Following the lead of Canada?

Gore wanted to privatize the air-traffic control system during the Clinton years, which would have had the US following Canada’s lead — yes, Canada — in relying on the private sector to maintain air-traffic control.  Such a system would have encouraged technological innovation as well as expansion of resources to meet demand.  Instead, Congress refused to relinquish control, backed by the air-traffic controllers union that feared privatization:

Hot Air has a video by Reason TV that explains the whole thing.  Worth a watch if you can spare 7 minutes or so on a topic so riveting.  If not, just remember the key phrases union and government corruption.

But as a bona fide IBM hater, I liked this part of the story:

Interestingly, I had a connection to the 1980s attempt to modernize the towers while working at Hughes Aircraft.  Hughes had a modern, working system that it submitted to the FAA, while its chief competitor, IBM, submitted a mock-up system that had never been built.  The story is too long and complicated to retell here (it might have made a good book at the time on government procurement abuse), but in the end, the FAA chose IBM’s vaporware.  Hughes sold its system to South Korea and Canada, while IBM eventually failed to produce its system altogether.

IBM selling someone on a system that doesn’t exist?  I find that… actually that’s about right.  Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of using Web Sphere or Lotus Notes knows the “that will be fixed in the next release” game.

Now, go replicate your domino database so you can get the email from IT notifying you of the latest delay in the new intranet rolling out.  And then thank God that the same technology isn’t powering ATC.

I can see it now – “Sir, we’re about to hit another plane!”  “Looks like ATC forgot to replicate again…”