Watchdog faults FAA's air traffic control operations

The report by the Transportation Department's inspector general blames the decline in productivity at air traffic facilities on a culture resistant to change within the Federal Aviation Administration and the agency's failure to adopt business-like practices.

Decades of personnel, organizational and acquisition reforms have failed to slow the agency's cost growth, improve its productivity or improve its performance in modernizing air traffic operations, said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Business aircraft operators are opposed to privatizing air traffic operations, fearing they'll have to pick up a larger share of the cost of operations and be forced out of some airports to make room for more airline flights.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the senior Democrat on the House committee, is working on a proposal to make the entire FAA an independent government corporation in an effort to rid the agency of archaic personnel and procurement rules and overly bureaucratic procedures.

Air traffic operations — take-offs, landings and other aircraft handling by controllers — declined 23 percent from 2000 to 2012 due to a drop off in air travel as the result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Great Recession and other events.