of it. 

Over the past 2 years we have held numerous meetings, listening 

sessions, roundtables, and hearings on the FAA’s efforts to modernize our safe yet increasingly obsolete ATC system. We have also 

seen reams of GAO reports and inspector general’s reports on the 

FAA’s most recent ATC modernization initiative on NextGen. 

The bottom line is that after three decades of various modernization attempts, billions of dollars have been spent and we are nowhere near where we need to be. While the FAA has spent approximately $6 billion to date on NextGen, passengers, shippers, and 

aircraft operators have seen few benefits. In fact, ATC delays are 

up at 13 of the 20 largest airports, and domestic flights take longer 

now than they did in 1977. 

As our system approaches 1 billion passengers per year, under 

these circumstances two things will happen. One, every day at the 

airport will seem like the day before Thanksgiving. And two, we 

will lose our lead in aviation. Neither outcome is acceptable. 

Let me emphasize that it is not an indictment of the FAA’s leadership team, or the air traffic controllers, who are the best in the 

world. It is an indictment of a governance and financing structure 

that is broken beyond repair. 

The underlying problem is that air traffic control is a high-tech 

service. The customers are companies and individuals who pay 

good money for the services they are provided. It is not a business. 

It is a vast Government bureaucracy. 

As a Government agency, the FAA is simply not set up to determine risks, pursue the most cost-efficient investments, manage 

people to produce the best results, reward excellence, or punish incompetence like a normal business. In the same amount of time 

that we have pursued NextGen at the FAA in the last 10 years, 

Verizon has upgraded its wireless system not once, not twice, not 

three times, but four times in the last 10 years. 

During this discussion, some have raised the questions of, ‘‘What 

problem are we trying to solve?’’ and ‘‘Why should we try to do this 

now?’’ Those are fair questions. 

To answer what we are trying to solve, I would say that we are 

not just trying to solve a procurement problem or a human resources challenge. Past Congresses have tried to address narrow 

problems, but have little to show for it. The FAA has not really 

changed or gotten better. 

What I want is for the United States to have the safest—and let 

me emphasize safest—most cost-effective, most technologically advanced ATC system in the world, bar none. We are not there and 

we will never get there on the current path. We have to step up 

to the broader challenges of getting it right and keeping America 

the leader. 

13 

And to answer ‘‘Why now?’’, air traffic control levels have declined by 15 percent since 2007, but the FAA and its budget have 

gotten larger. This is the right time to act. We have the breathing 

room and the imperative to get ourselves on course. 

The only answer is transformational reform that will ensure that 

the ATC service provider operates like a business, with no degradation in safety levels. It has been done before. In the past 20 years, 

50 countries have successfully separated the ATC service from the 

aviation safety regulator. 

They have taken different approaches, but with similar results— 

ATC systems have been modernized, safety levels have been either 

maintained or improved, service quality has been improved in most 

cases, and costs have generally been reduced. 

I believe the United States, with all of our talent, energy, and 

resources, can do just that or better. Given the size and complexity 

of our national airspace, we need to look at lessons learned and the 

best attributes of other countries and apply them to the United 

States. 

The idea of reforming our system is not new. Bipartisan Federal 

aviation commissions during the Reagan and the Clinton administrations who have looked at it tried to tackle these issues. And no 

matter what course we take on air traffic control reform, we need 

to ensure that safety will not be compromised. 

I look forward to hearing from our panel, and our panel today is 

very distinguished, many, many years of service to the industry, 

many years of looking at this problem. In fact, Mr. Poole said to 

me when I saw him back there, he said, ‘‘I hope I am prepared 

today.’’ He has been preparing for 30 years for this hearing. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. As well, everybody on the panel has multiple years 

of experience here. And so for those of you new to the committee, 

you should really look at the backgrounds on these folks. These are 

truly the experts. They know the problems. They have the solutions. And we need to work with them to try to make sure that we 

do what is good for this country, do what is good for aviation in 

America and the world. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. DeFazio? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is clear we 

all have a common objective here. We want to maintain and improve upon the safest air traffic control system in the world. But 

we want to make it more nimble in terms of adopting new technology procurement moving forward. 

But what is the major problem we are trying to solve? Well, I 

would say the 2-week partial shutdown of the FAA in the summer 

of 2011, when Congress and this committee failed to reauthorize 

the FAA; budget sequestration that caused furloughs, a hiring 

freeze, flight delays—that was a mess; the shutdown of the entire 

Government. 

So the number one priority is to protect the FAA and Air Traffic 

Organization from Congress. Now, that is a tough task, but here 

we are. Let’s see how we could tackle that. How can we protect it 

from the United States Congress? 

14 

Well, probably you could say, let’s keep it the way it is, but let’s 

give it mandatory spending authority. Move it off-budget. Right 

now we are only 9 percent short of self-funding. We can probably 

figure out where to get that 9 percent or save that 9 percent. And 

then, like five pages in this book of agencies and authorities that 

are exempt from sequestration, let’s exempt it from sequestration. 

OK. That is one way to do it. 

But that does not necessarily solve the bureaucracy problems. 

Past reorganizations dictated that the FAA would have its own procurement system. They essentially adopted the rules of the Federal 

procurement system. It would be substantially out from sequential 

levels of review at the Secretary’s office and OMB and everywhere 

else. Those things came to naught, for a number of reasons. 

So that past attempt at reform failed. We have bureaucratic 

problems that are apparent that are not easily dealt with. We have 

facilities that need to be consolidated or moved, and Congress often 

gets directly involved in that. So that could be solved with a BRAC 

process. You could look at trying to enforce those personnel reforms, but probably will not get there. 

So then we could look at an independent Government agency, 

truly independent, with a board of directors or advisors and an Administrator. We could look at a Government corporation; one of the 

witnesses here today has that in his testimony, and he is not officially representing the MAC, but that seems to be perhaps where 

they are headed. 

And people say, well, look. What is your example? The Postal 

Service? Well, not exactly. But then again, you forget that the reason the Postal Service is losing money today is because the United 

States Congress told them they have to prepay healthcare for 75 

years. If we told an airline they had to prepay their employees’ 

healthcare for 75 years, they would say, ‘‘You are nuts. We cannot 

do that. Nobody can do that.’’ Well, we are making the Postal Service do it. So they are actually making money. 

They are not the best example. We need a 21st-century Government corporation model, and there is not one to point to. We would 

have to create it. That is a lot of work. And then we have advocates 

of a private not-for-profit, looking at Nav Canada, which has many 

enviable attributes. 

But there are a number of questions that arise if we move outside the Government sphere, independent agency, or Government 

corporation. One is, how do you value the assets and how are they 

going to pay for them? We have both physical assets and then spectrum, which the FAA does not have. It is not their asset. It is actually an FCC asset, which through the NTIA is annually licensed to 

the FAA. If you were to put that up for auction, it would be worth 

many, many billions of dollars. So you have got an asset issue. 

What about safety? Some advocates say, ‘‘Well, we will leave 

safety with the Government. We will leave certification with the 

Government.’’ Wait a minute. I thought certification was a big 

problem. Well, that means we are going to have to fix that. And 

then how is certification going to oversee the new air traffic system 

if they are separated? They say it works elsewhere. Yes, maybe it 

can work here, but I have concerns about that. 

15 

What about airport funding? We have massive needs. There is 

tremendous resistance to any increase in a PFC. But under this 

model, AIP would go away, so I do not know exactly how commercial airports would exist. I guess they would go to the European 

model, which is massive increase in landing fees, which I think 

would receive some resistance from some parts of the aviation community. 

Pension arrangements were already raised by my colleague here. 

One member of the panel told me upfront, ‘‘No, they are going to 

go to defined benefit.’’ Well, I do not think that would go over with 

the air traffic controllers. So we have some disagreement there. 

And then there is something that we stumbled over last Friday, 

and I will be asking very exacting questions about this. Because of 

a recent court ruling by the DC Circuit reinforcing a court ruling 

from 1936 that the Government cannot delegate regulatory authority, and actually one of the briefs actually mentions air traffic control, there is a question of constitutionality here. And I would not 

want to spend a lot of time on something that ends up not being 

constitutional, create it and then have to see a future Congress 

very messily reintegrate it. 

So a lot of questions to be answered, and I think we have a common goal, as I said at the outset. We want to reinforce the safest 

system in the world. We want to make it more nimble in procurement, less bureaucratic, provide better service to all of its aviation 

customers and stakeholders, and what is the best way to do that? 

And I look forward to hearing from the panel. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. Thank our witnesses 

for being here today. 

Our first witness today is Mr. Matt Hampton, assistant inspector 

general for aviation at the United States Department of Transportation. Thank you for being here. We are looking forward to your 

comments. 

TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW E. HAMPTON, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AVIATION, OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; DOUGLAS 

PARKER, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

AMERICAN AIRLINES GROUP, INC., ON BEHALF OF AIRLINES 

FOR AMERICA; CRAIG L. FULLER, VICE CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION MANAGEMENT ADVISORY 

COUNCIL; PAUL M. RINALDI, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR 

TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION, AFL–CIO; ROBERT W. 

POOLE, JR., DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION POLICY, REASON FOUNDATION; DAVID GRIZZLE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DAZZLE PARTNERS, LLC, FORMERLY CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION, FEDERAL 

AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; AND DOROTHY ROBYN, AIRLINES/AVIATION CONSULTANT, FORMERLY PRINCIPAL, THE 

BRATTLE GROUP 

Mr. HAMPTON. Chairman Shuster, Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking 

Member DeFazio, Ranking Member Larsen, and members of the 

subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. At the request of this subcommittee and the full committee, we are examVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:44 Jun 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\AV\3-24-1~1\93853.TXT JEAN
16 

ining how FAA’s organizational and financing structure compares 

with other countries. 

My testimony today will focus on the four countries we examined: Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. I will 

briefly describe how they organize and finance their air transportation systems as well as how they develop and implement new 

technologies. 

The four countries we examined have adopted a range of organizational structures, but they share some common characteristics. 

The four countries have commercialized their air navigation services to improve operations, cost-effectiveness, and the execution of 

capital projects. 

Each of the four countries we examined have separated air traffic 

management from the safety regulator. They have organized their 

air navigation systems into independent air navigation service providers, commonly referred to as ANSPs. In addition, each service 

provider is self-sufficient, financed primarily through cost-based 

user fees. They also have the ability to finance their modernization 

efforts by issuing long-term bonds and other debt instruments. All 

four share a common commitment to cost control and to reducing 

cost to airspace users. Some have been more successful than others. 

Now I would like to turn to how the service providers modernize 

and implement new technologies. We found that none of the four 

countries embark on large-scale modernization projects such as the 

NextGen transformational programs that FAA is pursuing today. 

Instead, they develop technology incrementally and rely on commercial off-the-shelf systems. This is a function of their size, complexity of the traffic they manage, and the number of facilities they 

operate. 

Foreign air traffic service providers such as Canada and the U.K. 

have experienced some success incorporating new technologies to 

reduce controller workload and enhance productivity through data 

link communications and the implementation of electronic flight 

strips. 

In addition, Canada, the U.K., and to some extent Germany also 

sell technologies including controller automation systems to other 

countries. It is worth noting that Nav Canada relies heavily on inhouse capability. They also rely on joint ventures, and they follow 

a very disciplined cost-benefit approach to acquisitions, with a 

focus on near-term return on investments. 

Now I would like to touch on some matters that should be considered going forward. 

As Congress explores options to change FAA’s structure, there 

are several differences between the U.S. aviation system and other 

countries, including size and complexities. As was recently noted, 

airports are financed very differently outside the U.S. There is no 

comparable $3.5 billion Airport Improvement Program outside the 

U.S. 

In addition, none of the foreign service providers we examined 

conduct the level of research and development that FAA does on 

air traffic management systems or have access to NASA or DOD 

research. This has important implications for NextGen going forward. 

17 

Without question, how FAA is organized and financed is a policy 

call for Congress. There are several important lessons that deserve 

attention from other nations’ experiences to date. 

First and foremost is safety oversight. While studies show that 

safety has not been impacted, a robust safety workforce with sufficient expertise is needed to provide oversight of the air traffic entity. Given the size and complexity of the U.S. system, careful 

thought must be given to the development of the safety paradigm 

for the U.S. system. 

Second, other nations faced several challenges transitioning to 

the new system, particularly related to transferring Government 

workforces to the new air traffic service provider. These issues took 

time to resolve and included resolving different labor issues. 

Finally, financial considerations are important, including determining which assets should be transferred to the new entity as 

well as assigning their appropriate value. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy 

to answer any questions you or other members of the subcommittee 

may have. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Hampton. 

Our next witness today is Mr. Doug Parker, chairman and CEO 

of American Airlines Group, on behalf of Airlines for America. 

Thank you for being here. 

