The United States suffers an acute shortage of experienced air traffic controllers, which increases controller fatigue, and ploys like the Bush Administration’s opening up of military airspace will not get at the heart of the problems, claims Patrick Forrey, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), the controllers’ union.

Patrick Forrey, President, NATCA

In a 16 November speech to the Transportation Table of Washington, D.C., Forrey laid out his concerns. The Transportation Table is a leading non-profit transportation forum. Forrey’s remarks are important not only for their interpretation of moves to increase airspace capacity during the holiday season, but also for their wide-ranging appraisal of the future of the controller workforce and the likely states of air traffic and travel in this country for the next few years.

Forrey touched on the National Transportation Safety Board’s “Most Wanted” recommendations, which included the addition of controllers to pilot and mechanic flight time and duty time limits and scheduling to reduce fatigue (see ‘Most Wanted’ Safety Recommendations Still Elusive). He also remarked that the Next Generation (NextGen) air traffic control system will not appreciably reduce delays, which are caused by a shortage of controllers and a paucity of airport capacity (see Unprecedented Challenges Face Implementation of New Air Traffic Control System).

Herewith, a substantial (albeit abbreviated) recitation of Forrey’s comments:

“As we enter the holiday season and air travel becomes the focal point of the nation, America’s air traffic controllers are working their 440th day without a contract. …

“The FAA’s imposed work and pay rules have fueled a critical staffing shortage, resulting in controller fatigue, which the NTSB unanimously added to its ‘most wanted safety recommendations’ list. [See ‘Most Wanted’ Safety Recommendations Still Elusive] There were 40 more operational errors this year than last year, and in the past two months, errors have increased over 36% compared to the same time period a year ago. …

“Only once in our nation’s history have we seen conditions in our air traffic control facilities deteriorate to this level of contention between labor and management – that was during the months leading up to the 1981 PATCO [Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization] strike.

“I firmly believe that the level of anger, demoralization and acrimony arising from an overworked, overstressed, and fatigued work force has even surpassed the atmosphere encountered in 1981. …

“We cannot go on strike. But we can retire if we’ve been on the job for 25 years, or have reached the age of 50 after 20 years of service. And nearly 1,000 of our most veteran and experienced controllers did just that in the period from September 3, 2006 to October 1, 2007, mainly out of protest of the abysmal working conditions and unfair treatment they received by the FAA. [For working conditions, see Figure A]

“Don’t believe the FAA spin that they saw this coming and quote, ‘had a plan.’ They have been overwhelmed and caught off guard. Half of the retirees left in their first year of eligibility – the first day!

Double the rate for first-year retirements ever in the history of the FAA. Only 16 of the nearly 1,000 retirements were those who reached the mandatory age of 56. …

“The evidence is overwhelming, convincing and ominous. Of the 11,200 fully certified controllers on the job today, 3,000 have either reached retirement eligibility or will before September 2008. Without a contract, I believe at least 1,500 will go before the end of this fiscal year … And they aren’t coming back.

“These are the men and women who led the effort to shut down the NAS [National Airspace System] on 9/11, and kept the system together as traffic has surged beyond pre-9/11 levels. These veterans used their years of experience, ingenuity and coolness under pressure to help avert disaster, when the FAA’s communications systems collapsed at Memphis Center a few months ago and again at Jacksonville Center just last Friday.

“Our next generation controllers will need many years of seasoning to reach the level of expertise needed to successfully get out of impossible situations, or to move anywhere near the amount of traffic that our veteran controllers do today. That means delays; many more of them. If you thought 2007 was bad for delays, just wait until 1,500 more veteran controllers retire between now and the end of the 2008 summer travel season. …

“Make no mistake about it: Our system is on the brink of a total breakdown because of the careless and reckless actions of the FAA, which failed to get ahead of a staffing crisis years in the making. The FAA, out of a business-first mentality of saving money, is forcing veteran controllers with 20 or more years of experience out the door while they rush to bring in new hires at B-scale wages.

“This includes over 600 off the street in the past year alone, with zero experience who – if they get through the training academy and don’t turn down job offers – are being thrown into a firestorm of inadequate training, crushing traffic demands, and fewer rest periods. …

“The FAA is paying its new hires 30% less than they did before the current contract impasses and subsequent imposed work and pay rules, which has led an unprecedented number of them to quit, due to the inability to make ends meet – 201 quit in fiscal year 2007, to be exact. Many new hire trainees are forced to work two jobs in order to survive.

“We know that many more have quit since the start of this new fiscal year as well. Four trainees at Miami Center quit in October alone because there are more new hires in the building than the FAA can handle and train. Trainees at Miami Center make up 36% of the total controller workforce there, which is far in excess of the 30% that the FAA itself says is the maximum ratio for an en route center; I believe that is still too high to effectively train. In fact, over 50 facilities across the country have a greater than 35% trainee to controller ratio. …

“From September 3, 2006 until September 30, 2007, 953 experienced and fully certified controllers retired. That’s 8.3% of the total workforce of fully certified controllers and 40% more than the FAA projected. In fiscal year 2007 alone, which ran from October 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007, 856 controllers retired. That’s 33% more than the FAA projection of 643. …

“As many of you know, former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey was fond of saying that the lack of a contract would not affect retirements. In April 2006, right after the FAA broke off talks with NATCA, Blakey said controllers, ‘would be acting against their own self-interest’ by retiring. She stated, ‘There is not going to be any mass run for the exits.’

