Worry continues over potential privatization of control towers

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003 | 9:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- An effort to privatize the North Las Vegas Airport control tower has been removed from a pending bill for now, but some individuals fear there is not enough protection to stop the effort from resurfacing.

In a conference session between the House and Senate, language was removed Wednesday from the bill authorizing money for the Federal Aviation Administration that listed 69 towers for potential privatization -- including North Las Vegas.

Steve Hansen, spokesman for the House Transportation Committee, said the final version should go to the House floor today.

Even with the list out of the bill, privatization of any tower can occur if it is deemed "efficient and reasonable," Hansen said. Limiting which towers could be privatized provided protection for the others, but Democrats and air traffic control tower operators did not like the provisions, he said.

"So now they'll have zero," Hansen said.

That is exactly what angers Democrats and others against privatization about the bill.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the House and Senate original bills included a provision that would have outright banned privatizing control towers, but Republicans removed the language from the bills during the conference negotiations.

She said the fact the list is gone does not mean privatization, which she strongly opposes, could not happen later.

"There is no proof that privatization would make these airports safer," Berkley said. "Air traffic safety is a function of the federal government. You can't privatize everything."

James Deaver, an air traffic controller at the North Las Vegas Airport, agreed.

"They made the baggage screeners a government function, but they want to auction off safety and the national air system to the highest bidder," said Deaver, who is also a member of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union.

Deaver, one of 16 controllers at the airport, said if the tower were to be privatized, they could be reassigned to another airport as government employees.

He said making the towers private would threaten safety since profits would come first.

"We're not talking about some small rural airport," Deaver said.

North Las Vegas is the second largest airport in Nevada after McCarran International Airport. It had 230,000 operations last year and is expected to grow by more than 10 percent this year, Deaver said.

Another change in the bill would make anti-terrorism training for flight attendants optional, overruling a previous bill that made it mandatory.

"We are spending billions on homeland security ... and those on the front line for airline security are our flight attendants and we're not training them? That's absurd," Berkley said.

Berkley said she would vote against the bills unless the ban on tower privatization and the anti-terrorism training mandate were restored. She said approving the bill would set a bad precedent.