The FAA and controller staffing: A dangerous limbo dance of 'how low can you go?'
Minneapolis Center Facility Representative Craig Boehne has long known his aging members would someday form a sizable parade of talent exiting out of the building and into retirement. But it wasnt until a recent fact-finding mission and ensuing spreadsheet analysis revealed an alarming, imminent crisis that Boehne felt a chill come over him.
This spread sheet just slaps me in the face. And I can tell you that in our break room, people are saying, I dont know how were going to do it, says Boehne, who has calculated that, of the facilitys 297 controllers on board, 12 are eligible to retire today, 71 will reach eligibility within two years and a staggering 243 could leave within 10 years.
Minneapolis just added a third runway and were supposed to be able to increase the amount of planes that can land and take off. Thats fine as long as there are people behind the scopes, Boehne added.
Assuming the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ever hires an adequate number of replacements for Minneapolis and other facilities over the next several years a big assumption, based on current events Boehne believes that will spark another problem: Theres going to be more developmentals in the building than theres going to be people to train them.
By cutting its planned number of new hires for the current fiscal year by 24 percent, allowing retirements to outpace hiring, suspending the Oklahoma City training classes and arbitrarily revising authorized staffing totals for individual air traffic control facilities, the FAA is delivering a clear and dangerous message to controllers trying to hold the system together with diminished staffing levels: Help is not on the way.
According to the most recent FAA figures, the latest official count of controllers in the system, is 14,227. Thats a 7.5 percent workforce reduction since controller levels reached a high of 15,386 in September 2003 and a 3.5 percent drop in just the past 17 months alone.
Making matters worse is a recent pattern of actions taken by the agency to reduce the authorized staffing levels in many facilities, which were negotiated by the union and agency under Article 94 of the collective bargaining agreement.
At the New York TRACON, the FAA finding itself under heavy media attention for a recent spate of operational errors attributed to the facilitys low staffing levels decided to arbitrarily reduce the authorized level from 270 controllers to 190. That allowed the agency to brazenly declare before a gaggle of reporters that the facility, with its 220 controllers, was not grossly understaffed at all but instead was now overstaffed.
The FAAs new staffing standard is based on meeting a bottom line and has nothing to do with the safety of the flying public, said NATCA Eastern Regional Vice President Phil Barbarello, who learned that the FAA has also lowered the authorized levels at every terminal location in his region, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The agency is playing Russian roulette. It makes for creative spin in the media but it has nothing to do with actual need.
At Fort Worth Center, Facility Representative Tim Smith reports, We haven't officially been told that our authorized number has been reduced, but we are about 25 controllers below our last known authorized number (325). We were supposed to get 48 new hires this fiscal year, but that was reduced to 30, and last week it was further reduced to only 16. The manager told me that the [Southwest] region thinks we are overstaffed.
While the agency plays with its math, controller ranks grow thinner:
Orlando Tower (MCO) is set to lose up to 33 percent of its controllers over the next year. The average age of the 71 controllers is 50 and 15 of them are retirement-eligible today. But the facilitys workload is increasing, thanks to the addition of terminal airspace and satellite airport traffic from surrounding areas.
Austin Tower (Tex.) has seen five controllers retire in the past six months. The tower has 37 controllers, eight of whom are eligible to retire today.
The FAAs two Maine facilities, Portland and Bangor, have a combined total of 37 fully certified controllers. Thats down from 48 just a few years ago. Nine controllers (25 percent) are eligible to retire today.
And if Minneapolis Center (ZMP) is any indication, controllers are actually retiring closer to their eligibility date than ever before, the result of increased burnout and the physical and mental toll suffered. At ZMP, the last four retirees left within 60 days of their eligibility date.
The agency is preparing to send an updated controller hiring plan to Congress, but NATCA President John Carr has seen the trailer for this movie already. This plan will miraculously only need the number of people the agency has decided by royal decree that it can afford to hire, Carr said.
The FAA will hype it with buzz words like productivity and efficiency and metrics and all sorts of glitter. Unfortunately for users of the National Airspace System, midnight is fast approaching, and the worlds greatest air traffic control system is turning into a pumpkin.
Carr has learned that the agency has cancelled 12 FAA Academy controller training classes originally scheduled for Spring 2006, and also cancelled plans to hire 30 new Academy instructors. The 1,200-a-year hiring number the FAA has been trumpeting as its hiring target during each of the next 10 years is, quite simply, impossible to do.
Controllers arent the only ones suffering from staffing woes. NATCA Region X Vice President Jim DAgati says the FAA Air Traffic Organizations downsizing plans for regional offices means that the agency will next be attacking jobs that include air traffic support staff, engineers, and contract officers, he said.
In the engineering ranks, we are dangerously close to losing the technical expertise we need to effectively manage improvements and maintenance of the nations air navigation system. And, in the wake of the agencys privatization of flight service stations, DAgati added that, It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see the FAA is on a move for wholesale privatization of the very infrastructure that supports the safest aviation system in the world.