Mr. PARKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Doug Parker, 

chairman and CEO of American Airlines, but also vice chairman of 

Airlines for America. I am here today in that capacity. We certainly 

appreciate the opportunity to participate in the committee’s examination of potential air traffic control reform solutions. 

As we broaden the FAA reauthorization discussion, there has 

never been a better time for reform. At last, through the leadership 

of this committee and support on both sides of the aisle, we have 

both the intent and the political will to transform the U.S. air traffic control system. 

For years we have said we cannot continue to run the same ATC 

system the same way as it has been since the 1950s and expect different results. A string of reports from Presidential aviation commissions, DOT inspector general, the GAO, and independent private sector experts all show FAA’s ATC modernization efforts have 

been plagued by significant cost overruns and delays, calling into 

question the FAA’s ability to deliver under the existing funding 

and governance structure. 

Now, this is not a criticism of the FAA’s current leadership. They 

are a great group that is working very hard and has delivered recent pockets of progress. We commend Administrator Huerta, Deputy Administrator Whitaker, and Assistant Administrator Bolton 

for their leadership. We believe the problems lie not with their 

leadership but with the constraints and the built-in impediments 

of the current governance and funding structures. 

We believe fundamental reform presents significant opportunities 

for improving our system. And like many of you, we recognize there 

are risks associated with major reform. Indeed, there are those who 

suggest change is hard and there is insufficient will, both politically and within the industry, to tackle something of this magnitude. We disagree with the skeptics. 

18 

Other countries have successfully taken it on, and we have the 

benefit of learning from their combined experience. The risks can 

be mitigated. Of far greater concern is the much larger risk of 

doing nothing. It is in all of our best interests to determine the 

most effective, fact-based solutions that will work for stakeholders 

and provide the ‘‘step change’’ improvements needed for our ATC 

system long term. 

To make an informed comparison to our own system, A4A undertook research to benchmark and assess the governance, financial, 

and operational performance of the U.S., Canadian, and European 

ATC models. To gain an understanding of best practices outside the 

United States, our evaluation reviewed the safety, efficiency, customer service, and NextGen implementation performance of those 

organizations. Our conclusion is that to bring our ATC system to 

where it should be today and must be for the future, transformation, not renovation, is required. 

We are fortunate to have the safest ATC system in the world. We 

also should be striving to be the most efficient. Our airspace is inefficiently managed, and airline passengers pay the price. 

Our benchmarking and fact-based assessment of the governance, 

financial, and operational performance suggest some basic principles for ATC organization success: first, independent, multistakeholder board governance; second, effective management 

incentivized to pursue efficiencies without unnecessary constraints 

hampering their decisionmaking; third, a fair self-funding model 

based on the cost of ATC service; and fourth, the ability to manage 

capital to allow speedier technological modernization. 

With these principles in place, ATC can operate like a business, 

with long-term funding and governance certainty. Clear organizational accountability to stakeholders and users of the system drives 

effective and efficient operations and decisionmaking. A self-funded, cost-based financing model frees the system from the annual 

appropriations process and ensures stable and predictable funding 

that allows for access to capital markets. And funding not consistently held up by sequestration will also enable long-term planning. 

Our work to date shows a commercialized, nonprofit type of governance structure would deliver the greatest benefits for a reformed ATC entity because the commercial structure would continue to put safety first while driving value for all stakeholders. 

And to be clear, under any and all scenarios, first and foremost, the 

FAA must retain the role as safety regulator. 

We believe various models already in place in key international 

airspace provide valuable insight to help us transform best global 

practices into a U.S. system that acknowledges our complexity and 

operating environment. We believe we should be focused on holistic 

changes in governance, structure, funding, and accountability that 

will facilitate the development of a world-class ATC organization. 

We should do it by using the best technology and best practices 

to deliver the safest and most efficient air traffic infrastructure in 

the world. We have the technology and the opportunity. We are 

doing a disservice to our customers and the flying public by not acting. 

We need to stop the endless circular discussion of need, and act 

by seizing this opportunity to create an ATC system our pasVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:44 Jun 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\AV\3-24-1~1\93853.TXT JEAN
19 

sengers, our economy, and businesses across America expect and 

deserve. Thank you very much. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Parker. 

Our next witness today is Mr. Craig Fuller, vice chairman of the 

Federal Aviation Administration’s Management Advisory Council. 

Thank you for being here. 

Mr. FULLER. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Larsen, members 

of the committee, I am Craig Fuller. I am actually a general aviation pilot of over 40 years of active flying, but I am not here to represent any segment of the aviation community. I really come here 

as a member of the FAA’s Management Advisory Council. 

This council was formed in 1996 by the Congress to give the Administrator advice and counsel on management concerns. And this 

Administrator, Administrator Huerta, when we convened for the 

first time as a group last January 2014, asked us to dive rather 

deeply into the question of what were the impediments to going forward, and specifically in the context of reauthorization. 

I have submitted a statement for the record. I would like to give 

you just a very brief background and respond to some of the good 

questions that were asked in the opening statements. 

We do not, on the Management Advisory Council, have a recommendation to make or a consensus that we have arrived at yet. 

I will talk about a concept that the working group and the members of the MAC have looked at carefully. 

Our first step last year was actually to talk to about 30 different 

stakeholders to understand, going forward, what impediments they 

saw, and then to talk to the leadership inside the FAA. As a working group, the MAC members participated in this activity, and the 

full MAC was briefed during our meetings on what we found. 

What we found has been actually shared here today in many 

ways. First and foremost, the question was asked, is the best funding structure in place today? I think our answer is clearly no, that 

in fact, the funding structure does not provide the continuity of 

funds, does not provide the flexibility of funds, does not provide the 

ability to do capital investments that are necessary to go forward. 

So the funding structure is a serious concern. 

The other concern that we heard and was touched upon is the 

whole certification and regulatory area. As a matter of fact, this 

was the area that probably more groups talked about indepth than 

anything else. Whether it is a third-class medical concern, the ability to have designees doing examinations; the manufacturers are 

concerned about the speed with which part 23 rewrites get done— 

across the board, this was a concern. 

Now, safety has been delivered to us through certification and 

regulation very successfully for many years. But neither inside the 

FAA nor in the community is there a sense of satisfaction about 

the way this is operating, and that is a fundamental issue that I 

think has to be dealt with over the course of this discussion. 

I believe all MAC members, I can say safely, are not satisfied 

with the status quo. I believe all MAC members think there is a 

better path forward, and I know all of us appreciate the leadership 

of this committee, Chairman Shuster, calling for bold action and 

ideas. And I think all of us on this panel come with ideas because 

we want to improve the status quo. 

20 

In the course of our deliberations, we talked with some of the 

groups here today. We talked to people who were looking at taking 

the Air Traffic Organization outside of the FAA. We looked at Nav 

Canada. I have been to Canada. We looked at some of the other 

countries that have done this. 

The distinct difference between us and those countries is size. 

Somebody from the National Business Aviation the other day said, 

‘‘In New Zealand there are 17 business aircraft.’’ In Canada there 

is about 10 percent of the air traffic we have. As you heard, the 

amount of research, the work that is developed in the United 

States and shared throughout the world just makes us different. 

So while there are many merits—you are going to hear more 

about them—to a businesslike operation of ATO, the working group 

has come to focus on a concept where the entire FAA would be put 

into a Federal corporation. This gets to the question of what is bold 

and doable. 

If the entire FAA goes into a Federal corporation, the employees 

stay in the Federal Government. The revenue streams continue to 

flow in there through a transition period. A separate board of Governors, as was described for ATO, a group of stakeholders, would 

be the governing body for this and would deliver the businesslike 

methodology for operating not just the ATO but the safety and the 

certification areas as well. 

There would need to be a chief safety officer. These people, some 

of them, would need to be appointed by the President, confirmed 

by the Senate. The Congress would continue to have to have interaction, but not at the level that exists today, in order to deliver an 

FAA process that is simply more efficient and operates with the 

continued safety we have enjoyed. 

This is a concept that we look forward to spending time with the 

community discussing. It is a concept we would like to have further 

dialogue with the committee and the committee staff about. Again, 

I thank you for the opportunity to share the work that is in 

progress at the Management Advisory Council at the FAA. I look 

forward to your questions. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Fuller. 

Our next witness today is Mr. Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. 

Welcome. 

Mr. RINALDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today at this important hearing as we lead into 

a new FAA reauthorization bill. 

The FAA and the National Airspace System are experiencing a 

transition period. We all have a stake in the National Airspace System of this country. It is an economic engine which contributes $1.5 

trillion annually to our gross domestic product and provides over 

12 million American jobs. 

Currently we run the largest, safest, most efficient, most complex, most diverse airspace system in the world. Our system is incomparable, unequaled, and unrivaled by any other country. The 

United States airspace system and the FAA is considered the gold 

standard in the world aviation industry. And yet the reality is in 

order to keep this honor, we need a change. 

21 

Currently we face many challenges in responding to the given 

problems of unstable budgets, including but not limited to the inability to finance long-term projects, the inability to grow the National Airspace System for new users, the inability to modernize 

our aging infrastructure. 

And currently we are struggling in maintaining proper resources 

and staffing at our busiest air traffic control facilities. The FAA 

lacks a central staffing distribution system that has led to some of 

our busiest facilities in the country approaching critical staffing. 

This is a giant concern for us. 

The air traffic controllers are the backbone of the National Airspace System, maintaining the safe and orderly flow of aircraft 

across the United States. In addition, we are contributing our expertise to modernize our system through NextGen projects. And we 

provide all the on-the-job training for all new hires. 

This requires our facilities to be appropriately staffed. An understaffed facility can barely keep its positions open for the day-to-day 

operation, never mind train our controllers on new technologies 

and procedures for NextGen or train our new hires that walk 

through the door. 

Understaffing our facility will ultimately delay modernization 

projects. Simply put, this is bad business, to understaff our business facilities in the country, and yet the FAA continues to do it 

every day. This will eventually cause major delays within our system. 

The upcoming FAA reauthorization bill must address a lack of 

predictable, stable funding stream for our continuous, hypercritical 

aviation operation. We understand that addressing the stop-and-go 

funding problems that we have all experienced may lead to the examination of a potential structural change for the FAA. We believe 

it is time to look at a structural change for the FAA. 

But such structural change or reform must be carefully examined 

to prevent the unintended consequences from negatively affecting 

the safety and the efficiency of the National Airspace System. 

Every stakeholder in the National Airspace System should all work 

together to ensure the United States continues to be the leader in 

the global aviation community. 

Any reform must be mission-driven, with safety and efficiency 

first and foremost; must have a process to provide a stable, predictable funding stream to adequately support the air traffic control 

services, staffing, hiring, training, long-term modernization 

projects, along with preventive maintenance and ongoing modernization to our physical infrastructure, which is aging. 

Any change must allow for continued growth in our system and 

must be a dynamic system that continues to provide service to all 

segments of our aviation community. We do not want to take a step 

backwards. In essence, any change we make needs to be precisionlike so that we do not interrupt the day-to-day operation of this 

National Airspace System. 

Mr. Chairman, our National Airspace System is an American 

treasure. We cannot continue to shortchange it. Aviation is uniquely an American tradition. We need to make appropriate changes to 

secure the funding of our system and a proper change for the governance structure of this system so that we will continue to grow 

22 

aviation in this country, allow the integration of new users like 

UAVs and commercial space programs, and give us the competitive 

edge to continue to be the leader in the global aviation community. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your time, and I look forward to 

answering any questions you may have. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Rinaldi. 

Our next witness today is Mr. Bob Poole, director of transportation policy for the Reason Foundation. 

Thank you for being here. 

Mr. POOLE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having me 

today. I have been studying the air traffic control system for more 

than three decades, and I have published widely on the subject. 

Today I am a member of two working groups developing proposals 

for air traffic restructuring, the Business Roundtable Group and 

the Eno Center Group. 

I agree with many other observers about the fundamental problems with the Air Traffic Organization the way it is governed and 

funded. I would put it this way: we have basically three problems. 

Number one, unstable, uncertain funding—everybody agrees on 

that; number two, a governance model with so many different overseers that it diverts significant ATO management time away from 

its customers and onto the overseers; and third, an organizational 

culture that is very status quo-oriented that hampers innovation. 

My focus today is going to be on the organizational culture, based 

on this study that was commissioned by the Hudson Institute— 

about innovation in aviation, in air traffic specifically. 

I looked at seven disruptive innovations and how the ATO handled them: digital communications; GPS-based landing system; 

GPS-based surveillance, in other words ADS–B; performance-based 

navigation; real-time weather data; remote towers; and facility consolidation. In each of these seven, the ATO is far more cautious 

than corporatized ANSPs overseas. 

My findings about the status quo culture went through extensive 

peer review by many people with extensive knowledge inside and 

outside of the FAA. They agreed with my five proposed causal factors. 

