Earlier today, I wrote about why instead of being upset with the FAA for its failures in air-traffic control, we should ask why the government is in the air-traffic-control business at all. You can read my full argument here.
Christian Britschgi has written more about the government’s failure for Reason. The failure that caused delays and cancelations this morning was of the NOTAM system, which gives pilots information about flights. Britschgi writes that, regardless of what happened this morning (the cause remains unclear), aviation groups have been complaining about the NOTAM system for years:
Created in the 1940s, it’s intended to alert pilots to breaking information about their flight, such as a closed runway at their destination or a light being out on an air control tower. Pilots are supposed to review these NOTAM reports before taking off.
Pilots and aviation professionals complain that the notices they receive from the system are overly long and poorly organized. Critical updates about a closed runway can be tucked deep inside a 100-page report full of irrelevant information about grass cutting at the airport. The reports are also written in a hard-to-read, all-CAPS script of abbreviations, codes, and contractions.
NOTAMs “presents information in a coded, upper case, incredibly un-human-friendly format, is overloaded with irrelevant information, and creates 100-page briefing packages for flight crews that are simply impossible to read and understand,” complains OPSGROUP, an aviation professional association with a particular focus in reforming NOTAMs. “For every pilot and passenger alike, this creates unacceptable risk.”
In 2017, two Air Canada pilots’ failed to see a warning about a closed runway at San Francisco’s airport on page eight of a 27-page NOTAM report. They narrowly avoided colliding with four other planes.
Past modernization efforts have have stalled in Congress, but our brilliant lawmakers were able to make a different change:
The FAA took the initiative to announce a NOTAM modernization of its own: changing the system’s name from Notice to Airmen to the gender-neutral, drone operator-inclusive Notice to Air Missions.
“Our words hold the ability to influence and transform—to include or to exclude,” said the FAA in a blog post at the time.
All the more reason to take air-traffic control out of the realm of politics.