The Walt Disney Company Will Be The First To Lease Airspace From The FAA For Its Own Private Use

ANN April 1 Special Edition

Now that the idea of ATC privatization seems to be in a counterclockwise swirl in the toilet bowl, the FAA is trying to find another way to shed the burden of operating the national airspace system. Administrator Huerta is now proposing that certain portions of the airspace system could be leased for private use and operated by private companies. The FAA characterizes this plan as an income provider, rather than privatization.

The first company that has come forward to show an interest in this plan is the Walt Disney Company. As was reported recently on ANN, the Disney Company requested waivers from the FAA to operate drones on their parks. Flight restrictions are also associated with their parks that entail FAA monitoring and enforcement. Huerta says, “It would simply be easier for them to pay us for the airspace and run it themselves.”
 
The concept being put forth would give the Disney Company a block of airspace that is a radius of ten-miles from the center of their park and up to, but not including, 5,000 feet above the surface.  This airspace would be under complete control of the leasing company, in this case Disney. Disney will be required to control any traffic they approved to enter the airspace and they may restrict the airspace to Disney traffic only at will. This would eliminate the need for a drone operation waiver or FAA flight restriction management.
 
Disney will also be responsible for security within the airspace and they have indicated this will be achieved with a fleet of Robinson R-22 helicopters (Disney CEO, Bob Iger, thinks they are cute). They’ll be painted black, with the Mickey Mouse ear symbol painted in white for identification.

 
A defense system for the Disney airspace will also be developed, and both the Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have indicated an interest in submitting a bid. An unnamed executive at Lockheed Martin said, “This is one contract were not going to lose to a Mickey Mouse company that doesn’t know how to design an airplane with a tail.” Northrop Grumman has yet to be heard from.
 
In the alphabet soup of airspace designations, it is proposed that this new airspace to be operated by Disney will be called airspace class “Metro-Metro” (MM). The first MM airspace will be established over the Disney parks in in Florida and California.

FMI: www.faa.org