Number one, the self-identity of the ATO as a safety agency rather than as a technology user. That is because the ATO is embedded 

within the FAA, whose mission is safety, obviously. The companies 

that produce innovations are regulated at arm’s length by the FAA, 

and so they are the ones that are free to think outside the box, 

come up with things knowing that they are regulated by the FAA. 

That is the way ANSPs operate in other countries today. 

Number two, loss of technical expertise. Under civil service and 

with a status quo culture, it is very hard for the ATO to keep topnotch engineering and software talent. The best go to the private 

sector. So requirements for new systems end up being defined by 

contractors, not internally by the organization. 

Number three is loss of management expertise. For some of the 

same reasons, ATO has trouble attracting and keeping top-notch 

program managers that you need to drive big technology implementations on time and on budget. 

Number four is excessive oversight. Because it is spending taxpayers’ money, the ATO must be held accountable to numerous 

23 

Governmental overseers, including all 535 Members of Congress. 

That consumes, believe me, huge amounts of management time. 

And number five, lack of customer focus. Because the ATO gets 

its funding from Congress, it really acts as if Congress is its main 

customer rather than the aviation community that it is intended to 

serve. Corporatized ANSPs overseas are freed from those problems. 

So to change the status quo culture, we need to do three things. 

First, we need to organizationally separate the ATO from the 

safety regulator so that it is at arm’s length, just like the technology firms that are out there. 

Second, change the funding system; instead of having the users 

of the system pay taxes to the Government, getting all the money 

into the Government budget process, they need to pay fees and 

charges directly to the provider, the new ATO. That would refocus 

ATO’s attention on its customers. 

Third, a governance model that is driven by the people who are 

paying the bills: the customers and other stakeholders. They 

should be doing the oversight rather than all the different ones in 

Government today. 

There is a lot of evidence the overseas ANSPs are getting better 

performance and higher productivity. The largest two independent 

studies are these that I refer to in my organizational testimony. 

One is an academic book-length study. The other was a peer-reviewed study done with three universities. 

A major finding from this study is that: ‘‘The commercialization 

models have resulted in significant cost reductions, dramatic improvements in modernization, and major improvements in service 

quality while improving safety. Commercialized ANSPs exhibit 

three main strengths: sensitivity to customer needs, agility in 

reaching a decision, and ability to carry it through.’’ 

Finally, which organizational form is best? I and a number of researchers have concluded that a nonprofit corporation approach 

really is best. The way we could do that in this country is with a 

federally chartered not-for-profit corporation comparable in structure to the U.S. Red Cross, the U.S. Olympic Committee. It would 

also have the characteristics, essentially, of a user co-op, which we 

have a number of in aviation and elsewhere. 

That is my best conclusion after many decades of studying this 

as a path forward. It is also the organizational form that is being 

recommended by the Business Roundtable Group. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Poole. 

Our next witness today is Mr. David Grizzle. 

Thank you for being here today. Mr. Grizzle, you are recognized 

for your statement. 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Good morning. My passion to see Congress embrace 

transformational change in air traffic control is the result of my 

long career in aviation—22 years at Continental Airlines in various 

senior executive positions, and 41⁄2 years at the FAA, mostly as the 

chief operating officer of the Air Traffic Organization with very 

able coworkers. 

I firmly believe that taking air traffic control completely out of 

Government and creating an independent not-for-profit that values 

safety, efficiency, and access is the only means to assure a more 

24 

stable future for controllers, a more efficient and larger system for 

the users, and a more reliable system for consumers. 

Multiple times over the last 20 years, Congress has expressed its 

frustration with the performance of the FAA and its inability to 

modernize its equipment. In the Air Traffic Management System 

Performance Act of 1996, Congress gave the Administrator sweeping new powers to govern the agency with less external interference, almost in a nongovernmental way. Specifically, the Administrator was to be the final authority in personnel matters through 

previously granted powers to design a personnel management system outside of the restrictions of title V. 

The Administrator was given equally broad powers with respect 

to acquisitions, again with previously authorized authority that 

was to have improved the agency’s timeliness and cost-effectiveness 

in acquisitions by removing the FAA from the application of the 

Federal Acquisition Regulations. 

To put an even finer point on its intentions, Congress provided 

that the Administrator was not required to submit for approval or 

even seek the advice of the Secretary or any other person at DOT 

on those matters where the Administrator had final authority. 

Still not satisfied with air traffic control performance, 7 years 

later Congress created the Air Traffic Services Committee, a Presidential-appointed, Senate-confirmed board to oversee the system. 

The committee was to approve ATC’s strategic and modernization 

plans and all acquisitions over $100 million. The committee was 

also supposed to approve the hiring of the COO and make budget 

recommendations. 

As chief operating officer, I saw vividly what came of Congress’ 

best intentions to create a governance structure still within the 

Federal Government that respected the peculiar needs of the unforgiving, critical operation of air traffic control. The results have not 

been favorable. 

In human resource management, every significant personnel 

matter is submitted to the Department of Transportation for review, notwithstanding the provisions of the 1996 Act. Whether a 

change in compensation, the appointment of senior management, 

the extension of a controller contract, or the restoration of pay for 

employees following the furloughs of 2011 and 2013, the Department and often other entities reviewed our decisions, and they 

were always delayed, frequently modified, and sometimes reversed. 

The FAA has continued to undervalue human capital, resulting 

in our once again having a prospective shortage of controllers, technicians who lack certifications, and many new supervisors who 

have been on their jobs for over a year with absolutely no management training. And the FAA’s personnel management system in 

both design and effect is almost indistinguishable from title V, from 

which it was to have been separated. 

Procurements continue to be grindingly slow, specifications were 

and continue to be inexpertly determined, and major programs 

which at the time of their conception were too massive and vastly 

exceeded the technological visibility of their planners continue to be 

behind schedule and over budget. And this does not occur because 

our contractors are rapacious or our program managers unskilled. 

25 

It occurs because the system was never designed to support a highperformance operation like air traffic control. 

Finally, you might ask, what happened to the Air Traffic Services 

Committee that was supposed to bring oversight from highly 

knowledgeable and diversely experienced individuals? Its vacancies 

have not been filled in a decade. It has not convened in years, and 

therefore certainly has not reviewed any air traffic modernization 

plans, approved any major acquisitions, or made any budget recommendations, as provided in its enabling statute, which is the law 

to this day. 

The last 20 years, most of which were times of budgetary plenty, 

teach us that political governance cannot provide the oversight, 

guidance, and even continuity of attention necessary to support a 

critical and technology-intensive operation like air traffic control. 

Based on my experience and the failed half measures of the past, 

I believe that our only solution is one that entrusts air traffic governance and stewardship to individuals who understand and value 

the needs of the users, employees, and passengers of the system, 

who have a continuing interest in and appreciation for this critical 

operation, and who are outside of even the political appointment 

process. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to respond to your questions and provide further detail on my statement. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Grizzle. 

Our next witness today is Ms. Dorothy Robyn. 

Thank you for being here today. 

Ms. ROBYN. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Secretary Foxx several weeks ago gave a speech at the Aero 

Club, and he referred to ‘‘the graveyard of administrations that 

have tried to make game-changing moves to reform air traffic control.’’ If you are wondering why I am here this morning, it is because my name, along with others, is on one of the headstones, the 

one marking the Clinton administration’s failed effort to 

corporatize air traffic control. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. ROBYN. I brought with me the vacuum tube, the very vacuum tube, that Vice President Gore used to hold up whenever he 

spoke about the need to reinvent air traffic control, which he did 

often. The FAA was then the largest purchaser of vacuum tubes in 

the U.S. They acquired them from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic 

because they were no longer produced here. 

I developed such strong views on this issue, such a passion for 

it, that I continued to speak and write about it after I left the Clinton administration. I wrote a Brookings report in 2008. I was in 

the Obama administration for 5 years, away from this issue, but 

I have reengaged in the debate as an independent member of the 

Eno Foundation’s NextGen Working Group. 

Let me make three points this morning, and in doing so, try to 

respond to a couple of the things that I have heard this morning. 

First of all, air traffic control, the operation of the air traffic control 

system, is not an inherently governmental activity. Now, although 

that is not the controversial statement that it was 20 years ago 

26 

when we proposed corporatization of air traffic control, I want to 

be clear about what I mean by that. 

Air traffic control is a complex, safety-critical endeavor, but it is 

operational in nature. It does not require the kind of policy judgments or tradeoffs that only a Government entity can make. 

By contrast, the regulatory side of the FAA is inherently governmental. As with the Federal Railroad Administration, NHTSA, the 

Food and Drug Administration, FAA regulation requires policy 

judgments and tradeoffs that are at the heart of what it means to 

be a Government agency. 

Now, historically, the air traffic control operator and the safety 

regulator were seen as so inextricably linked that the operation 

was assumed to be inherently governmental. We know that is not 

the case, and we know that in part from the 50 countries that have 

separated them. 

In fact, safety experts worldwide are now unanimous in saying 

that the regulator should be separate from the operation it regulates so as to avoid a conflict of interest on the part of the regulator. The United States is one of the only advanced industrial 

countries in which air traffic control is still both operated and regulated by the same agency. So in sum, operation and regulation 

should be separate. And second, FAA safety should remain in a traditional Government agency. 

My second point: Precisely because air traffic control is not inherently governmental, our current approach to managing it is highly 

problematic. And I think this is the answer to the question that 

Congressman Larsen and Congressman DeFazio raised—what is 

the problem? 

Simply stated, and I have been saying this for 20 years, the problem is air traffic control is a 24/7, capital-intensive, high-tech service business trapped in a regulatory agency that is constrained by 

Federal budget and procurement measures, burdened by a flawed 

financing system, and micromanaged by Congress and the Office of 

Management and Budget. 

On the governance side, as a traditional Federal agency, the FAA 

simply cannot manage what amounts to a business. To paraphrase 

James Carville, ‘‘It’s the incentives, stupid.’’ As one example, FAA 

management views you all, views Congress, as the customer, not 

the users of the system, because you hold the purse. 

On the financing side, the incentives are every bit as flawed. Excise taxes create perverse incentives for the users of the system, 

who do not pay directly for what they consume. It also creates 

flawed incentives for the FAA, and it denies the FAA the sort of 

user feedback that a normal business gets from its customers. 

And because the Federal Government lacks a capital budget, 

agencies must fully fund capital investments upfront out of the annual appropriation process, which is completely at odds with what 

it takes to maintain a capital-intensive system like air traffic control. 

So this clash of cultures, the fundamental mismatch between 

governance and financing in the system that we have, is in my 

view the problem and to blame for the issue. 

Third, to address the governance problem, Congress needs to 

move the ATO outside of the traditional Government bureaucracy 

27 

so that it can operate like a business. You have heard about the 

three different models this morning—a Government corporation, a 

user-owned cooperative or stakeholder cooperative, and a for-profit 

entity that is regulated, rate-of-return regulation. 

I have a strong preference for the user cooperative model because 

it achieves a very elegant alignment of economic incentives. The 

stakeholders manage the system with heavy, heavy involvement by 

the users. Therefore, they have a natural incentive to keep costs 

low and to invest in capital at the optimal level. And I think Nav 

Canada’s record is superb because it has that alignment of incentives right. That is absolutely critical. 

The NATS model for profit, rate-of-return regulation, is problematic. You have to set up a regulatory apparatus. There is an incentive for the regulatee to over-invest in capital. The nonprofit corporation, it works well in other countries. My great concern is that 

it would be impossible to pull off in this country because the context is different, that it would be impossible to have a politically 

insulated Government corporation in this country. Do I have time 

left? Yes? Let me address the issue of spectrum because I think I 

have raised that issue and maybe created a monster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Actually, you have gone over. 

Ms. ROBYN. Have I gone over? Oh, I am sorry. 

Mr. SHUSTER. You have gone over 2 minutes. You do not have 

2 minutes left. 

Ms. ROBYN. Sorry. I will stop there. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, for interjecting. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. No. Thank you. We will maybe get to some more 

of this. 

I would like to recognize Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I am anxious to get to my question, so I am sorry 

I did that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. But let me just say, talking about hitting the nail 

on the head, you are spot on. And first I want to just clarify, what 

you said to address Mr. DeFazio’s direct question, which Mr. 

DeFazio always has good questions and always tough questions, 

but we are not considering delegating the safety and regulatory 

oversight to a Government corporation or to another entity. We are 

discussing the delegation of a service function. 

And we have had many examples of that in the Federal Government. I might add many of them are poor examples, but you learn 

from mistakes as you do from success. So as we move forward, let’s 

look at those poor examples and make sure we do not make the 

same mistakes. 

We have seen the DOT reports, the IG reports, the GAO reports, 

talking about the governance and financing reforms that other 

countries have done throughout the world. This is a yes or no question because as I look at this panel, I tried to do the math. There 

is probably close to 200 years’ experience on this panel dealing with 

the ATC question. 

