Kicking off a debate that will last two years-until passage of the next FAA reauthorization bill in 2007-aviation's often dysfunctional family members are staking out their positions on how to buttress the shaky fiscal foundations of the air traffic control system. Aviation's stakeholders, brought together last month by the FAA to talk privately among themselves (AW&ST May 2, p. 21), went public May 4 at a House Transportation aviation subcommittee hearing on the condition of the Aviation Trust Fund and the potential for reforms. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey made plain-and Transportation Dept. Inspector General Kenneth Mead and the Government Accountability Office's director of physical infrastructure issues, Gerald Dillingham, generally agreed-the 35-year-old trust fund, which finances much of the FAA's budget, is falling victim to the same market conditions that have shaken the entire aviation industry during the past four years.
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