ATC isn't only about managing traffic. Each region's government has their own rules and they can choose to enforce new rules at anytime (e.g. https://www.youtub

ATC isn't only about managing traffic. Each region's government has their own rules and they can choose to enforce new rules at anytime (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaTv1vAC3W8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaTv1vAC3W8). How would you enforce a 9/11 like shutdown in a decentralized system? Or if the Internet goes down? The closest thing to that are collision avoidance systems that instruct pilots to go up/down by talking to one another and agreeing on a plan for a particular situation.