So the yes or no question is: Due to the size of our airspace— 

and that is the big question; everybody says we are too big, we cannot do things the way other countries do, which we cannot; there 

are a lot of hurdles and challenges—but yes or no, can we scale 

28 

this, the various reforms that have taken place around the world, 

to the airspace that is our size? 

Just go down the list. Yes or no? I know there are a lot of things 

in there, but it is basically at the core of the question. Can we 

achieve this? 

Mr. HAMPTON. Yes. 

Mr. PARKER. Yes. 

Mr. FULLER. I hesitate because—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. You have been in Government too long, Mr. Fuller. 

Mr. FULLER. I have been out a long time, though. It is the point 

that was made—the size makes the transition period much more 

difficult. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I do not doubt that. But is it possible? Do you believe, done well, is it possible? 

Mr. FULLER. I think you have more problems separating it by 

itself than keeping it together. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Rinaldi? 

Mr. RINALDI. It is challenging, and I am not—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. I get all that. It is a yes or no. So far, two of you 

have failed the test. 

Mr. RINALDI. I think yes, we can. Anything we set our minds to 

do, we do. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Unquestionably yes. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I think you have already answered the question. 

OK. That being said, I believe we can also. I believe we can, too. 

And now the question directly to Mr. Parker: You have spent a 

career in the airline industry. You have merged a couple of airlines. Doing this, can you take your experience from—you have 

90,000 employees. You have dealt with safety concerns. You have 

dealt with technology. You have dealt with financing. You have 

dealt with human resources concerns. Can you talk about your experience in doing something like this? Again, it is difficult, but can 

you address that directly? 

Mr. PARKER. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you. We have indeed gone 

through a number of complex projects over time, and this would be 

another one. What I know is when it comes time to get large 

projects done, you need the team to focus on the vision, not the obstacles. 

Making sure the obstacles are addressed is certainly important. 

You need people to make sure that all the details are ironed out 

and the obstacles are not ignored. But you cannot focus on the obstacles. The way you get things done is focusing on the vision, And 

that is what this committee is trying to do. We applaud that. That 

is how we get through things. 

Now, there are certainly problems that will come about. But our 

job is to make sure that we look to the future and not live in the 

past and make sure we are doing the right things. That is what 

we have certainly been able to accomplish through mergers. Obviously, they are difficult. 

But at the end of the day, you fight through the difficulties to 

make sure that you are moving forward, that is what needs to happen here. We are still living with a system that is much worse than 

we can do. We need to move forward. 

29 

And what we have seen, as we have worked through projects, to 

your question, is that once you do that and you work through, you 

end up with something much, much better. I could go on for a long 

time about how our companies are much better off because of the 

challenges we have worked through, and no telling where they 

would be had we not done that. 

So this is certainly manageable, and indeed, I would argue in 

some cases, easier to manage because we are not talking about integration of two separate ATC systems. It exists. We are just talking about changing the governance and the funding to make sure 

that it can actually operate efficiently because it certainly cannot 

operate efficiently under the current structure. 

So I have no doubt that with the right attitude and philosophy, 

that the obstacles could be overcome, and that we will be much better off shortly thereafter. And the challenges are worth taking on. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I think a very important point that we should take 

note of is that you made the point that you were merging two different entities, which is extremely different cultures. We are taking 

a culture, we are taking an organization, and setting it aside, and 

it is basically intact. We are trying to make it better. 

Mr. PARKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. SHUSTER. So I think that is one of the things we all should 

take away from this. This is challenging, but it is no more challenging than what you have done in your career. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. DeFazio? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Fuller, you said that safety certification loomed large in your 

interviews. So under the model I am hearing here, safety certifications stay with the Government. Who would pay for it? The Government, I assume? If we can get an answer quickly. 

Mr. FULLER. Yes. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes, the Government would pay for it. OK. Is that 

going to solve the certification issue problems? 

Mr. FULLER. Actually, I think if you change the culture, you will 

go a long way to solving the certification problems, and the $15 billion the FAA spends, most of which comes from people using the 

system, would be the revenue from which you would pay for both 

ATO and—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes. But your model is, you move it over. But their 

model is, it stays with the Government. 

Mr. FULLER. As I understand, yes. That is correct. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So anyone who disagrees, who is advocating the 

private corporation, the Government is going to pay for safety and 

certification. Quickly, Mr. Poole? 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. And this would—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes. We got it. We are good. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So that is left over here without a funding source. 

So that is subject to all the vicissitudes, to all the problems we 

talked about, sequestration and all that. And certification has been 

identified as a huge issue, so we would still have to reform that, 

and we would have to figure out how to fund it. 

30 

Let’s go on to the Airport Improvement Program. Now, I know 

there is going to be a little—it is $3.35 billion a year. About half 

goes to GA, half goes to commercial. As I understand the model of 

A4A, we would not fund the commercial side, and you would fund 

GA out of excess revenues. So you are anticipating excess revenues 

in the vicinity of $1.6 billion a year. Is that right, Mr. Parker? 

Mr. PARKER. I believe that is correct. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. And then how are we going to fund the commercial 

side? You might have noticed that A4A is a little resistant to PFCs 

or PFC increase, and we are going to take away AIP, which is $1.6 

billion a year. 

You say they can borrow, but what is their funding stream if 

they cannot have an increased PFC and they lose AIP? And what 

happens to small and mid-sized airports who would have to 

charge—even if they could charge a PFC, it would drive people 

away? 

How are we going to pay for that? Or are we going to say, the 

Government will continue to pay for AIP? Anybody got an answer 

on that? Mr. Poole, is the Government going to continue to pay for 

AIP under your model? 

Mr. POOLE. It is certainly up to Congress. But I think—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So we would have to find $1.6 billion more. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. We are going to take safety certification, $1.6 billion, but we no longer have the revenue stream because that has 

gone over here and we have changed all that. So that is a bit of 

an issue. 

Now, Mr. Grizzle, when I talked to you—now, Mr. Rinaldi, I 

think your folks are kind of in favor of defined benefit plans. Right? 

Yes? 

Mr. RINALDI. That would be correct. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Are they interested in a defined contribution plan 

as a transition? 

Mr. RINALDI. Not necessarily. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Mr. Grizzle, you advocate a defined contribution in 

the future. 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Only for employees hired after the closing date. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So then you are going to create a transition. Let 

me talk about a transition problem we have. And everybody points 

to problems with the Postal Service; I have got a reform bill. And 

Congress is a big problem. 

And one of the problems is when we transferred just from one 

Government program to another, CSRS to TSP, the Postal Service 

overpaid, according to consultants, between $9 billion and $15 billion, some say $20 billion, for that transition. They have been unable to get the Federal Government to honor that and return the 

money to the Postal Service so it could go into a fund and be used 

for other purposes. 

So now we are talking about we are going to bifurcate the system. We are going to transfer Government employees to a private 

corporation. And somehow, we are going to fund that, and that is 

not going to be as problematic as TSP to CSRS, so that will be easily done. 

31 

They will somehow continue to earn Federal benefits. New people 

will go into a defined contribution. As the workforce shrinks, there 

is obviously less and less and fewer people to lobby to continue the 

defined benefits for the people who are in there, and somehow, the 

private corporation is paying for it. I do not see how that is going 

to work. But that is just another minor issue. 

Now, the valuation of assets, this is an interesting one because 

Ms. Robyn talked about the FAA’s asset of spectrum. Well, again, 

as I pointed out, it is the FCC’s by the NTIA, and they pay a very 

subsidized price, 2 million bucks a year to use it. And we are selling spectrum at very high prices. 

Now, we have had some experience. This is the spectrum that is 

used. The allegation is it is being used very inefficiently, and we 

can parcel it up and sell some of it off, and somehow, those benefits 

would go to the private corporation and not to the taxpayers of the 

United States. I think there would be some disagreement in Congress over that. 

But if you look here, this little dot, that is where LightSquared 

wanted to go, right here. And then we found out, oh, my God, it 

is going to wipe out our GPS. That is a problem. So it got blocked. 

Now, actually, this is not being particularly—from experts I have 

talked to—inefficiently used, plus some of it is intermingled with 

military, and all of it seems to be vital. Maybe there is some way 

you can parse it down a little bit, but when we tried to parse it 

here, people said, oh, my God. We are going to lose GPS. 

So are you anticipating that the Government will give the spectrum to the private corporation and allow them perhaps to consolidate some of it and then sell it, and nothing would flow to the Federal treasury? 

Ms. ROBYN. No. Absolutely not. And if I created that impression, 

no. It is unfathomable to me that Congress would direct NTIA to 

do that. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. 

Ms. ROBYN. The spectrum, by the way, it is not the FCC’s. It is 

the Federal Government’s. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, it is the people, the FCC, et cetera. 

Ms. ROBYN. And NTIA manages it on behalf of—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. But if you notice, the most recent auctions are 

going for 20 times what was estimated. This is very valuable. 

Ms. ROBYN. Oh, no, no, no. What the FAA has is incredibly valuable. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Then we have the rest of the assets. Can anyone 

put a value on the rest of the assets? Delta did, but it was a ballpark number. I do not know if anybody else can. On the physical 

assets? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. There are no clear benchmarks that you can look 

to. But when you take account of the contingent liabilities associated with them, the value may not be that high. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. But we did have a report. Mr. Hampton, is it not 

true in Canada they undervalued the asset? 

Mr. HAMPTON. Yes. At the time the assets were transferred to 

Nav Canada, they were sold for over $1 billion. But the auditors 

came 2 years later and found that the assets were sold for 60 perVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:44 Jun 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\AV\3-24-1~1\93853.TXT JEAN
32 

cent less than their true value. So our point is an accurate value 

for the assets. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I have been on the Committee on Natural Resources most recently and spending a lot of time there. And I have 

tried to do some very meritorious land transfers, where the Federal 

agencies support it. The private entity supports it. We can never 

get to there because of the valuation issue. How are we going to 

deal with this? Who is going to value it? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. We looked at the cost accounting system. We came 

up with some numbers, and I do not want to give you an estimate. 

It is in the billions of dollars at FAA, and I think it would be very 

important to get an accurate assessment of what the assets would 

be at FAA before any move be made. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So just in summary—thanks, Mr. Chairman—we 

are going to create a new entity that is going to be able to raise 

in excess of $1.6 billion a year to pay for GA’s AIP. We will make 

the Federal Government either pay or not pay continuing commercial AIP. Big problem for small and mid-sized airports. And if we 

do not let the big airports raise their PFC, then, well, they are 

going to have a big problem, too. 

So we have got that. And we are going to amortize the asset. And 

we are going to somehow take over the pension plan. And we are 

going to continue to pay all the current employees with a defined 

benefit plan under Federal, but then somehow we are going to 

transition into a tier 2 of people who are getting defined contributions. 

I think, Mr. Chairman, there are some issues here that we need 

to discuss. I do not think we are going to get it done in this hearing. But I would hope we can have some meaningful discussions. 

I want to make changes, and dramatic changes. But the things that 

people point to here are things that could be solved. 

We do not have to take a 38-year-old model that is screwed up 

with the Postal Service. I mean, A, it is not losing money except 

for Congress. But B, we did give them a bad governance structure. 

We can figure out these problems and create a real 21st-century 

Government corporation that does not have all these transition 

problems. That is my opinion. But I am keeping my mind open. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. 

For Mr. Grizzle and Mr. Poole, we have talked about—a little 

order here, Mr. Capuano, please. 

Mr. CAPUANO. He can have my time. He did good. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. You can always count on Mike. 

For Mr. Grizzle and Mr. Poole, we have talked about a lot of different aspects of this. There is one particular aspect that I am very 

interested in hearing your take on. The FAA clearly is responsible 

for research, development, and innovations that are critical to air 

safety and to our air superiority, if we can use that term. Almost 

all of that work, or a great deal of that work, is done at the FAA 

Tech Center that happens to be in my district. 

So if we were to separate ATO from the FAA into whatever it 

may be—a Government corporation, public-private partnership, et 

cetera—how do you see us doing this? What role would the Tech 

Center play? How would the FAA handle this R&D component? 

33 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Thank you. I think the Tech Center is one of the 

most underutilized assets in the Federal Aviation Administration. 

I think only with the alignment of incentives that you can have 

when you have a private enterprise controlling that tremendous 

asset will you be able to deliver from the Tech Center the true productivity that it is capable of. 

Consistently, projects have been begun at the Tech Center and 

then left to go fallow. There is no incentive for people to actually 

develop projects at the Tech Center, and so things are begun and 

then they are stopped. And highly profitable enterprises are not 

even begun there because there is no incentive on the part of anyone who is there to actually begin those models. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Poole? 

Mr. POOLE. If I can add just one example, the Tech Center pioneered the development and testing simulation of remote tower 

concepts, and then basically the FAA dropped the ball. Nothing has 

happened. And it has been picked up in Europe, and they are now 

way ahead of us in remote towers even though the pioneering original work was done at the Tech Center. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Hampton, do you believe that the ATC models used by other countries have enhanced safety and efficiency? 

