In 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, reported that the U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system is falling apart:
“A shutdown of the national airspace in 2023 due to the outage of an aging air traffic control (ATC) system prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct an operational risk assessment to evaluate the sustainability of all ATC systems. Of the 138 systems, 51 (37%) were deemed unsustainable by FAA and 54 (39%) were potentially unsustainable. Many unsustainable and potentially unsustainable systems have critical operational impacts on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace. In September 2024, GAO found several weaknesses in how FAA manages investments to modernize these systems. FAA's progress has also been slow, taking years to establish cost, schedule, and performance baselines for investments that GAO selected for its review. As of May 2024, completion dates for planned investments for systems that GAO deemed especially concerning were at least 6 to 10 years away. Four such systems did not have associated investments.”
Learning From Canada
The Reason Foundation published a July report, Changing America’s Air Traffic Control Model: Learning From Canada, which argues that the United States should transition its ATC system into a private, nonprofit corporation based on Canada’s NAV CANADA.
The Reason Foundation says its mission “is to advance a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles.”
The report’s author, John Kefaliotis, spent 13 years with the FAA, beginning in 1970, serving as an air traffic controller, air traffic control supervisor and R&D program manager. In 1983, he left the FAA to enter private industry, specializing in ATC system engineering.
The report says commercialization enhances Canada’s ability to upgrade flight-safety technology far faster than the FAA can in the United States:
“Notably, the NAV CANADA model leverages the natural monopoly that ATC represents to obtain an investment-grade credit rating providing very low financing costs. NAV CANADA’s S&P bond rating is AA, most recently reaffirmed in September 2025. Low financing costs encourage NAV CANADA to modernize its ATC system, saving users significant money. Because it can issue bonds to pay for large-scale modernization, NAV CANADA can equip all its facilities with an improved technology—such as electronic flight strips instead of paper ones, which were fully deployed at NAV CANADA’s 42 control towers by 2009—within one or two years. By contrast, due to funding limits, FAA has to implement new technologies in its facilities over much longer time periods, such as 15 years.”
The report says the United States remains encumbered by an outdated system that undermines safety:
“A principal reason for those major shortcomings is that FAA depends on Congress for its funding. The majority of this funding is generated by a tax on airline tickets, which yields far less annual revenue than needed to properly fund the ATO (Air Traffic Organization). The current ticket tax structure was enacted by Congress in 1970 and was not indexed to inflation. It was intended to be dedicated to airport and air traffic control capital investment, but Congress diverts most of that revenue to pay FAA’s operating costs. In short, the US air traffic control system is embedded in a tax-funded bureaucracy that is unable to replace ancient facilities and obsolete technology. As noted previously, 96 other countries receive air traffic services from self-funded air navigation service providers (ANSPs) that are separate from government transport ministries and regulated for safety by a national government safety regulator. How could the United States draw from this worldwide experience?”
The Reason Foundation report says that attempts have been made for years to commercialize ATC in the United States:
“The most prominent recent effort came in 2017 during President Trump’s first term. In this effort, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster sought a nonprofit, NAV CANADA-style corporation governed by a board nominated by airlines, general aviation, labor, airports, and others. Shuster’s bill was supported by the FAA controllers’ union, National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), all US airlines with the exception of Delta (Delta’s objections did diminish during the legislative process), and business organizations led by the Business Roundtable. The bill faced strong opposition from business aviation (National Business Aviation Association, NBAA), general aviation (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, AOPA), and all federal employee unions except NATCA, which ultimately led to its defeat.”
Canada’s ATC
According to the Reason Foundation report, prior to 1996, Canada’s ATC system was similar to that of the United States. The ATC system was a government department function funded primarily by the Air Transportation Tax, a tax on airline tickets, and general tax revenue. Under this system, Canada’s ATC “...faced chronic underfunding, budget constraints, staff shortages, outdated infrastructure, delays, and rising costs that outpaced the tax revenue.”
A study, Commercializing Air Traffic Control: Have the Reforms Worked?, noted that “Officials responsible for oversight of Nav Canada at the Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada, the responsible department, also noted that there has been more reliable reporting and a stronger safety culture since commercialization.”
NAV CANADA’s system has also reduced the five-year average rate of aircraft-separation incidents:
“... the five-year average rate of incidents involving a physical loss of separation between aircraft operating under IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plans from 1.0 per 100,000 aircraft movements as of September 2002 to 0.47 per 100,000 aircraft movements as of August 31, 2025.”
The report added: “FAA does not publish comprehensive annual or historical data on loss of separation incidents and was criticized in 2013 by the Department of Transportation Inspector General for failing to consistently collect, benchmark, and analyze these data.”
FAA’s Controller Shortfalls
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) serves two key roles in American air travel. The organization regulates aviation safety across the United States and operates the nation’s air traffic control system.
According to the GAO, the FAA has also struggled to maintain a sufficient workforce of qualified air traffic controllers:
“Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic controllers help ensure the safety of U.S. air travel. However, lapses in appropriations in the 2010s, and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced controller hiring and increased attrition. In response, FAA has increased hiring every year since 2021. Nevertheless, at the end of fiscal year 2025, FAA employed 13,164 controllers, about 6 percent fewer than in 2015. Between fiscal years 2015 and 2024, total flights using the air traffic control system increased by about 10 percent to 30.8 million.”
The Reason Foundation report concludes:
“FAA is facing increasing scrutiny for its outdated facilities and equipment, management practices, and workforce challenges but remains dependent on uncertain and insufficient annual appropriations by Congress. Canada provides a working model of a successful transition from a tax-funded ATC system chronically short of adequate revenue and long-term financing to a sustainable, adaptable non-profit commercial structure capable of continuous modernization. A similar transition in the United States could leverage a proven model for a safe and cost-effective ATC system.”
