US: Watchdog faults FAA's air traffic control operations

Spending on air traffic control operations has doubled over two decades, while productivity has declined substantially and efforts to improve performance have been ineffective, according to a report released Wednesday by a government watchdog. 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. Lawmakers who want to remove air traffic operations from the FAA's control and turn them over to a nonprofit corporation pounced on the report as evidence the agency is incapable of modernizing its air traffic operations. The FAA has been engaged for more than decade in transitioning from a radar-based air traffic control system to one based on satellite navigation. 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. "This report shows that the FAA simply isn't suited to successfully modernize our nation's antiquated air traffic control system," he said. "The FAA remains a vast government bureaucracy, not a high-tech service provider."<br/>