And if so, can the best attributes of these models be adopted by the 

United States without adversely impacting safety? 

Mr. HAMPTON. The studies over the years, including the GAO 

and most recently a study by the MITRE Corporation, clearly show 

that the transition to a commercialized entity does not impact safety. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Anybody else on the panel want to comment on 

that at all? No? 

[No response.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Larsen? 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you. My first of 63 questions for the panel. 

Mr. Parker, I do not know if you have seen the document, so if 

you cannot take it too far, then do not. But it had to do with the 

Department of Defense’s statement. Have you all looked, at A4A, 

what requirements are necessary to ensure that a new ATO provider provides continuous services and support to the Department 

of Defense? Have you looked at that particular question? 

Mr. PARKER. I am not certain, sir. But I know the answer to the 

question will be absolutely. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. Well, perhaps you can help us out, through 

A4A, how you would approach that. 

Mr. PARKER. We will do that. 

Mr. LARSEN. And Mr. Fuller, in the MAC did you have a chance 

to look at that? 

Mr. FULLER. We have not. 

Mr. LARSEN. All right. So I have placed it into the record. It is 

a bullet point paper from the DOD, and it talks about some of their 

outstanding issues. 

Mr. Hampton, has IG looked at that at all? 

Mr. HAMPTON. No, we have not. But DOD is unique in the sense 

that they are both an air traffic service provider and a consumer. 

And I think the DOD and security concerns would have to be 

factored into any change. 

34 

Mr. LARSEN. Right. Good. Thanks. 

Mr. Rinaldi, would you expect any new organization to provide 

collective bargaining rights and retain Federal benefits and pensions? 

Mr. RINALDI. Say that again, sir? 

Mr. LARSEN. Would you expect that any new ATO organization, 

or I guess AT organization, would provide collective bargaining 

rights and retain Federal benefits and pensions? 

Mr. RINALDI. Absolutely. 

Mr. LARSEN. And have you had discussions with other stakeholders about that? 

Mr. RINALDI. Preliminary, yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Preliminary, yes? 

Mr. RINALDI. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Can you give me a flavor of the result? 

Mr. RINALDI. No definitive answers, that is for sure. 

Mr. LARSEN. Excuse me? 

Mr. RINALDI. No definitive answers at this point, but preliminarily we have had those discussions, yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. All right. Great. 

Mr. Poole, in your comments, on page 6, this gets to some of the 

comparison of the numbers. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LARSEN. So I will give you a little time to get there. It has 

got the table and the cost per IFR flight hours. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. So it certainly shows that of the three that have reported, the U.S. is a higher number, no doubt. But from 2011 to 

2014, the increase in the U.S. was 4.9 percent while Nav Canada 

was 14.4 percent and New Zealand is a 22-percent increase over 

that same period of time. 

Did you look at, rather than the absolute numbers, why there is 

a much lower rate of increase in the U.S. versus the other two? 

Mr. POOLE. I have not looked at that, but—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Based on your 30 years of experience, would you 

have some idea about why, in those last four data points, it would 

be so much less for the U.S.? 

Mr. POOLE. The data are cost per IFR flight hour. So flight hours 

have not been increasing that much, but costs due to investment 

in new technologies and things, which both New Zealand and Canada have been doing pretty extensively, that may account for it. 

That is only a hypothesis because I have not looked in detail why 

that changed. 

Mr. LARSEN. That is fine. Maybe you can get back to us, give us 

a better idea of if there is anything different or new happening in 

the last several years or is this an anomaly. That would be helpful, 

at least for me, to figure out. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Grizzle, I want to make sure that airports 

around the country—certainly we have the resources to do infrastructure. Right? Build the projects? One version of the BRT’s—I 

am sorry, Business Roundtable’s—term sheet called for eliminating 

the AIP grants for large, medium and small hub airports and allowing them to collect a higher passenger facility charge instead. 

35 

How high would that PFC cap need to be in order for small hubs 

to offset their loss of AIP funds? Do you have an estimate of that? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. I do not think it is a realistic option for some of the 

smaller hub airports in the first place. They simply do not have a 

self-help option with respect to collecting PFCs that would adequately cover their capital costs. 

Mr. LARSEN. So can you expand on that? What would it mean for 

medium-sized or larger hubs? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. I think that a solution needs to be designed that 

looks at the relatively limited number of funding options that we 

have. Keep in mind that the entire FAA currently receives a very 

generous general fund support. And going forward, the different 

constituent parts of what is now the single FAA will continue to 

need to receive general fund funding. 

Mr. LARSEN. Would you assess that the airports consider the 

funding from the general fund very generous? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. I do not know. 

Mr. LARSEN. I do. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LARSEN. So Mr. Parker, some proponents of reform have suggested that airports should be allowed to charge a higher PFC— 

right? And we have had this discussion before—to make up for an 

expected shortfall. 

How would the airlines approach, not necessarily the PFC side; 

I do not want to really get into that debate, but in terms of the 

reorganization and how airport construction would be funded, how 

that would be approached under a different system given the organizational changes an ATO would bring? Have you thought through 

that side of things? 

Mr. PARKER. Well, nothing here that we are talking about, I 

think, would change the funding of airports. The funding of airports would continue to take place through bond financing and 

landing fees and the same structure that is done today. 

We are just talking about the funding for the ATO itself. So anyway, I do not believe there would be any expected change to how 

airports are funded. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. All right. Thank you all very much, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. Mica? 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to both 

Chairman LoBiondo, the ranking member, Mr. DeFazio, and Mr. 

Shuster. We have come a long way having this hearing. 

I was talking to one of the staffers as we started. I saw Mr. 

Oberstar’s picture up there, and I remember my first, 23 years ago, 

hearing on reform of FAA, and actually trying to get better technology in place. Things do not change much. And I remember that 

first hearing. 

And then a year later, we had another hearing. And the people 

were giving the same testimony—just give us more money and all 

these changes are right around the corner. In fact, I asked one of 

the witnesses if he had heard of the movie ‘‘Groundhog Day.’’ That 

was a year later. And then we did it every year. And here we are 

on reform again. 

36 

And I have tried just about everything. I tried reorganizations 

when I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation. We put in 

place a COO. Russell Chew did a great job, I thought. There are 

some people in the audience who worked for FAA who came back 

after they worked for them and told me that basically, the agency 

is dysfunctional. And I have had to understand that it does have 

problems operationally. 

Back to Ms. Robyn. She said 20 years ago recommended taking 

the ATO out. And we have talked about it. Well, today I propose 

we do something about it. I have a draft bill. You want to give 

them the draft bill? I think the time to stop talking is over. Time 

to act. 

This is a draft bill that would turn air traffic control over to the 

stakeholders, the air traffic controllers, the airlines, and other 

stakeholders. This is a discussion draft. Mr. Chairman, how long 

are you going to keep this record open? How long? Two weeks? 

Could you do it? OK. We will keep the record open. I ask unanimous consent that the record be left open. 

And each of the witnesses, I would request that you read the discussion draft—this is a draft; it is not Mica’s final word—and then 

recommend what you would like to see change. And I will put a 

deadline of the—how about tax day, April 15th? And I am going 

to submit this legislation on the 16th, so I will give you up to that 

time. 

So the time to stop talking—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Chairman, before I decide whether I am going 

to—— 

Mr. MICA. And I gave you a copy. 

Mr. LARSEN. I would like to know which year. 

Mr. MICA. This year. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. 2015, tax day, the 15th of April. I am also distributing 

it to Members. I welcome their suggestions. Because the time to 

stop talking now. It is time to start acting. Some of you, I have 

taken people up to see Canada. It is not everything we want. You 

try to take the best of the different systems. 

But it is time. And I have seen what they have done. They have 

one-tenth. Their technology is better. The treatment of their air 

traffic controllers is better. Most people do not realize it, but their 

air traffic controllers take a quantum leap. They already control all 

their traffic. 

If you go from Europe from the Northeast across the Atlantic, 

they are controlling your aircraft. And there are big gaps in that 

that they will fill because they are going to be on the next generation of air traffic control before we are. We cannot even make a decision to do that. 

So the time to stop dickering around is over. Here is a draft. We 

can put anybody else’s name on it—LoBiondo, Shuster, Larsen. In 

fact, we will welcome everybody who wants to. But this is the best 

discussion we have had in the 23 years I have been here. 

We have got to act, and we have got to act boldly, and we have 

got to do it right. We have had the safest system. My heart and 

prayers go out with the Europeans today; they lost an aircraft. I 

saw Jim Coon. I see Sharon Pinkerton every day. We woke up, and 

37 

when we finished our job, we were pleased that we had the safest 

system. 

And we have reacted. We reacted in inspections, when we went 

to self-reporting and the at-risk basis rather than just show up on 

every Tuesday and inspect. We reacted with Oberstar on commercial aircraft—I am sorry, with commuter aircraft and did that safety bill. 

So now it is time to act on reorganizing our air traffic control system. Didn’t you propose this 20 years ago or say we should look at 

it, Ms. Robyn? 

Ms. ROBYN. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. And most of you testified in favor. And people 

worry about the other things—R&D, certification, tech. If you take 

air traffic control and we give it to the stakeholders, then we can 

concentrate on all those important other things. 

And Mr. Parker, I want to talk to you about US Airways and 

American Airlines, whose records do not mesh. And I will give you 

a personal anecdote about that. Can I get additional time? 

Mr. LOBIONDO. We will go to round 2. 

Mr. MICA. I will be back. Thank you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thanks. 

Ms. Brownley? 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Parker, what evidence does Airlines for America have that 

spinning off the air traffic functions of FAA would improve FAA’s 

ability to advance NextGen? 

Mr. PARKER. Well, the proof we have is the experience we have 

seen as it exists, which has not gone well. The fundamental reason, 

we believe, is the governance structure. And as has been well stated by others on the panel, this is a commercial function that is run 

through a political organization, and that creates all sorts of problems for the organization, not the least of which is no real sense 

of looking forward and funding capital in the future. 

Look, let me try this. I was explaining this to our team the other 

day. The anecdote that is maybe easiest for people to understand 

is to think about if we ran our airlines the way the ATC is run, 

we would not make decisions to invest in the future, just like they 

do not. It is not a management problem; again, it is a structure 

problem. 

But simple things such as whatever it was, 10 or 15 years ago 

when airlines started investing in gate readers as you enter the 

aircraft, those were capital decisions that were hard for airlines to 

make at the time. We were one of those. 

But what we knew is it was a lot of capital upfront, but it would 

speed up the process for getting people onto the airplane. That investment was made. It has now been made by all of us. You see 

it everywhere in the airports. But it never would have been made 

at the FAA because they would not have made that decision. 

There is still an agent there, collecting, making sure, scanning 

the ticket. It is not fewer people, just much more efficient. You do 

not have seat duplications. You board the airplane much more 

quickly. We do not have old paper tickets. We do not need to process those. The existing people are much more efficient. The flowthrough is much more efficient. 

38 

And if you take that to the next level, now we are moving to, 

with existing technology, improving the technology, taking it to the 

point where people with their iPhones, with bar codes use that on 

those gate readers. You cannot even make the next step in the FAA 

world because you never made the first investment. That is the 

problem. 

And we have a structure that is so exceptionally important to 

commerce, which is the air traffic control system, that we are not 

letting move with the rest of the world. And it is the structure that 

creates the problems. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Fuller, do you have any concerns in terms of the separation 

of the implementation of NextGen? 

Mr. FULLER. I think the essential concern is the disruption that 

is created with an air traffic system that handles the most diverse, 

complex, and largest air traffic in the world. And putting the entire 

FAA into a Federal corporation does not forever foreclose the possibility that some elements of that would be spun off. 

But it would allow for all the attributes that have been described 

here—a board of stakeholders—to carefully consider what is really 

a very important synergistic relationship between the safety and 

certification teams and the air traffic control teams. 

This is what comes through when you talk to the people in the 

leadership of the FAA today. And while there are a lot of things 

to criticize in the past, it is worth noting that I think today’s FAA, 

through the work of all of us who have been involved in the 

NextGen Advisory Committee and RTCA, I think there are better 

understood priorities, better developed metrics for success, and 

more attention to what the stakeholders really need as operators 

in the system. 

My concern, when you look at Canada or any of the others where 

there is a 12- to 24-month formal transition period and in some 

cases many years of transition, is that we would freeze the 

progress we are making in this very important area. So a Federal 

corporation with the entire group held together allows us to continue to make that process but to actually govern and run the organization, as people have said, in a more businesslike way. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. 

And Mr. Hampton, in your examination of the foreign entities 

and Nav Canada, have any of those entities taken on or embarked 

on the kind of large-scale modernization projects like NextGen? 

Mr. HAMPTON. Generally, no. Their business model takes a very 

incremental approach with a very near-term view on investment. 

