Leeham News and Analysis
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Who Controls the Movement of the Aircraft?
By R. Michael Baiada
ATH Group, Inc.
Special to Leeham News
Michael Baiada.
March 31, 2026, © Leeham News: “We’ll tell you where we want you to be in three dimensions…and we’ll tell you where we want you to be to hit that top of descent mark to [meet] the constraints of the runway.”
Bryan Bedford. Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.
Bedford believes telling airlines/users how to operate their aircraft is a good thing. As a 45-year pilot (USAF, United Airlines, and business jets), with decades of airline operational and ATC expertise, I do not agree. If implemented, FAA’s plan will increase airline costs and reduce airline quality.
In fact, airlines and FAA need to switch this around to where airlines/users do the telling and FAA/ATC does the listening.
Next, the FAA’s $31.5 Billion Brand New ATC System (BNATCS) will not reduce airline delays since it fails to focus on the root cause of delays (random Point Overloads). That said, BNATCS is a positive for equipment replacement, which is needed.
Even worse for airlines/passengers, as currently planned, the BNATCS ATC Centric Flow Management plan will, as Bedford’s statement above shows, further institutionalize ATC’s decades old process of control over the movement of the airline’s/user’s aircraft. This will haunt the airline’s “day of” operation for decades into the future, eliminating any chance of airlines achieving “day of” Operational Excellence.
Think about it. Who wants a government agency to control their primary production asset, or who believes a government agency can make an airline’s operation efficient? No one.
Airlines and “day of” operations
Yet the airline’s fire and forget, wing and a prayer “day of” operation, where airlines send billions of dollars of aircraft out on the wing, and pray that it all works out, based on what the FAA/ATC thinks is best, is what airlines are embracing. This is no way to run a “day of” airline operation.
Further, the critical missing part of BNATCS is “day of”, real time airline-centric aircraft flow optimization driven by the airline’s business goals and safety for each individual aircraft and the pilots 4D navigational ability, both critical to the success, profitability and simplicity of the airline’s “day of” operation, and something only each airline/user can know, decide and utilize efficiently.
Airlines need to understand that which aircraft lands 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., is critical for a successful and profitable airline “day of” operation, yet this is currently left to ATC and random chance.
Therefore, the core decision for the future of aviation is, “Who should manage the movement of the aircraft, airlines or ATC”?
Since we are talking about the airline’s aircraft and passengers, I would think the airline would jump at the chance to manage the “day of” movement of its aircraft, since it has a clear vested interest in the outcome.
Airlines could. Airlines should. Airlines have no interest.
Airlines should step up
Of course, separation/safety belongs to ATC, but this leaves lots of “day of” operational flexibility (gate departure time, speed, altitude, flight path, etc.) for airlines to step in (and step up) to manage the movement of their aircraft to meet their safety and “day of” business goals (schedule, connections, gate availability, crew legality, fuel, maintenance, galleys, lavs, etc.).
Instead of Bedford’s ATC-centric view of aviation, the FAA’s ATC future should be Airline/User-centric. The airline/user should tell ATC where they want to be in 4 dimensions … and the airline should tell ATC their desired top-of-descent point/time and coordinate with ATC to meet runway constraints. ATC will guarantee separation. Unfortunately, nothing in the FAA’s BNATCS plan accomplishes this, but airlines can rapidly and inexpensively achieve it.
Finally, FAA, Embry-Riddle University, GE Aviation, Georgia Tech, Delta Air Lines and others have independently validated a shovel ready, inexpensive, Commercial Off the Shelf, Airline Centric solution to manage the movement of the aircraft that mitigates most airline delays as proven in actual airline operations at some of the world’s busiest airports (ATL, DTW, MSP, CLT, and DBX).
Its Government airspace and to manage conflicts the ATC has to act as traffic cop at all times . Of course the sky cant work like a highway where cars can literally stop at the lights or where they are at times theres a conflict.
Look how the airport owners control the slot times at airports when the demand is high.
Its called capitalism
The police wish to monitor suspicios activity along a highway, the radio station wishes to report on traffic jams at rush hour, medical helicopters need access between airport, crash site and hospital, the department of fisheries need to monitor foreign trawlers, an explosive demolition of a power station is planned, NASA want to fire a rocket into the troposphere for scientific research, there’s a forest fire requiring water bombers, the army want to test live ordnance on their firing range, the navy want to test a new drone, the air force are transporting the president with a fighter escort, there’s an air display this afternoon and the FAA want to fly to calibrate the ILS at the local airports. And more.
Do airlines really want to control and co-ordinate all that? Could they be trusted not to put themselves first?
It’s not capitalism, it’s the efficient and fair use and safe regulation of a finite and commonly owned resource. Look up Tragedy Of The Commons and you’ll see why this sort of thing is delegated to one, over-arching agency rather than a single interested party (airlines definitely have an interest by the way).
This is true in capitalist democracies and the most repressive autocracies – probably on grounds of good sense.
> It’s not capitalism, it’s the efficient and fair use and safe regulation of a finite and commonly owned resource. Look up Tragedy Of The Commons and you’ll see why this sort of thing is delegated to one, over-arching agency rather than a single interested party (airlines definitely have an interest by the way). <
Hear, hear.
