When Will Bush FAA See Air Traffic Controller Staffing Crisis?

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/09/08/when-will-bush-faa-see-air-traffic-controller-staffing-crisis/

When Will Bush FAA See Air Traffic Controller Staffing Crisis?

Members of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) have long warned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about its short-staffing policies. This week, we learned that staffing concerns were voiced nearly two years ago at the Lexington, Ky., airport where 49 passengers and crew died in a Comair flight last month.

According to the Associated Press (AP):

Nearly two years before the fatal crash of Comair Flight 5191, a control tower supervisor at the Lexington airport reported staff shortages that “can cost lives.” According to a safety memo filed in September 2004 and obtained Tuesday by
the Associated Press, the supervisor reported the airport’s radar system wasn’t working properly but that the air traffic manager refused to call in a mechanical specialist because it would mean paying two hours of overtime.

So, apparently it’s not just union members raising staffing concerns. The AP article goes on:

Victor Santore, Southern region vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the memo proves that staffing complaints aren’t just coming from rank-and-file controllers seeking more overtime pay.

“The FAA just characterizes it as union rhetoric, but here you have a member of management trying to warn someone that the facility is short-staffed, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” Santore said.

The FAA employed 15,606 controllers in 2002, according to NATCA, but now that number has shrunk to 14,305 while air traffic continues to grow.

And what’s the FAA’s response? On Labor Day, yes, Labor Day, the FAA unilaterally imposed a contract on air traffic controllers with new rules that pose real and potentially dangerous consequences for the safety of airline passengers and crews, according to NATCA. For example:

Under the imposed rules, controllers who do not feel they have gotten enough rest before a shift would be forced to work anyway. Controllers also can no longer take a break after two hours on the job, a longstanding practice that controllers say was a major way to fight fatigue.

The FAA claims the workers make enough money to be able to absorb a 30 percent pay cut. However, a big factor in controllers’ pay is forced overtime. On average, in some locations, controllers can be assigned 52 overtime shifts per year just to keep up with the huge number of planes in the air, NATCA says.

FULL article at link above.

[Vincardog]

1. IT is all part and parcel of the "Privatization" Ripoff of the American

people. They want to wait until there is no time left to train Air Traffic Controllers then give the contract to some private firm. That firm will skim the money and sent the jobs and radar images to some chinese prison.

When people die they will throw their hands up and say
"No one could have foreseen that a Chinese Air Traffic Controller would have had communication problems."

[Imagevision]

2. With Bushco administration it'll take a DC-10 with 300 aboard

to go down sad to say, Bush, the worst president this country has ever had...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. He won't.

There will be an increase in runway incursions and near-misses due to inadequate ATC staffing; Bush and his stooges will then claim this is because the FAA controllers aren't doing a good job; and they will use this as an excuse to privatize the whole thing. And this will really be a disaster: no safety function should ever involve a profit motive.

[Greyhound]

4. Don't forget to thank ronnie the addled for this, may he rot in hell. n/t