For more than a year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ignored warnings from safety experts and its own workers about the toll fatigue is taking on its controller workforce and the dangers it presents to the flying public.

That’s why Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), says this week’s FAA symposium on “Aviation Fatigue Management” is:

Nothing more than another publicity stunt, designed to show an appearance of concern….The FAA holding a symposium on fatigue is like the Big Oil companies holding a symposium on high gas prices. While not a crisis entirely of its own making, the FAA must be held accountable for its failed management and policy decisions and brutally stressful, understaffed and exhausting working conditions that have caused the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] to add controller fatigue to its list of most important safety concerns.

He says NATCA will participate in this week’s FAA forum, which is designed to address the fatigue problem in the entire aviation industry from air crews to ramp operations to dispatchers to air traffic controllers. But NATCA plans to develop its own “fatigue management system” for air traffic controllers.

In September 2006, the FAA, after walking away from the bargaining table, imposed a set of harsh work and pay rules that are a key factor to the staffing crisis that has forced fewer controllers to do more work. The ranks of fully trained and certified controllers are down to their lowest levels since 1992. Since the work rules were imposed, more than 2,600 controllers have left their jobs—nearly 20 percent of the workforce. Says Forrey:

The agency has contributed to the fatigue problem by worsening the controller staffing crisis and imposing work rules on controllers in September 2006 that mandated longer work periods and fewer rest opportunities and even prohibited controllers from calling in sick due to fatigue.

Controller fatigue has been well-chronicled, including reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the NTSB. Just in the past few weeks, controller fatigue has been cited for an increase in incidents—including cases of planes getting too close to each other in the air and on the ground—in Atlanta, Cincinnati and Indianapolis.

In April 2007, the NTSB, concerned about the impact of controller fatigue on safety, issued several recommendations and urged the FAA to work together with NATCA to address the issue. But Forrey says the union’s efforts to reach out to the agency have been continually rebuffed by the FAA.

The NTSB has recommended that the FAA develop a system to control worker fatigue, but NATCA has urged the safety board to go further and require the agency to develop and implement such a system for controllers and other workers.

The union repeatedly has called for a resumption of contract talks with the FAA to address the staffing crisis, controller fatigue and other vital issues, but the Bush administration’s FAA has rebuffed every offer. A House-passed FAA reauthorization bill would require the agency to go back to the table with NATCA, but the Senate has yet to act.