Unless you work for or worked for the FAA such a blanket statement does a disservice to a lot of people that do good work at the FAA.
What would your solution be? get rid of it? Privatize it and in doing so how would that improve safety in US aviation. The article’s topic is that the whistle blower program is broke, but how do you get around this valid viewpoint:
“It’s horribly stressful,” Devine said. “Whistleblowers are at the crossroads of the contradictory values we’re raised with in this country: It’s good to be a team player, but it’s not good to be a sheep.
“We trust rugged individualists and don’t like rats or squealers, but we also don’t respect people who look the other way. These are incredibly fundamental contradictions in people knowing who they are when it really, really counts.”
Avweb just completed a survey and at last view over 85% did not want to see ATC privatized. Since ATC is under FAA control that would see to indicate that most people involved in or aware of aviation feel the FAA is doing a decent job.
After reading the article, though it was light on concrete examples, what I could tell is that if there is rot, it is at the top and starts to bleed down, so maybe instead of ridiculing a vast majority of those trying to do a good job, maybe just focus on the asshats at the top, like FAA Administrators that are wholly owned by the political process which these days means big money.
What might help is when an airline company is found violating either regulations or out right laws, stop giving them fines and instead actually prosecute executives that push the “profit first, safety last” mentality.