Sunday, May 5, 2013

Poetic Justice

I realize nobody likes the person who says "I told you so"; therefore I've changed the name of this post to "Poetic Justice".

First of all, congratulations to all you folks who demanded, wept for, and have now managed to get the towers and controllers off the endangered list.  You deserve the consequences of your emotions (logic had no part in this).  Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with what you accomplished.    Thanks.
Wait, what am I talking about?  Haven't you heard?  These "services" will now be paid for with money from the airport trust fund which is funded by, wait for it, USER FEES. And how long do you think it will be until additional user fees are "needed" to keep it funded for "safety's sake"?  What then?  Will you cry about the proposed new user fees?  I can hear the flying public now; "Why wouldn't pilots have a problem paying a small percentage to make the skies safer for children"?  What will you say to that?
This paragraph from Forbes SmartBrief pretty much says it all:
"President Barack Obama has pledged to sign legislation prepared by Congress that allows money from the Federal Aviation Administration's Airport and Airway Trust Fund to be used to pay air traffic controllers' salaries so that towers can remain open. The aviation trust fund draws revenue from aviation user fees that are meant to be used to improve aviation safety and efficiency."
Read the entire article by clicking here.
Of course, although this is now a done deal, it does come with a positive.  Many questions as to how our country ended up in such a mess have now been answered by those in aviation who fought for this.  Again, thanks.

Note:  If you haven't read my other post about this issue, don't go off saying I don't care about controllers before clicking here.

This little girl just found out her membership dues to EAA, AOPA, and NBAA went to promoting user fees.


1 comment:

Terry Bowden said...

Rich...
I would have been OK with the phrase "I TOLD YOU SO". I still cannot help but wonder why all of these control towers are necessary or why standard traffic radio protocol isn't sufficiently safe... especially at certain airports where I rarely see more than two in the pattern anyways.
Shaking my head.