Three of the service providers we looked at, though, are working 

on SESAR, a NextGen-similar program in Europe. They are developing similar technologies, so that is similar to a NextGen umbrella. 

But by and large, the air traffic service providers we looked at 

take a very smaller approach to acquisitions, very much less ambitious. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Would the chairman yield for a minute on that 

question? Is that not the similar approach that Verizon takes, incrementally investing so they are able to turn over in 10 years four 

39 

times what the FAA has not even been able to do one time? Can 

somebody answer that for me? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Yes. In fact, we are only in the position of having 

to do NextGen as a massive project because we have failed to 

renew our technology incrementally over time. Keep in mind that 

when our en route automation system is completed, it will have 

been completed with technology that was spec’d 10 years ago. And 

when our terminal automation system is completed in 2018, it will 

have been spec’d 18 years previously. 

And there is no work being done at all on a combined automation 

platform, which is what we must have if we are going to begin to 

manage the airspace in a modern way. 

Mr. SHUSTER. That is a strength, not necessarily a weakness, by 

doing it that way. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Hanna has left, I guess. Mr. Hanna has left. 

Mr. Curbelo? 

Mr. CURBELO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on 

this issue. And I also want to thank Chairman Shuster for laying 

out the bold vision of reforming the FAA and modernizing it. And 

I want to thank all the panelists for their testimony. 

Mr. Parker, I want to thank you for American Airlines’ commitment to Miami; representing Florida’s southernmost district, we 

certainly appreciate all the jobs and opportunities that the airline 

offers our community. And I also want to commend you on the 

progress of the merger. 

I was talking to Armando Codina earlier today, who was on the 

former AMR board, and we were remembering how you had promised that the merger would be in the best interests of all the stakeholders—debt holders, shareholders, employees, communities like 

Miami, and passengers. And by most accounts, you have kept your 

word. So thank you very much. 

Mr. PARKER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CURBELO. A question for you. In prior air traffic control reform debates, the airlines advocated for a cost-based financing system to shift some of the funding burden to corporate general aviation operators. Is this a significant factor in your support for a costbased financing system today? In other words, do you think more 

users should contribute to funding the air traffic control operation? 

Mr. PARKER. It is not a significant piece of my testimony, and 

thank you for asking. To be quite clear, the A4A position is not a 

position about trying to reduce or shift our tax burden. We have 

said that despite the fact that commercial aviation does pay more 

than its fair share, that is fine. 

The benefits here are so great. Our advocacy here is not because 

we want to see a shift in the burden. Indeed, we have said we are 

willing to continue to pay what we are paying today even though 

the system will become more efficient and we are already paying 

more than our fair share. 

So this has nothing to do with shifting burden. It has everything 

to do with trying to compel all of you to do the right thing and to 

get this extremely important commercial enterprise into a much 

more commercial environment so that it can succeed. And if that 

means we have to pay more than our share, if that means that we 

40 

continue to pay more than our share, that is perfectly fine because 

the benefits are going to accrue to all of us. 

Mr. CURBELO. Thank you, Mr. Parker. 

Mr. Rinaldi, I have spoken with several of the employees of the 

MIA air traffic tower there, and they are currently working on a 

program called OAPM, which is a complete redesign of the airspace 

from Jacksonville to Orlando all the way down to Miami. These 

new routes are being designed with the latest GPS technology to 

allow for more efficient flow of air traffic. 

One concern that they do have is regarding the need to train new 

air traffic controllers as staffing levels have decreased. Over the 

past year, MIA has lost about 15 controllers alone due to retirements, and will lose even more over the next several months. It 

takes 2 to 3 years to fully train a new air traffic controller. 

As air traffic at MIA in Florida continues to grow, safety is our 

number one priority. Can you talk about the need to maintain a 

steady workforce of well-qualified air traffic controllers, maybe in 

the context of this proposed change of the air traffic control operation? Do you think the models being discussed would alleviate this 

situation? 

Mr. RINALDI. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. This is a 

great question, and it is one of the issues that keeps me up late 

at night. And I said in my opening that currently our busy facilities—Miami, Dallas, New York, Houston, Chicago—are experiencing staffing levels that are approaching uncomfortable for all of 

us. 

Controllers are working 6-day work weeks, extended workdays. 

Fatigue is entering into our work environment while the NTSB is 

telling us to reduce fatigue in our work environment. 

We have tried to work collaboratively with the FAA for the last 

21⁄2, 3 years and take some recommendations that came out of the 

National Academy of Sciences, along with an independent review 

panel that I think David Grizzle was part of commissioning when 

he was COO, and to really focus on real numbers for our facilities, 

not only to staff the day-to-day positions but to actually work on 

modernizing our system. 

It takes the expertise of the controllers at the very core level to 

develop these procedures, along with the pilots, so that these procedures work very well and seamlessly in and out of Miami or wherever we have done it. We have been very successful in Houston, 

where we turned on OAPM, which is what we call that OAPM; we 

call it OAPM. 

Very successful in Houston, where we turned on 60-plus new procedures with a flip of the switch. And in north Texas, we also did 

it in Dallas. American Airlines seems to be very happy with it; 80- 

plus new procedures. Flipped it on. Optimal descent approaches, 

burning less fuel, very carbon-friendly for the environment. It is 

what we would like to do throughout the country except our staffing prohibits from us doing it. 

Mr. CURBELO. Thank you, Mr. Rinaldi. 

My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. Lipinski? 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

41 

Mr. Rinaldi, I want to hear your perspective on the effects some 

of these models may have on stakeholders. I am sure you know 

that the CEO of the privatized air navigator service provider in Ireland remarked last week that: ‘‘The tendency in some countries is 

to favor commercial flights over noncommercial flights and large 

aircraft over small aircraft as part of the natural selection process.’’ 

Do you see this as a potential risk in the different models that 

have been talked about today? 

Mr. RINALDI. Thank you, sir. Great question. We have had a lot 

of conversations around first come, first served is what we currently work under today. Obviously, if we have a small moving 

Cessna and a fast jet behind them, we sidestep them out and bring 

the Cessna back in on the approach. 

But there is a lot of talk around best serve as we move towards 

NextGen technology. And we would be against any type of operation that would prohibit or shrink the aviation system. Our future 

aviators are out there at these small-level facilities, and that is 

where our pilots and our controllers are going to come from. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. And do you have any concerns with moving away 

from the current revenue structure? 

Mr. RINALDI. Well, I think, as I said in my opening, the current 

revenue structure is broken—23 extensions of the last FAA reauthorization bill, partial shutdowns of the FAA, full shutdown of the 

Government, and sequester. It is not conducive for us to modernize 

our system, run our day-to-day critical operation, and at the same 

time grow aviation in this country, which is an economic engine. 

I think we actually have to find a predictable, stable funding system. That is our main problem as we move forward, a predictable, 

stable funding system so that we can enhance the National Airspace System and continue to be the world leader. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I think we all can agree with that. We want to 

make sure that we do not have any detrimental effects on any portions of aviation. 

I want to ask Mr. Fuller: You outlined a Government corporation 

concept, which I think goes beyond what a lot of others are talking 

about here, taking in everything, all of the functions right now 

from the FAA. I have concerns that this Government corporation 

could move to save money by possibly consolidating facilities or 

mothballing equipment as we move to a satellite-based system, 

which could harm some of the smaller airports. 

If this corporation does take over the regulatory and certification, 

I am concerned that this would delay fixing the regulatory and certification structure that seems to have a hard time keeping pace 

with the rapidly increasing changes that are occurring. 

So it does concern me that this will happen. Can this Government corporation do these things in ways that the current structure seems to have a difficult time with? Or do you not see the possibility of having a detrimental impact on these functions, slowing 

them down even more and perhaps compromising safety? 

Mr. FULLER. You raised several very important questions. First 

I want to say that I hope that people understood the importance 

of the moment in time. And Mr. Parker, by talking about the need 

for the community to collaborate, not penalize one segment over 

another, I think is exactly why some of us are optimistic that a 

42 

group of stakeholders could come together—much like the NAC has 

done for NextGen—but a group of stakeholders could come together 

and make these decisions in a rational way so that the way in 

which you collect money—which honestly, in 6 months, I do not 

think you can solve. 

I think a corporation could address those issues with the stakeholders present. I think the trauma that is caused to some in the 

regulatory certification process, the dysfunctionality that has been 

referred to, I think can be solved, again by a group of stakeholders 

governing, hiring a CEO Administrator and having the ability to 

fire them, to set the metrics, to set the goals. 

I think that is precisely the way in which you would begin to 

change the culture in this bureaucracy. It is a process that the Administrator has started. But continuing to stay within the structure that involves DOT, OMB, the White House, the Congress, it 

is very difficult. 

So for all the reasons stated that ATO could be improved by this 

group of collaborative stakeholders, I think it would be more successful addressing the certification and regulatory side as well with 

a single corporation. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, I have concerns. Obviously there are issues 

that need to be dealt with. And it would be great if it worked out 

in the way that you described. I have concerns about how exactly 

this would be structured and if it really would fulfill these functions in such an efficient manner as you state here. 

But I am over time, so I yield back. 

Mr. FULLER. It is why we need more dialogue on this, to refine 

it. And we look forward to continuing that process. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Zeldin? 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Rinaldi, I recently had the pleasure of visiting the New York 

Center in Ronkonkoma. It is just a few blocks outside of my district, but there are 300 air traffic controllers who do reside in the 

First Congressional District. I have had the chance to speak to 

them, and I have also met with constituents in my district who are 

attending FAA-accredited college aviation programs, as well as 

some military veterans who have aviation experience. 

They were previously on track to become air traffic controllers 

until the FAA recently changed their traditional recruitment process. They used to favor the graduates of the FAA-accredited college 

aviation programs or the military veterans with aviation experience. 

Now all applicants must first pass a biographical questionnaire, 

a pass/fail test in which the FAA has not released the scoring 

metrics or each applicant’s actual score. One young man I met with 

attended an FAA-accredited college aviation program on Long Island, has excellent grades, and is the model applicant to become an 

air traffic controller. He did not pass the biographical assessment. 

Does this biographical assessment actually improve aviation safety? What has been your experience with it? What am I supposed 

to be telling constituents who are going through a program to become an air traffic controller, and when they get to the point of applying, they are not passing this biographical assessment? 

43 

Mr. RINALDI. Thank you for the question. First and foremost, you 

need to tell that individual and any other individual that talks to 

you about getting hired by the FAA they have 1 week. It started 

yesterday. It is open, a continuous bid, USAJOBS.gov, or the Web 

site, where they will have to take a BQ again, the biographical 

questionnaire. 

The first BQ we had significant problems with because the first 

thing, when the agency started administering, and this is the way 

we are going to weed out or cull the list of applicants, we asked 

them—we read up on what BQ was. It is science. Well, have you 

validated with a large group of incumbents? The only one who represents a large group of incumbents would be us, and it was not 

validated. Therefore, we did have deep concerns about that. 

Since then they have worked with us. We have worked on validating the BQ. It is science. I am not going to argue with any scientist. I am not sure if it is going to work. But for getting hired, 

I think now is the perfect opportunity to tell those constituents of 

yours to apply for those jobs and get out there. It is only going to 

be open for 5 days. 

Recently they had an open bid for anyone who had continuous 

experience of 52 weeks. Those were direct hires out of the military. 

We applaud the agency for doing that. We worked collaboratively 

with them to get that bid out there. We want qualified candidates 

going through the academy so the pipeline gets into our facilities 

so we can get healthy and we can modernize our system. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Fuller, would you like the opportunity to comment? 

Mr. FULLER. Actually, that is an area outside of my expertise. I 

appreciate the problem. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Rinaldi. Is there anyone else who 

wishes to comment on the biographical assessments? 

[No response.] 

Mr. ZELDIN. I just got sworn in at the beginning of January. I 

have been kind of surprised by the amount of constituents who 

have come to me explaining that they are having these issues with 

biographical assessment. So if we can keep an open line of communication to get your comments here in the coming weeks with the 

current open enrollment process. 

Mr. RINALDI. I think it is a big concern. The FAA said that in 

order to get hired, you need to go through these certified college 

programs. And then last year, we closed the academy because of sequester in 2013, and as we rolled out of that, they decided to 

change the hiring process. 

It was a deep concern of ours, that we were going to not have 

a steady flow of qualified candidates getting through the academy. 

So I would love to keep that dialogue open with you, sir. 

Mr. ZELDIN. All right. Thank you. And just on behalf of those 

constituents going through that program, I just have a tremendous 

amount of compassion for the fact that they—this is their goal. 

This is their dream at the end of college, to have that opportunity 

to work in the New York Center or one of your other locations. And 

they are studying hard, getting great grades. Hopefully we can find 

a place for them in the FAA. 

44 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Keep in mind, sir, that we are still training controllers in the FAA the way we have for the last 20 years. Most of your 

constituents who are in an air traffic control program will be using 

more modern technology than what they will find available to them 

for their training once they arrive at the FAA. 

