Offers Upgrade To Add Debit Card Chip Reader

ANN April 1 Special Edition (Parody)

With the announcement by President Donald Trump in his FY2018 budget that he supports the privatization of Air Traffic Control, Garmin is first out of the gate with an upgrade to its existing portable GPS models that will allow the use of chip-enabled debit cards to pay expected user fees.

One of the major objections to privatized ATC is that pilots will likely have to pick up more of the cost of running the system with a per-flight fee for the use of air traffic control services. But Carl Wolf, Garmin vice president of aviation sales and marketing, said that the company has been anticipating the fees since the idea was first floated a year ago. “We put a special R&D team on the problem, and while this upgrade won’t make them any more palatable, it will at least make it easier for the end user,” Wolf said.

The system is an add-on for most popular Garmin aviation products at the lower end of the scale. “Corporate aviation departments will be adding staff to handle fees for their aircraft and flights. This is geared more to the owner/operator who will have to pay the fees.” The card reader will be a stand-alone unit which interfaces with the GPS through a USB connection, and works with ADS-B out to transmit credit card data to servers operated by the Air Traffic Control non-profit organization. “We know security is going to be an issue,” Wolf said. “So we’ve added multiple layers of encryption to the transmission. We think that being so early out of the gate on this solution that the eventual ATC non-profit will adopt our algorithms.

“And of course, they’re proprietary,” Wolf added.

The debit chip reader will retail for $599. Garmin is also reportedly working on scanning device that will enable services like Apple Pay to pay user fees.

FMI: www.garmin.com