Sky cops.

• Author: Poole, Robert W., Jr.
• Position: Federal Aviation Administration

There's a growing consensus that the FAA shouldn't be directing air traffic.

THE NEXT TIME YOU FLY coast to coast, which would you choose: A flight guided all the way by highly skilled air traffic controllers, using the latest high-tech radars, satellite-based navigation, and state-of-the-art computers? Or a system in which the busiest towers and control centers are staffed by some of the least experienced people, running equipment that relies on vacuum tubes, depending exclusively on ground-based radio beacons, and using computers two or three generations old?

You might think the latter description applies to flying across the vast reaches of Russia. But it's actually a description of the current air traffic control system in the United States. What's remarkable about this system, which is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, is that it functions reasonably safely despite its major shortcomings. It does so by deliberately keeping planes very far apart, holding them on the ground when bad weather threatens, and using other techniques that contribute to millions of hours of flight delays each year. Depending on whose numbers you believe, delays caused by air traffic control cost airlines and passengers between $300 million and $1.5 billion a year.

Despite all this extra caution, the ATC system sometimes breaks down. In February 1991, a USAir 737 landed on top of a commuter plane at the Los Angeles International Airport, killing 34 people. The obsolete ground radar was on the blink (as it often was), so the controller could not see that the commuter plane had taxied onto an active runway, directly in the path of the 737. We fly in blissful ignorance of all the close calls that could have turned out like this one.

After more than two decades of criticism, there's a growing consensus that a tax-funded, bureaucratic agency like the FAA is the wrong kind of institution to operate a vital, high-tech, 24-hour-a-day business like air traffic control. Other countries facing similar problems have successfully transferred air traffic control to government-owned corporations, an approach that was recently endorsed by the Clinton administration. The proposal, which is backed by the airline industry, promises to do away with the budget constraints, micromanagement, civil-service requirements, procurement rules, and conflict-of-interest problems that undermine the ATC system. But corporatization faces stiff opposition from special interests and members of Congress who benefit from the current arrangement.

The environment in which the FAA operates is not conducive to efficiency or safety. Annual budgets are unpredictable and generally less than needed. Unlike a business, the FAA has to fund capital improvements on a pay-as-you-go...