For four decades, Congress has intermittently debated whether the public would be better served if air traffic services currently provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were instead provided by an independent entity. The many proposals and bills on this subject put forth over the years have distinguished two main alternatives to continued operation of the air traffic control system by a federal agency: corporatization , which, in this context, generally refers to establishing air traffic services as a wholly owned government corporation or quasi-governmental entity; and privatization , which would entail creating some form of private ownership and control of an air traffic services corporation. Proposals under both of these models have generally sought to establish stakeholder involvement in the business entity providing air traffic services though representation on a board of directors or other similar oversight body. Aviation stakeholders include the airlines, various general aviation interests, other aviation businesses, and military users of the airspace. Interest in restructuring air traffic services, relatively dormant in recent years, reemerged in 2013 after budget sequester-related funding cuts led to staggered furloughs of FAA controllers at air traffic facilities across the country, deferral of plans to upgrade air traffic control facilities, and suspension of hiring and training of air traffic controllers. Delays in implementing the satellite-based NextGen air traffic control system have renewed interest in corporate or private models for providing air traffic services. A November 2016 audit report issued by the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General found that costs and timelines for delivering core NextGen transformational technologies remain unclear and that several key elements of NextGen will provide only limited benefits to users for the foreseeable future. In August 2016, the Office of Inspector General found that FAA lacks a clear process for identifying and coordinating high-priority research and development projects to support NextGen development, and ongoing efforts have not be aligned with any long-term vision for NextGen. While a proposed privatized model was offered as part of the FAA reauthorization bill considered by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the 114 th Congress (see H.R. 4441 ), Congress included no such proposals in reauthorizing FAA through the end of FY2017 ( P.L. 114-190 ). The need to reauthorize FAA programs and revenue authority beyond the end of FY2017 and the Trump Administration's stated desire "to shift the air traffic control function of the Federal Aviation Administration to an independent, non-governmental organization" have brought air traffic control reform to the fore once more. This report looks at past proposals to corporatize or privatize FAA air traffic functions and examines the way air traffic management is structured in other countries, particularly focusing on those that have opted for corporatization or privatization. FAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), oversees all civilian air traffic control operations across the United States. Air traffic control and modernization of air traffic facilities are funded through two accounts in the FAA budget. The Operations and Maintenance account, with an authorization of $9.91 billion in FY2016, funds air traffic operations, as well as aviation safety programs not related to air traffic control. The Facilities and Equipment account, authorized at $2.85 billion in FY2016, provides funding for the acquisition and maintenance of air traffic facilities and equipment, and for engineering, development, testing, and evaluation of technologies related to the federal air traffic system. Under FAA's Operations and Maintenance account, FAA's Air Traffic Organization (ATO) operates 315 air traffic facilities, including 21 en route control centers, 24 stand-alone terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facilities, and more than 260 airport control towers (including towers with combined radar approach control facilities) across the country. ATO federal employee staffing totals about 35,000, of which more than 14,000 are air traffic controllers. In addition, ATO oversees more than 250 airport towers run by private operators under the Federal Contract Tower program. Controllers and other staff in a contract tower are employees of the contractor, not of the federal government. FAA also has contracted out operations at flight service stations that provide weather briefings and flight planning services to owners of private aircraft (general aviation). Slightly over two-thirds of FAA's total funding, and all funding for the Facilities and Equipment account, is provided through the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF). Revenue sources for the trust fund include a 7.5% passenger ticket tax, a 4.3-cent-per-gallon tax on commercial jet fuel, a 21.8-cent-per-gallon tax on general aviation jet fuel, and other taxes on cargo, frequent flyer awards, international departures and arrivals, and fuel used by planes with fractional ownership. FAA also collects user fees from aircraft that fly in U.S.