"Congressman joins foes of airport privatization"

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Delahunt joins foes of airport privatization 
By JACK COLEMAN
The Cape Cod (MA) Times


U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., is planning to join workers at
Nantucket Memorial Airport today who are protesting plans to privatize the
island's airport and 68 others across the country.

The proposal, part of a congressional bill to reauthorize funding for the
Federal Aviation Administration over the next four years, would also affect
Hanscom Field in Bedford. 

Delahunt is due to visit the control tower and answer questions inside the
airport at 10:30 a.m. Local air-traffic controllers will hand out leaflets
explaining their position.

"Our feeling is that putting profit ahead of safety is clearly an
unacceptable option for the flying public," Delahunt aide Mark Forest said.

The 69 airports that would be affected represent 20 percent of the nation's
350 airfields with towers.

Bills to prohibit privatizing the nation's air-traffic control system passed
in the House and Senate earlier this year. But since the two bills contained
different provisions, they were sent to a conference committee to be
resolved.

The bill to emerge from the conference committee included language allowing
for privatization of all but two airports in Alaska on the list of 69,
according to Ruth Marlin, a senior vice president with the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association.

The conference committee is chaired by U.S. Rep. Donald Young, R-Alaska, who
is also chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee,
Marlin said.

The compromise bill would still need the approval of the House and Senate
before it could be sent to President Bush to be signed.

A similar attempt to privatize air-traffic controllers on Nantucket failed
when Delahunt asked FAA head Jane Garvey to intervene, Forest said.

Most "contract airports," or those with private companies employing
air-traffic controllers, "are generally in areas that are quite rural and
not very busy," Forest said.

While the Nantucket airport could be considered rural and isolated, it is
busy. With 175,000 arrivals and departures annually, the airport is the
second busiest in the state overall, said Jake Allegrini, vice president of
the Nantucket chapter of NATCA union.

>From July 2002 to last month, airport arrivals and departures on Nantucket
rose from 20,808 to 22,029, Allegrini said, citing FAA records.

The airport employs a dozen air-traffic controllers.

If the island airport switches over to privatized air-traffic control, it
won't be the first in the region to have done so.

Barnstable Municipal Airport made the switch a decade ago. Martha's Vineyard
Airport made the switch several years before that.

Airports in Canada switched from federal control of air-traffic services to
a privatized system in 1996; those in Britain made the transition in 2001.

Proponents of privatization say it provides for greater flexibility and
efficiency in delivering services.


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