Free the FAA

OP-ED | Edward L. Glaeser

Accident prevention and safety should be the agency’s only job

August 11, 2011|By Edward L. Glaeser

THE FEDERAL Aviation Administration does a fine job at its main duty - making air travel safe. But it’s is also involved with a lot of things it shouldn’t be, from disputes about unionization to subsidies for rural airports. If Americans want to keep flying safely, Congress must free the FAA from obligations unrelated to preventing accidents.

The agency got back to work recently after a two-week, politically charged shutdown that had nothing to do with safety. To continue some operations related to planning and maintaining airports, the FAA needed new authorization from Congress. But the Senate initially balked at a House plan that also capped “essential air service’’ subsidies to rural airports at $1,000 per passenger. Some Senate Democrats also opposed a House plan that, by reversing a pro-union ruling last year by the National Mediation Board, would make it harder for workers on airport projects to organize.

As a policy matter, lawmakers should limit subsidies; anyone who worries about carbon emissions should be apoplectic that the government is bribing people over $1,000 each to take another flight. It’s also legitimate for Congress to question rulings by the National Mediation Board. Yet neither issue is relevant to air traffic safety, and FAA reauthorization should never be tied to such matters.

Most air travel is quite safe. Fatal accidents in air carriers now occur once in every 10 million flight hours - less than a third of the rate 20 years ago. The death rate is about 100 times higher in general aviation, which includes private planes. (Lowering that death rate would require tougher restrictions on recreational flying.) But air safety in all its forms might be compromised by a Washington donnybrook over unrelated matters. We can avoid that if the FAA becomes only a safety regulator, whose funding and operations are uncoupled from other issues of air travel.

What would a dedicated Federal Air Safety Administration look like? Like today’s FAA, it would have plenty of inspectors, who would oversee the construction and maintenance of infrastructure and equipment. It would continue to run the air traffic control system, and develop programs like NextGen, which uses new technologies to improve air safety.

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