by Mike Hall, May 21, 2007

During the past year, we’ve chronicled—with the help of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA)—the serious problems faced by the men and women who every day safely guide tens of thousands of planes and millions of passenger through the nation’s skies.

A staffing crisis—there are 1,100 fewer controllers than three years ago—that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ignored for years is leaving control towers short staffed. The FAA’s unilateral imposition of new work rules and pay cuts for new hires is driving both senior and new employees out of the towers, says NATCA.

FAA shift scheduling practices that are decreasing time between shifts are causing not only controller fatigue and morale problems but also are leaving some towers understaffed and forcing others to close for periods of time. All of these problems combine to pose a serious threat to air safety, according to NATCA.

Says NATCA President Patrick Forrey in recent congressional testimony:

Morale among FAA employees is extremely low. Retirements are far exceeding FAA’s planning. Fatigue among those employees remaining is a major concern. And these are all effects of the unilaterally imposed work rules. We have seen a reduction in air traffic controllers nationwide and an unnecessary compromise of safety to the flying public.

Here some of the latest examples.

On May 11, the FAA was forced to close the air traffic control tower at Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va., for 90 minutes because there were not enough controllers to staff the evening shift at the 24-hour facility. According to NATCA:

In the first hour of the tower being left uncontrolled by the FAA, there were 18 aircraft that taxied, landed and departed the airport. Of the 18, nine were air taxis, eight were general aviation and one was a Lifeguard Healthnet Helicopter, which was delayed by the tower’s closing despite its urgency in needing to be accommodated because it was taking part in a rescue operation.

In Rome, N.Y., the FAA’s radar approach control facility—a 24 hour air-traffic control operation at Griffiss Airfield (RME) that handles 7,000 square miles of air-space in upstate New York—was forced to close late May 2 into early May 3 because of a controller shortage. Says NATCA:

The lone controller scheduled to work the overnight “mid” shift was sick and could not report for work, and there was nobody to call on to fill in. FAA managers didn’t use overtime to fill the position because it would have created another staffing problem in the schedule.

The FAA was forced to transfer control of the local airspace to Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center in Nashua, N.H. There was one serious problem with this plan: The FAA has never trained air traffic controllers at Boston Center on how to work the RME operation and airspace. This facility was in the worst possible position to provide a safe service to aircraft during the hours RME was closed.

Many major air traffic control operations are seeing controllers leave at alarming rates, including 34 veterans in the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center and 19 veterans and trainees in Oakland (Calif.) Air Route Traffic Control Center, where another 42 reach retirement age this year. In Oakland, all the controllers who resigned, says the union:

cited challenges and struggles due to the FAA’s imposed work and pay rules on controllers as the primary reason for their resignations.

The controllers who are left in the understaffed towers are forced to work overtime to meet staffing level standards that the FAA lowered in March in “a wholesale reduction in staffing standards nationwide,” according to NATCA. Further:

Staffing shortages at major U.S. air traffic control facilities is a worsening problem. The FAA has acknowledged in recent published reports that it cannot adequately staff its tower at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport—the world’s busiest—and nearby Atlanta Terminal Radar Approach Control to even the agency’s artificially deflated new standards. The FAA has also finally stopped denying publicly that it forces controllers to work overtime against their will and recently admitted that in Atlanta, a portion of its overtime that supervisors assign to controllers to compensate for low staffing is indeed mandatory, which contributes significantly to a worsening controller fatigue problem that the National Transportation Safety Board reported last month was a serious safety concern.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article | Comments (1)