This is a tricky question. Airspace is divided into 6 classes. A, B, C, D, E and G. Class G airspace is uncontrolled and does not require any ATC communication at all. Class A is positively controlled above 18000 AGL and is positively controlled. B, C and D are associated with airports and have upside down wedding cake looking control zones with controlled airspace reaching over class G airspace. Airspace is divided and clearly shown on FAA Sectional charts. Airspace is so chopped up that the time of day or date matters when Military Operating Areas are listed. If you read the map correctly, you can fly through the world famous VFR corridor over LAX and never even have to say hi to them as you fly by.
https://preview.redd.it/lax-class-d-v0-nyf812t0s4dc1.png?width=981&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea218ced95168277f5eefb51e626b19f726a6091
https://i.sstatic.net/M2P1y.png
Parallel Landings BANNED by FAA | SFO Controller Explains Why
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3L3xRpEzG0
*Transcript of the conversation***
3/April/2026
0:21
at NorCal Alaska 628 with a question.
0:23
Go ahead, sir. Heard rumor of the uh no
0:27
more simultaneous approaches in San
0:29
Fran. Do you by any chance know the
0:32
reason for that?
0:34
Uh San Francisco is operating under a
0:36
waiver for uh the last long time and
0:39
they’ve uh rescinded that waiver. So uh
0:42
the parallel runways are too close
0:43
together for to get a standard
0:47
separation thing. So they had to file
0:48
for a waiver and they’ve taken that
0:49
away.
0:51
Oh, that’s interesting. Uh so how far
0:54
apart are they going to be spacing them
0:56
now?
0:57
Uh they have to do a staggered approach.
0:59
So, one aircraft has to be slightly
1:01
behind the other and then between those
1:04
pairs, they have to have 5 miles.
1:06
Oh, brother. That’s going to delay
1:08
things a lot.
1:08
Yeah, I think so.
1:10
All right. Thanks.
1:12
I think the uh the hourly rate for the
1:15
side by operation was 56 and uh with the
1:18
new standard uh the staggered operation,
1:20
I think it’s 36.
1:23
That’s that’s insane. Wow.
Maybe the FAA should worry less about DEI policies and just make sure that control towers have enough staff to handle things.
…………………………………………
Funny, during the first admin of 45, when he was touting how safe commercial air transport was and how there wasn’t an accident for over a decade, you didn’t hear a peep about DEI.
From TIME magazine Jan 2, 2018:
President Trump Took Credit for Airline Safety in 2017. But Here’s the Truth
https://time.com/5084544/donald-trump-aviation-deaths-fact-check/
President Trump started the first Tuesday of 2018 with a tweet claiming credit for the lack of aviation deaths in 2017, citing his supposed “strict” policies on commercial aviation.
But directly linking the President to these numbers is a stretch.
Data from the Aviation Safety Network shows that 2017 was the safest year for commercial aviation worldwide, with 10 fatal airline accidents that resulted in 44 fatalities. According to the ASN, the last fatal incident on a passenger jet was on November 28, 2016, when a plane crashed into a mountain in Colombia. The last aviation incident that killed more than 100 people was in Egypt in 2015.
But 2017 was the latest in a string of steadily declining fatalities in the sky. ASN President Harro Ranter notes fatalities have been declining steadily since 1997, which he attributes “to the continuing safety-driven efforts by international aviation organizations such as ICAO, (International Civil Aviation Organization) IATA, (International Civil Aviation Organization) Flight Safety Foundation and the aviation industry.”
The major U.S.-based airlines have not recorded a fatal crash since Sept. 11, 2001, and U.S. carriers in general have not had any fatalities since 2009. But Ranter did not explicitly include President Trump, or the White House, in his comments on aviation safety.
Trump’s biggest proposal relating to aviation has been to privatize the air traffic control system, separating it from The Federal Aviation Administration which the White House said in June would help eliminate flight delays, save money on fuel, and increase safety measures. But implementing this measure would require congressional approval, which hasn’t happened yet. This proposal had also been suggested in Congress before Trump took office.
………………………
So, what changed?
Oh yah…DOGE was put in charge of eliminating waste, fraud, corruption and getting rid of DEI policies.
That has worked out so well…
And as if airports weren’t feeling increased pressure, as it is:
Markwayne Mullin’s Sanctuary City Airport Remark Raises Concerns
“Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s remarks about customs at sanctuary cities’ international airports have sparked concern on social media.
“If they’re a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?” Mullin said in part during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday.
Talking with Baier in the interview airing Monday, Mullin said, “I believe sanctuary cities is not lawful. I don’t think they’re able to do that. And so we’re going to take a hard look at this. This one area we may take a hard look at is some of these cities have international airports. If they’re a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city? Seriously, if they’re sanctuary city and they’re receiving international flights. And we’re asking them to partner with us at the airport, but once they walk out of the airport, they’re not gonna enforce immigration policy. Maybe we need to have a really hard look at that because we need a focus on cities that want to work with us.”
Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office, on X Monday: “If you thought the economy was bad with Trump’s war driving prices at the pump up … just wait until international travel is halted at some of the busiest airports in the world. Talk about a stupid idea (no wonder it’s being considered by the Trump Admin).”
https://www.newsweek.com/markwayne-mullins-sanctuary-city-airport-remark-raises-concerns-11790631
How in the world did we ever get here?