Privatize Air Traffic Control

If I learned anything from watching all those "Airplane" movies growing up, it's that the only thing air traffic control employees do is sit around eating donuts watching blips on a screen. A monkey could do that. Well, maybe not an average monkey. But, a monkey trained to be an air traffic controller. And how cool would that be? A bunch of monkeys sitting around watching blips on a screen. Especially if they wore funny hats and smoked cigars. It certainly would be amusing, instead of depressing.

Want a high-paying government job? Become an air traffic controller. While the average union-backed controller compensation already totals $166,000 per year, Congress has until June 5 to decide whether salaries will rise to the $187,000 level the Federal Aviation Administration has offered to pay, or perhaps as much as the $200,000-plus the controllers have been demanding....

"Taxpayers will save $600 million if Congress allows the FAA's contract to take effect," according to Heritage Foundation fellow Ronald D. Utt. "Incredibly, a bipartisan majority in the House ... is siding with the controllers in their effort to force the taxpayers to provide them with one of the most generous pay and benefit packages available to any group of American workers."

[...]

The FAA...points out that the base pay for the estimated 14,500 controllers already has soared 75 percent over seven years, rising from $64,877 in 1998 to $113,615 last year. But when benefits are included, total compensation averaged $166,000 last year, according to Mr. Utt. In addition, about 1,300 senior-level controllers made more than $200,000 last year with overtime and other benefits included.

One source close to the negotiations tells Inside the Beltway the controllers "cannot reasonably expect to replicate the lavish deal they were given [in 1998] by the Clinton administration - these are very different times for the aviation industry and the federal budget." "That 1998 contract has proven to cost the U.S. taxpayer billions of dollars more than the administration had estimated at that time. This new proposal will cost taxpayers a $2.6 billion in additional costs."