A new study in the March 2008 issue of Canadian Public Administration, the journal of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, reveals that the commercialisation of air traffic control organisations has greatly improved performance with respect to cost, safety, and technical modernisation.
The study examined the performance of ten international commercial air navigation service providers (ANSPs) from 1997 to 2004 and compared them to US Federal Aviation Administration benchmarks. Over two hundred interviews were also conducted with key stakeholders.
The evidence showed that the success of the reforms is greatest when governance design limits government micro-management, involves customers in decision making, and ensures effective government oversight of safety. Over the course of the study, costs have generally been reduced, service quality has improved, and several ANSPs have modernised workplace technologies.
"This research will have significance on the long term governance arrangements of the US FAA, which remains a government department," the authors conclude. "The FAA exhibits many of the restraints on performance that affected air traffic control provision in other countries before commercialisation."