Andrew Gideon wrote:
Can you cite where in there you found this type of math; I've missed it.

In the last of the four links provided by Matt Barrow in his post,
reposted here for clarity:

http://www.reason.org/ps347_business_jets_atc.pdf

Table 5, Page 27.

To put the same math another way, the kind of savings required to break
even under the proposed costs is 1.33 hours per month. If a corporate
jet flew once every two weeks, it would have to save a combined 40
minutes a _flight_ in time under ATC just to remain at current cost levels.

I'm esp. curious whether the delays in question really are the result of
ATC throughput or if they're runway throughput.

The proposals thus far presented try to make the case that it is the
former, caused in large part by the wide margins necessary in a
human-controlled and administrated system. Earlier however, the
inference is made that the proposed system will prevent a hypothetical
"rationing" situation wherein flights will be given priority based on
need, indicating a problem with the latter.

In short, they have no idea where the problem actually exists, but look
over there! Shiny new technology!

They can't plan for that. It would show the folly/dishonesty of charging
GA the "cost of services provided".

One of the other arguments they use is the disparity between corporate
jet taxes and fractional ownership or charter taxi taxes. What they fail
to consider is that, especially under fractional ownership, the costs
are defrayed amongst several individuals, whereas corporate jet
operation is undertaken entirely by one. They only consider the
per-plane taxation as relevant, when it patently is not.

It is this kind of statistical manipulation with which they have
convinced some that implementing heavy taxation on a small segment of
the flying community while relaxing that on the largest segment is the
best solution for all the ails of modern aviation. That's just not true.

It would be useful, though, to show what it would take to reduce ATC
service costs. For example, how low would traffic have to drop before
(for example) NY TRACON would be able to reduce staff by merging sectors?

Not very far, if their delay schema can be applied in reverse.

The problems that they are arguing against here are issues with the
hub-and-spoke system that the airlines implement to assuage their
logistics chains. It's a symptom of too many people concentrating their
usage on too few locations at the same time, not a problem of overall
inability of the system to compensate for global demand. They use
examples like peak time at O'Hare, without stopping to consider the
other 23 hours of the day, or alluding to flight distribution throughout
the day.

Their solution, then, is to use (very expensive) technology to cram more
flights in less space, so that the underlying problem of too many
flights trying to use the same airport at the same time can roll on, and
sneaking in a rather sizable bit of pork for their airline buddies to boot.

A real long-term solution is to:

A: Solicit Congress to get off their ass and fund the FAA properly.
B: Use those funds to build more airports or expand existing ones.
C: Provide financial incentives for the airlines to shift flights to
off-peak hours (distribute the load).
D: Update and maintain the underlying technology and facilities.
E: Provide tax incentives for using more "desirable" forms of aviation,
NOT by taxing operation, and NOT by taxing services, and NOT by
privatizing the whole system, but through point-of-sale and
registration. That way, the only ones discouraged are the intended
targets, not the whole community.

TheSmokingGnu