And that is one of the reasons that we have not been as nimble 

as we should have been in terms of revising our hiring structure 

to make it more satisfactory to all the constituencies that are looking at the types of controllers that we are producing. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Yes. I appreciate that. My time has expired. But 

again, it is just the biographical assessment that is disqualifying 

people who are otherwise well-qualified. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Ms. Norton? 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I would really like to get a conversation going between Mr. 

Rinaldi and Mr. Parker. But first I have to ask Mr. Rinaldi, this 

loss in air traffic controllers, what was that loss due to? 

Mr. RINALDI. Well, it is mandatory retirement when we reach our 

mandatory retirement age. But really, the staffing crisis was exacerbated by the the sequester of 2013, which shut down the academy on March 1. It was planned on opening up on October 1, but 

for the Government being shut down, full Government being shut 

down, the agency never got around to opening—— 

Ms. NORTON. So are these people taking early retirement, the 

ones that are—‘‘lost’’ is different from retirement, of course. 

Mr. RINALDI. Well, the losses are from retirements. And they are 

taking the legitimate retirements that they have earned. 

Ms. NORTON. Yes. Well, I am very worried. My first standard 

when I get on an airplane—I do not know anything about airlines, 

but I just want to get there safely. 

Mr. RINALDI. Absolutely. 

Ms. NORTON. So I was interested, Mr. Rinaldi, because you had 

a fairly objective, when I looked at your testimony, rundown of the 

different models. And there are some—you do not say which model 

to choose. 

Mr. RINALDI. Rightly so. 

Ms. NORTON. And so that is why I find it fairly objective. And 

since you represent the controllers, Mr. Parker is an airline executive, and there is some meeting of the minds—not entirely—but 

Mr. Parker says a nonprofit-type governance. And by the way, I do 

not fault any of you for throwing up your hands and saying, ‘‘Let 

anybody run it except the Government.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. NORTON. Anybody who will do something other than these 

annual appropriations or no appropriations. Shame on the Government. So if I were you, I would be saying, let’s get rid of you and 

get stable funding and somebody who will run an airline or help 

us run an airline correctly. 

But I notice that Mr. Rinaldi looked at several types of providers. 

And he noted that the Germans have taken over their structure 

with some beneficial results; that in the U.K. they do not have a 

single provider any more because they had to put one of the airports up for bid, I guess, because the other one could not take it 

on. 

45 

So I looked at the new Canada model because that is the nearest 

to a not-for-profit model. And what really interested me was that 

you pointed out—again, you do not take a position—about the difficulty in just looking at other models. And that is what I always 

do; let’s see how it worked there, and they maybe we can superimpose it here. 

Also run with user fees, you say, Mr. Rinaldi, difficult to apply. 

And then you compare the United States with Canada, and you 

blew my mind. The United States controls 132 million flights annually, Canada 12 million; 21 centers in the United States, 7 in Canada; 315 towers here compared to 42 in Canada. We run the busiest airports; they are way down the line. 

I would like both of you to indicate whether that at least—well, 

first let me say, do you consider that that not-for-profit approach 

would, more likely than the others, put safety first even if safety 

costs more? 

Mr. RINALDI. Thank you for reading the testimony. And yes, it 

is mind-boggling that we have 8 of the top 10 in the world airports 

and 16 out of the top 30 in this country, where Canada has one, 

number 15, which is Toronto. 

But that said, I think the Canadian model is intriguing and it 

is very interesting. I love their collaboration that they have from 

the glass up, is what we would talk about as a controller, where 

the controllers and the engineers are working together, developing 

requirements of what equipment would actually help them enhance 

the safety and efficiency of their system. 

They are actually doing NextGen from the glass out, as opposed 

to the FAA pushing it down. I think it is very, very interesting. I 

think the equipment that they have, because it is developed with 

their own controllers and their own engineers, I am not ashamed 

to say I am envious of. Some of the equipment we have, it is antiquated and it is absolutely ridiculous. 

And our training ways, what David said, is absolutely true. I recently saw them at an ATM Congress where they walk around with 

an iPad where the controllers are getting their mandatory briefings 

via iPad. We are still reading paper and checking each other, 

months and months to make sure that we are certified to get on 

position. 

So there are a lot of things in Canada I find intriguing. But my 

biggest concern: Is it scalable? Is it scalable to the size of this system? And we also want to make sure that we continue the diversity 

of our system, which is providing services to rural America where 

they need aviation services. So those are the concerns I have when 

I look towards Canada. 

The German model is very interesting. And you know what? 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Try to finish up, if you can, please. 

Mr. RINALDI. Can I finish? Yes. The German model to me is very 

interesting because they actually competitively outbid the U.K. 

model for their own airport in their own country because they are 

not focused on profit. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. Rokita? 

46 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the chairman. I would say that, as a regular 

user of the system, there would be every once in a while that I myself wanted to bang the gavel on a controller. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROKITA. No, no, no. You guys are great. I really appreciate 

it. And I appreciate the work and the leadership of the chairman 

here today and the committee as a whole. As a new member of the 

committee, I feel obviously a newcomer to the work that has been 

done prior, and I am excited to hear the testimony today, and feel 

like I stand on the shoulders of many. And I am ready to make 

some good changes to the system. 

I have been here the whole hearing, listened to all testimony. I 

may have missed a few pieces; I apologize if I am repeating anything. But I thought, according to Mr. Hampton’s testimony, the 

auditor general of Canada made a report that it did not properly 

value the air traffic control services. How do we ensure proper 

valuation if we ever did move to such a system? 

Mr. HAMPTON. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. When the assets were transferred from the Canadian Government to Nav Canada, the valuation of the assets was significantly undervalued, by 

about 60 percent. 

So to prevent that from happening, we would need an accurate 

and a fair assessment of the assets of whatever is transferred to 

the organization that would be put in place if a change is made in 

the United States. FAA would have to do some work to perform a 

proper evaluation of whatever would be transferred to the new air 

traffic entity. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. Does anyone else want to react to that? 

Mr. Poole, I don’t know if you want to—— 

Mr. POOLE. A couple perspectives on that. The more that the new 

entity is required to raise in financing to pay for it, the more costly 

it is going to be for the users. So there is a real question there, and 

I take David Grizzle’s point, that when you actually look at the obsolescence of a lot of the facilities and technologies, there are going 

to be some real judgment calls as to what the proper, real value 

is and whether there is a net value there at all. 

There is a value in having the right to be the monopoly provider, 

definitely. But that is going to be a very subjective thing to determine. So I think that—— 

Mr. ROKITA. But not impossible to determine? And the stakeholders as a whole, you are all ready to jump in and tackle that 

particular challenge? 

Mr. POOLE. Well, I think that is the challenge that we are all 

going to have to—— 

Mr. PARKER. Yes. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes? OK. Definitely. 

Mr. ROKITA. The airline says yes. 

Mr. Grizzle? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. Absolutely. I think that it is a doable task and 

should be done. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. Now, if I understood right—I appreciate 

Mr. Fuller being here—all of you being here, but Mr. Fuller, a Federal Government corporation, or a Federal corporation, I think is 

what you are recommending. An I don’t know—an example of that 

47 

would be Amtrak. I don’t know if that word has been used here at 

this hearing, but that would be an example of what you are talking 

about. 

Mr. FULLER. There are many, many examples. I think you would 

have to find the path that works for aviation. You have got operating units from Saint Lawrence Seaway, Tennessee Valley Authority. We have looked at—the State of California runs a whole 

university system as a separate entity. 

Mr. ROKITA. Got it. Got it. Did MAC consider the co-op arrangement or the nonprofit arrangement, as Mr. Poole and Ms. Robyn 

indicate? 

Mr. FULLER. Yes. We had the advantage and the opportunity to 

talk at some length with David Grizzle, with Bob Poole. And so we 

did look at it. And again, it goes to the question of how do you best 

make the transition? We are not saying in the future that a Federal corporation that contains all of FAA would foreclose the possibility of spinning out ATO. But what is bold and doable this year, 

we think, is keeping it together with a stakeholder group that 

could decide how best to finance and structure the organization 

going forward. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. 

Mr. FULLER. I say ‘‘we,’’ and I want to say it is the working group 

and the MAC who has developed this. And it is a proposal still very 

much under discussion with stakeholders and others. 

Mr. ROKITA. So the inverse of that very same question to Mr. 

Poole and Ms. Robyn. What about the Federal corporation? What 

about what Mr. Fuller is saying directly? 

Ms. ROBYN. Can I just be clear on what he is proposing? Because 

I am kind of speechless. He is proposing to corporatize the safety 

side of the FAA along with the operation. We are all proposing, I 

think, corporatization of the air traffic operation. 

Mr. ROKITA. Assume he was just talking about—— 

Ms. ROBYN. But he is not. 

Mr. ROKITA. But assume he was, a Federal corporation for the 

services. 

Ms. ROBYN. Yes. No, that is—I think we are all—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Oh, I thought I heard you to say you were for a coop. 

Ms. ROBYN. Well, I think—it is a corporation. Yes. It is a private 

corporation as opposed to a Government corporation. 

Mr. ROKITA. I want to get to some granularity here on what you 

particularly prefer. 

Mr. Poole? Final 10 seconds. 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. I think that the nonprofit corporation has greater insulation from the problems that we are trying to solve of the 

micromanagement, oversight—— 

Mr. ROKITA. And you propose a cooperation nonprofit? 

Mr. POOLE. The basic—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Or a hybrid? 

Mr. POOLE. Yes. They are pretty much synonymous. What Nav 

Canada—they do not call themselves a user co-op, but in effect, 

that is basically what it is. And I think that has the best—as Professor Robyn’s testimony stated, the best alignment of incentives to 

ensure good performance. 

48 

Mr. ROKITA. My time is expired. And yielding back, I would say, 

at least with regard to certification, when you look at the problems 

with part 23 and the delays and all that, I think Mr. Fuller has 

a point, at least with regard to certification, which is not necessarily safety. I yield. 

Mr. SHUSTER [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Rokita. I have heard 

twice about the undervalue of the assets, and it took 2 years after 

for the Government to figure it out. I don’t know if anybody knows 

the answer to this, but is that because Nav Canada used a different accounting system and accurately was able to value these 

things? Because we know with Amtrak, as was mentioned, they 

have no idea what their assets are because their accounting system 

is so screwed up. 

Mr. HAMPTON. No, sir. I will get back to you. I just think it was 

the speed of the effort of the transaction. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. DeFazio, you want a second round? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let’s step back a moment. As I figure, the airlines and their customers contribute about 94 percent of the current revenues. And so 

I can assume that those revenues are going to flow to the new 

ATO. So that is $12.8 billion in revenues. But if you are not assuming AIP, although you say you will give excess money to GA airports, so I’ll figure that in, I will say you are taking half of AIP. 

So you are going to assume, then, costs of about $10.8 billion, 

and you have got $12.8 billion in current revenue. So there is $2 

billion there, so you do not have to get efficiencies to pay for anything. 

But then the Government ends up with the other half of AIP for 

small, medium, and large airports. The Government ends up with 

certification, and it ends up with safety. All that comes to about $5 

billion if we assume that GA is funded by your excess revenues. 

So part of the reason we are here is Congress is not ponying up 

the money, and we are subject to sequestration, and we are subject 

to all this other stuff going on. So how the hell are we going to 

come up with stable funding of $5 billion a year with no tax revenue? The remaining revenues would be GA gasoline, GA jet fuel, 

and shippers. So that creates way less than $1 billion. 

So we are assuming that the Government is going to pony up 

$41⁄2 billion general funds indefinitely, not subject it to sequestration, so we can have a good certification safety system and we can 

continue to have small and mid-sized airports and large airports. 

How are we going to deal with that? Mr. Poole, do you assume 

PFCs, that airports will—will they go the European model? And 

how will that work for small/mid-sized? We are going to do this 

with exorbitant landing fees? Is that how we are going to pay for 

it? 

Mr. POOLE. I do not think so. I think what we really—we are at 

a juncture here where we are looking at something as big as the 

transformation of the ATC system. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But let’s just—— 

Mr. POOLE. We have got to—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO [continuing]. Get to the numbers. To the numbers, 

please. Since everybody is here because the Government will not 

49 

meet its obligations, how are we going to assume that it is going 

to meet the $41⁄2 billion? What are the revenue sources? 

Mr. POOLE. If I may, if we wipe out the existing user taxes, there 

needs to be a big negotiation between the airport community and 

the airline community to figure out an answer to that question. My 

guess is that it should be some combination of a new AIP tax that 

would cover at least part of the cost; and possibly, depending on 

what the airlines and the airports negotiate, an increase in PFCs. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So is A4A willing to have that discussion? I have 

not been able to get it going so far. 

