The ATC system in the U.S. may be eventually restructured to a privatized business model, but dramatic change will not likely happen when Congress passes the next legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, according to people involved in drafting the bill. The discussion at a recent Air Line Pilots Association (Alpa) conference also demonstrated that U.S. controllers oppose a major change.

The current FAA authorization bill, which President Obama signed in February 2012, expires next September 30, the end of federal Fiscal Year 2015. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has called for “transformational” new legislation. He has also spoken favorably of the Nav Canada business model of a private, non-share corporation that provides ATC services.

At the Alpa “Future of Aviation” conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, Rich Swayze, FAA assistant administrator for policy, international affairs and environment, said Congress will be challenged to pass a disruptive new FAA reauthorization bill. “A lot of people have been talking about transformational reform,” he said. If that is the goal, “there’s a lot of work to be done between now and September 30.”

Swayze, a former top aviation aide to the Senate Commerce Committee before joining the FAA earlier this year, said the agency is focused on problem solving and has not decided on what shape a restructured ATC system should take. Privatizing Nav Canada and UK NATS and separating them from the regulatory agencies in those countries took years, he noted. “I don’t think any other country provides an exact plan for how we have transformational reform in the U.S.,” Swayze said.

Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (Natca), the union that represents most U.S. controllers, said the nation’s ATC system is run by a top-heavy FAA bureaucracy and has been hurt by the budget reductions Congress imposed through “sequestration,” which took effect in March 2013. The mandated cuts forced the FAA to begin furloughing controllers until Congress restored funding, interrupted training at the ATC academy in Oklahoma City and slowed the NextGen modernization. “Sequestration is a “game-changer,” he said. “This current system has served us well and I’m a defender of the current system.” But “the future under sequestration is bleak.”

Rinaldi also threw cold water on the idea that either Nav Canada or UK NATS offer viable alternatives for the U.S. ATC system. “Everyone talks about Nav Canada—Nav Canada seems to be the system,” he remarked. But the transition in that country from a government-owned ATC agency to a privatized air navigation service provider (Ansp) “involved 10 years of struggle.” Similarly, Ansps in Europe now compete against each other. Rinaldi noted that UK NATS recently lost a contract to provide tower services at London’s Gatwick Airport to Germany’s DFS, a German state-owned company. “We don’t want to do the UK system,” he said. “They have major problems and major issues.”

Offering a contrasting opinion was Sean Kennedy, senior vice president for global government affairs with Airlines for America (A4A), which represents major U.S. carriers. Kennedy said that Nav Canada and European Ansps have some good features, including “more predictable and stable funding and governance.” Three White House blue-ribbon panels have already studied reforming the ATC system, he said, and A4A favors significant improvements. “We’re encouraging The Hill to go big, go long,” he said, in reference to Congress.