ijm
"like many things there’s more to this than meets the eye and privatization won’t necessarily solve the problems.
Firstly satellite ADSB is a red herring. It’s very important for Canada where most of the country is remote and where many oceanic flights enter/exit and so ground based ADSB stations are either prohibitively expensive or completely impractical. Similarly for the UK where many EU bound oceanic flights enter/egress. The US has good ground based ADSB coverage that is perfectly adequate for our needs with the exception of pacific oceanic flights - which are also considerably less crowded and therefore do not have much efficiency to be gained from a more accurate system.
However satellite ADSB requires expensive upgrades to a majority of the US aircraft fleet which is considerably larger than the Canadian or UK fleets which then places an economic burden on operators with no significant efficiency/economic gain. Ergo Satellite based ADSB is an economic tax.
Secondly most people associate ATC with airline traffic however the US in particular have a substantial non airline aviation fleet ranging from Private operators, non airline freight, general aviation etc. for illustration the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association which represents just the private pilot sector has over 400k members. The general aviation sector contributed $339 billion and provided 1.3 million jobs in 2023 so this is a not insignificant contributor to the US economy. Much of this space is competitive not complimentary to the airline segment.
ATC privatization will inevitably lead to a bias to the airlines who will use their power to prioritize their needs over the General Aviation segment. - they have already signaled as such.
While the benefits of Canada and UKs ATC privatization always get touted the negative impacts on their General Aviation segment is rarely discussed. But in both cases their GA segments are stagnant vs in the US it is growing. While ATC privatization is not the only cause the general trend towards overburdening the GA segment with fees and restrictions is a a major factor."