President Trump wants to privatise air-traffic control

IN JUNE 1956 a TWA Constellation collided with a United Air Lines DC-7 over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 people on both aircraft. At the time it was the worst ever airline disaster. Struggling with outdated technology and a post-war boom in air travel, overworked air-traffic controllers failed to spot that the planes were on a collision course.

That crash led to the creation of a new body, which became the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in charge of running and modernising the world’s biggest air-transport system. With that system again struggling to keep pace with demand, Donald Trump thinks it is time to privatise America’s air-traffic control service. This week the president outlined a plan to turn air-traffic control into a separate non-profit entity financed by user fees, instead of the present patchwork of taxes and grants. Shorn of its air-traffic responsibility, the FAA would become a safety body.

America’s air-traffic...