-controlled airspace but do not take off from or land in the United States. A portion of this fee, which is similar to overflight fees charged by other countries in conformance with agreements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is used to fund ATC services. Proposals to restructure air traffic control have been offered since at least 1974. While many of these proposals have been drafted into legislation introduced in Congress, none of the measures has ever made it out of committee. These various proposals have purported to offer means of minimizing or avoiding a number of identified problems: FAA funding is tied to annual appropriations and multiyear authorizations that can suffer delays or cuts due to political wrangling, making it difficult to carry out long-range planning. FAA lacks a dedicated budget for long-term capital expenditures and has no independent access to financial markets to fund such investments; FAA management and procurement processes have proven inadequate for meeting equipment and facilities modernization needs, leading to lengthy delays, cost overruns, and failures to fully achieve stated objectives; federal workforce restrictions have encumbered FAA's ability to recruit and maintain highly qualified air traffic controller and technical personnel, particularly in high-cost areas; strained relations between management and labor have, at times, impeded progress in developing new air traffic technologies and procedures; and inadequate stakeholder engagement in planning and executing technological and procedural initiatives has resulted in approaches that have not fully met users' expectations. In 1974, a study commissioned by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), the air traffic controllers union at the time, and conducted by Glen A. Gilbert and Associates, concluded that an independent government corporation with assured financing should carry out the air traffic control functions performed by FAA. Under the proposal, corporate policy was to be set by a board of directors, appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. The board was to comprise individuals representing the air transportation industry, government, consumers, and "environmentalists." The proposal called for the air traffic control organization to be managed by a president and chief executive officer, with smaller units headed by vice presidents and a senior vice president of operations. Gilbert's report led to the introduction of two bills in 1976 ( H.R. 12165 and H.R. 13004 , 94 th Congress) to establish a United States Air Traffic Services Corporation. Under the proposals, the corporation would have been managed by a 10-member board of directors with broad authority to appoint corporate officers and set tax rates for Airport and Airway Trust Fund revenue sources such as aviation fuel taxes, passenger ticket taxes, and cargo taxes. More modest measures introduced in the 94 th Congress ( S. 2434 , H.R. 9930 , and H.R. 11978 ) sought to reestablish FAA as an independent agency outside of DOT, a status it had held from its inception in 1958 until the creation of DOT under the Department of Transportation Act (P.L. 89-670) in 1967. None of these bills was reported out of committee. In August 1981, more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers were fired after failing to heed a presidential directive ordering them back to work within 48 hours. Warning that this was not an isolated incident, the Heritage Foundation issued a report in 1982 proposing an alternative corporate model for air traffic control. The report, prepared by Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, proposed a two-tiered corporate model, with a not-for-profit corporation responsible for system design and coordination and for awarding long-term contracts to a second tier of for-profit contractors that would operate air traffic facilities. Each contractor was to be limited to operating no more than three facilities to promote competition and protect against monopoly pricing. Decentralization at this second tier, the report argued, would provide safeguards against system-wide strikes while allowing for unionization and collective bargaining at the local level. The report concluded that its proposal was consistent with Reagan Administration objectives to reduce the size of the federal government while at the same time being amenable to labor interests. This proposal did not result in legislation. The corporatization concept was taken up in 1985 by the Air Transport Association of America, an airline trade group (now called Airlines for America). At that organization's behest, the National Academy of Public Administration examined the concept in detail in 1986. That study recommended separating FAA from DOT, either by turning it into a government-owned corporation or by spinning off FAA's air traffic functions into a stand-alone government-owned corporation. Elements of that second alternative were incorporated into S. 1159 (100 th Congress), which would have created a National Aviation Authority as an independent government corporation headed by a presidentially appointed director. The authority would have taken over all air traffic control services administered by FAA, funding itself through user fees. A policy advisory board was to conduct twice-yearly reviews of the authority's operations and submit its observations and recommendations to the President and congressional oversight committees. Safety standards for the proposed authority were to remain the responsibility of FAA. Air traffic control was among the functions studied by a commission established by President Ronald Reagan to evaluate opportunities for privatization across the federal government.