“Blakey was dead wrong. …

“While staffing is obviously our top issue and priority, there are other stories worth commenting on.

“Certainly NextGen [the Next Generation air traffic control system] has gotten its share of coverage, though controllers feel it’s been over hyped and overblown. We prefer to focus on NowGen because if we can’t keep the system from collapsing in the short term, there won’t be a NextGen.

“Additionally, the FAA has some very serious problems of maintenance and equipment to take care of, now that they’ve implemented their ‘Fix on Fail’ policy. Simply put, this would be analogous to the airlines waiting for the jet engine to fail in flight before any maintenance is done on the equipment.

“And in regards to its communications and power infrastructures, while you weren’t looking, ladies and gentlemen, the FAA has stripped away virtually all of the redundancy and backup in its critical systems that power its radar, radio and landline communications equipment, all in the name of saving money.

“Two incidents one week ago illustrate what I’m talking about. Jacksonville Center suffered a 50-minute communications and radar outage that created an extremely unsafe situation, with air traffic controllers in most of the facility left without the ability to talk to aircraft or even see aircraft on their scopes.

“The outage also caused untold numbers of delays involving aircraft headed to and from the lower Southeastern United States, including Florida. Later that day, a power outage forced Palm Beach tower and TRACON to go to ATC-0. At least one aircraft was put into severe jeopardy; a US Airways flight that was low on fuel and had to be worked to a diverted landing in Ft. Lauderdale by a Miami controller working above and beyond his call of duty and outside his airspace.

“Now that the holiday season is upon us, the Administration says they have the answer to reducing delays. Unfortunately, opening up military airspace will have no real effect whatsoever. That’s because there are 7.5% fewer fully trained air traffic controllers on staff at FAA air traffic facilities nationwide this holiday season than in 2006, handling 4% more traffic. If anything, delays will INCREASE this holiday season, not decrease.

“The FAA tried this notion of increasing airspace on a large scale once before, two years ago. It didn’t work in terms of reducing delays. It was called Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum [DRVSM]. It doubled the amount of high altitude airspace that controllers could use for flights above 29,000 feet, by reducing minimum [vertical] separation from 2,000 feet between planes to 1,000 feet.

“How did it affect delays? Well, in 2007 delays were the worst on record! So, clearly, airspace is not the problem. Staffing is the problem, in addition to limited ground capacity at major airports like JFK. You only have so many gates and so many runways.

 “Until the FAA finds a way to keep its veteran controllers on staff to handle holiday traffic, and ALL traffic year-round, and train new hires, the system will continue to deteriorate.”

Figure A
Working Conditions: A leaking roof has led to mold at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center. The contractor working to upgrade the facility, Peachtree Mechanical, Inc., issued a ‘Stop Work’ order, telling the FAA in a 5 October letter: “We take this as a very serious issue and concern, and must act to protect the well being and safety of all of our employees. As you know, the project scope of our work includes the removal of duct work, Air Handlers, and other appurtenances. This work is [in] the housing and manifesting areas that could possibly hold mold and fungus. We have been directed to demolish said items above and we were never given any warning that the possibility of mold and fungus could be present. We have not been notified of the ongoing issues at the FAA by anyone.” Of interest, while the Peachtree employees were removed from the site, air traffic controllers must continue to work there.
	Mold at the nation’s busiest air traffic control facility, the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center. Photo: NATCA
	Trash cans lined with plastic bags are used at Atlanta to capture water dripping from the ceiling. Photo: NATCA

Figure B

Opening Military Airspace Won’t Help   Fox News anchor Steve Doocy on the left, aviation analyst Mike Boyd on the right. Views of Billie Vincent, security consultant and president of Aerospace Services International (extracts): President Bush announced measures intended to curb airline delays during the holiday season, including freeing up military airspace for commercial use. “We can do better,” Bush announced at a White House press conference. “We can have an aviation system that’s improved.” “Great,” said Fox News anchor Steve Doocy 17 November, as he waited for Mike Boyd, an aviation analyst to agree. Unfortunately, Boyd doused the extra airspace as a waste of time: Boyd: What Bush said yesterday isn’t going to fix anything. Doocy: Yeah, but isn’t it going to open it up, at least the people will not experience potentially some of the delays that we’ve all been experiencing in the last year. It seems to have gotten so much worse. Boyd: It’s not going to be any better or any worse, but the point is there is not much military airspace that’s going to make a whole lot of difference. Plus, we still have the dilapidated air traffic control system that can’t handle weather, managing those airplanes, so we’re just as vulnerable as we were last week. Not going to be any better, but it might not be going to be any worse. But this is no solution. What I heard yesterday from President Bush was him reading off a crib sheet. It was really embarrassing. Doocy: Mike Boyd, who will not be going to the White House Christmas party this year (laughter).