Mr. PARKER. A discussion of? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. With the airports about the potential—I propose 

two different things. You could have a second tier; since I was one 

of the creators of it, you could have a second-tier PFC in which the 

airlines would be more significantly involved. They would not have 

veto power, but it would be more like your leaseholds. 

Or we could separate the big airports—that saves a bunch of 

money—and allow them to have a higher PFC. But we have got to 

pay for that somehow. And if you do not want to have a dramatic 

increase in landing fees, how are we going to pay for that? 

Mr. PARKER. Well, again, as it relates to the ATC system, we currently are paying—and have agreed we will continue to pay—the 

same amounts we pay today. And those exceed the cost of the ATC 

system. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes—well, no, sir. But if I point it out, actually the costs you are assuming are $3 billion less than the revenues that 

currently flow from the airlines. So you are leaving the Government with that extra $3 billion in costs without a revenue source. 

I am parsing this up in a way—if we are going to fund AIP, and 

we are going to fund the safety, and we are going to do certification, that is $41⁄2 billion or so. And your revenues, the other 

things you are assuming of the current system, are less than the 

revenues you currently contribute. 

Mr. PARKER. Yes. Congressman, we need to work through this 

one. Nothing in what we are trying to propose assumes that the 

airlines are going to be paying less into the system than they pay 

today. So to the extent those projects are being funded and—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, then, could we not agree that AIP should go 

with the system? AIP should move over and you should fund AIP; 

that takes away some of our burden. And then maybe in some of 

the models that were talked about in some of the testimony, maybe 

you should be contributing to help us pay for the certification system, like the pharmaceutical companies pay money to help get faster certification of new drugs. 

Because you have got an extra couple of billion bucks here, if you 

assume the same level of fees you have now and you get savings 

because you are going to be more efficient, you have maybe got $3 

billion or $4 billion. So you could help us with our stability issues 

over here. 

Otherwise we are just saying, we are trying to solve the problems 

of sequestration, and I have not even looking at the Republican 

budget. I do not know what it does to FAA. I know it reduces 

spending on highways by 99 percent next year. I don’t know what 

it does to the FAA. So it is kind of a problem. 

50 

So I am just trying to say, there are some things here that 

need—OK. And let me go one other quick issue because I am going 

to ask American Law Division: Has anybody examined indepth the 

1936 case, the recent DC Circuit Court ruling, the remand by the 

Supreme Court which found that—it overturned the Circuit because the Circuit upheld the 1936 ruling that says, a private entity 

cannot have regulatory power. 

The American railroads said—they used ATO. They said, ‘‘Well, 

air traffic is definitely a regulatory power,’’ in their argument that 

was upheld by the Circuit Court. The Supreme Court said no. Despite everything, because Congress meddles so much with Amtrak, 

including talking about regulating food service, that is inherently 

governmental. 

So it has been set back, but the standing is still there. You cannot delegate a regulatory function to a private entity. It is still 

there. Has anybody looked at that in great depth and can disprove 

that? And I am going to ask American Law, and you could help me 

direct the question if you have looked at it. 

Mr. SHUSTER. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I would like the panel to address it because as I 

said earlier, we are not talking about taking the safety and regulatory elements out of Government. We are talking about a service, 

a provider of service. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes. That is what I just said. There was my point. 

If it is going to stay with Government, how are we going to fund 

it? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, your funding question, we absolutely have to 

figure out those numbers. There is no question about that. But the 

ATC performs a service, and the FAA still maintains, in our view— 

I know there are others who want to take it out, but it remains 

with the Government. 

Ms. Robyn or Mr. Grizzle or Mr. Poole, one of you want to directly address that? 

Mr. GRIZZLE. There are only four feasible sources of funding for 

the combined operation that is now within the FAA: the general 

fund; user fees; self-help, i.e., a PFC; and some new tax. I am confident that the stakeholders, with your instructions, will be able to 

come up with a solution that adequately funds the three parts of 

the FAA with the four available sources of revenue that are theoretically available. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Grizzle. 

Ms. Robyn? 

Ms. ROBYN. The general fund, Congressman DeFazio, funds safety now. So I think that is not a change. Right. So that seems like 

a red herring to me. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. No. What I was telling you is the revenues that are 

going away are larger than the duties that are being assumed. So 

the Government now has to contribute more general fund to meet 

those current obligations. That was the point I was making. 

Ms. ROBYN. Yes. But I think the issue is AIP—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. We get the general fund now, but we got sequestration and you already heard—— 

51 

Ms. ROBYN. Right. Yes. And I would endorse your concept of a 

user charge along the lines of the FDA. I think that is an option 

that should be on the table. 

Mr. POOLE. I just wanted to point out that if you look at the historical figures for the last 15 years, the average percentage of FAA 

budget coming from the general fund has been 22 percent. And 

that basically—that pretty much covers the safety regulatory functions. 

And you can consider it as being also partly the public interest 

part of AIP that is serving the smaller, remote airports. So that 

ought to continue, albeit I am open, too, to having the potential of 

fees for faster certification, which is actually happening today in 

the U.K. because they have revised their regulatory certification 

system in addition to corporatizing NATS as the ATC provider. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Poole. 

Mr. Costello? 

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 

being here. I had the opportunity to read all of your testimony and 

hear most of it this morning. And before I ask a question of Mr. 

Parker and then of Mr. Rinaldi, in all of your written testimony 

clearly, a steady, predictable funding stream with flexibility, I believe was also the word you used, is at the top of the list. 

And it begs in me the question: How much does that challenge 

actually exacerbate some of the structural challenges and reforms 

that are being sought? Or stated differently, if the funding stream 

were there, would some of this discussion not have the velocity or 

the intensity that we are having? 

I would also add, when we are talking about short-term funding, 

sequestration, shutdowns, what the cost is in real dollars to the 

aviation industry. And in fact, if we did not have that—which you 

actually need a little bit—you would probably still need more 

money, but which you need a little bit less more money because of 

some of that cost. And so I will leave that lingering out there if we 

have time within my 5 minutes. 

Mr. Parker, as a CEO, accepting the premise that we have now 

moved to a self-financed public-private partnership or Government 

corporation or independent nonprofit entity, whatever it is, share 

with me the benefit to your company. Share with me from a CEO 

perspective—share with me the public benefit that you feel inures 

as a result of that structural change. 

Mr. PARKER. Thanks. First off, a more efficient organization, 

which could do more things for the same amount of dollars; but 

bigger than that, a reduction in air traffic control delays, a much 

more efficient and much better use of automation to reduce delays 

around this country, which are only going to get worse, not better, 

and that will be reduced through a more efficient system. 

And that is by far the largest benefit of all this, is taking what 

is, I agree, a complex system, and making it more efficient. I would 

argue, actually, that the complexity argues for this to be done more 

so than a less complex system. Complexity is where automation 

and creativity and innovation can actually make bigger advances. 

So anyway, we all suffer, and I think not all of us realize how 

much. We suffer due to an antiquated ATC system. And it is simVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:44 Jun 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\AV\3-24-1~1\93853.TXT JEAN
52 

ply going to get worse, and by moving it to a more commercial 

structure, that would not be allowed to happen. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you. 

Mr. Rinaldi, let’s talk about the FAA’s modernization program 

and the FAA more generally, and whether and to what extent it 

includes air traffic controllers as they are developing the NextGen 

technologies, as well as speak more generally about the air traffic 

controllers’ inclusion in FAA reform efforts; and if you have some 

concerns relative to that, maybe some suggestions as to where you 

would like to see more cooperation or more involvement. 

Mr. RINALDI. Thank you, sir. Currently we are working very collaboratively with the FAA when it comes to modernization. But I 

often get reminded, as seats change amongst the FAA leadership, 

it is almost like you have to reinvent the wheel. And someone said 

‘‘Groundhog Day.’’ We actually have to bring them back up to speed 

exactly where we were 6 months ago, 10 months ago, or 12 months 

ago to actually keep the projects going. 

Knock on wood, hopefully by the end of this month we will cross 

the finish line on ERAM which, as David Grizzle pointed out, was 

spec’d out at 2004/2005. And we are finally crossing the line now— 

we did not get involved in the modernization of ERAM, which is 

our 20 en route centers across the country, until early 2010, is 

when we started to get involved, because they had a $2 billion program that actually was not tracking airplanes across the sky, and 

it was actually shutting down our radar scopes for NextGen technology. 

So being involved is not only important, it is essential to being 

successful in modernization. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. And I want to thank the 

panel. Again, Mr. DeFazio, as I said earlier, always asks the tough 

questions, and that has always been from the outset the funding. 

How do we figure it out? And I believe we will figure it out, how 

to get there, especially when you have got a panel like this with 

almost 200 years or more than 200 years experience. And there are 

other people around the country who are able to help too. 

I really appreciate you taking the time today, and I think many 

of you, if not all of you, have been before a roundtable, a listening 

session. And we are doing that because this issue is extremely difficult. 

But I think, as many of you said here today, the time is ripe for 

us to do something like this. I believe there is a will out there. 

When you have the different groups sitting at the table talking 

about the same thing—and again, finding a solution is what this 

is all about. 

And remind me, Mr. Parker said he is here trying to help do the 

right thing, thank you for that. Good luck with that, too. But it reminded me of what Winston Churchill said about America. ‘‘America always does the right thing after it has exhausted every other 

option.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. So hopefully over the last 20 years we have exhausted all the options and we are finally getting to the place 

where we are going to do the right thing. So again, thank you all 

53 

very much for being here today. Appreciate it. And the hearing is 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

54 


Insert offset folio 18 here 93853.018
55 


Insert offset folio 19 here 93853.019
56 


Insert offset folio 20 here 93853.020
57 


Insert offset folio 21 here 93853.021
58 


Insert offset folio 22 here 93853.022
59 


Insert offset folio 23 here 93853.023
60 


Insert offset folio 24 here 93853.024
61 


Insert offset folio 25 here 93853.025
62 


Insert offset folio 26 here 93853.026
63 


Insert offset folio 27 here 93853.027
64 


Insert offset folio 28 here 93853.028
65 


Insert offset folio 29 here 93853.029
66 


Insert offset folio 30 here 93853.030
67 


Insert offset folio 31 here 93853.031
68 


Insert offset folio 32 here 93853.032
69 


Insert offset folio 33 here 93853.033
70 


Insert offset folio 34 here 93853.034
71 


Insert offset folio 35 here 93853.035
72 


Insert offset folio 36 here 93853.036
73 


Insert offset folio 37 here 93853.037
74 


Insert offset folio 38 here 93853.038
75 


Insert offset folio 39 here 93853.039
76 


Insert offset folio 40 here 93853.040
77 


Insert offset folio 41 here 93853.041
78 


Insert offset folio 42 here 93853.042
79 


Insert offset folio 43 here 93853.043
80 


Insert offset folio 44 here 93853.044
81 


Insert offset folio 45 here 93853.045
82 


Insert offset folio 46 here 93853.046
83 


Insert offset folio 47 here 93853.047
84 


Insert offset folio 48 here 93853.048
85 


Insert offset folio 49 here 93853.049
86 


Insert offset folio 50 here 93853.050
87 


Insert offset folio 51 here 93853.051
88 


Insert offset folio 52 here 93853.052
89 


Insert offset folio 53 here 93853.053
90 


Insert offset folio 54 here 93853.054
91 


Insert offset folio 55 here 93853.055
92 


Insert offset folio 56 here 93853.056
93 


Insert offset folio 57 here 93853.057
94 


Insert offset folio 58 here 93853.058
95 


Insert offset folio 59 here 93853.059
96 


Insert offset folio 60 here 93853.060
97 


Insert offset folio 61 here 93853.061
98 


Insert offset folio 62 here 93853.062
99 


Insert offset folio 63 here 93853.063
100 


Insert offset folio 64 here 93853.064
101 


Insert offset folio 65 here 93853.065
102 


Insert offset folio 66 here 93853.066
103 


Insert offset folio 67 here 93853.067
104 


Insert offset folio 68 here 93853.068
105 


Insert offset folio 69 here 93853.069
106 


Insert offset folio 70 here 93853.070
107 


Insert offset folio 71 here 93853.071
108 


Insert offset folio 72 here 93853.072
109 


Insert offset folio 73 here 93853.073
110 


Insert offset folio 74 here 93853.074
111 


Insert offset folio 75 here 93853.075
112 


Insert offset folio 76 here 93853.076
113 


Insert offset folio 77 here 93853.077
114 


Insert offset folio 78 here 93853.078
115 


Insert offset folio 79 here 93853.079
116 


Insert offset folio 80 here 93853.080
117 


Insert offset folio 81 here 93853.081
118 


Insert offset folio 82 here 93853.082
119 


Insert offset folio 83 here 93853.083
120 


Insert offset folio 84 here 93853.084
121 


Insert offset folio 85 here 93853.085
122 


Insert offset folio 86 here 93853.086
123 


Insert offset folio 87 here 93853.087
124 

Æ 


Insert offset folio 88 here 93853.088