Air traffic controllers are sounding the alarm—is anyone in Congress listening?

[boutons_deux]

http://images.dailykos.com/images/170321/large/natcastaffing_copy.jpg?1444838776

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432224/-Air-traffic-controllers-are-sounding-the-alarm-is-anyone-in-Congress-listening?detail=email

Repugs will obstruct any solution to this problem

[boutons_deux]

Just days after members of the Professional Air Traffic Controls Organization (PATCO) went on strike, President Ronald Reagan declared the strike illegal under the Taft-Hartley act. Reagan ordered the 13,000 striking air traffic controllers to return to work within 48 hours. On August 5, 1981 Reagan fired over 11,000 workers who refused to return to work. PATCO, who supported Reagan in the 1980 election, was decertified as a union and the fired workers were banned from holding federal jobs ever again. It took the FAA close to ten years to return staffing to its normal level.

( Useful Idiot St Ronnie as POTUS signalling, encouraging the all-out VRWC/BigCorp War on Unions and Employees, just one of his many shitty anti-99% VRWC tactics )


Official Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data shows the agency will miss its air traffic controller hiring goal for fiscal year 2015. This will be the fifth consecutive fiscal year in which the FAA has not hired enough air traffic controllers to keep up with the pace of workforce attrition. As of August 22, 2015, the FAA had only hired 1,178 of a planned 1,772 air traffic controllers, putting the agency 34 percent behind its goal.Of the 10,859 certified controllers, 30 percent are eligible to retire at any time. There are only 1,844 controllers currently in training to replace them. Training controllers takes two to four years, depending on the facility at which the new hires are placed. Once placed at a facility, an average 25 percent of trainees do not complete the training and certify.


At inadequately staffed facilities, the FAA requires controllers to work six-day weeks through the use of overtime. Some of the facilities that serve the busiest and most complex airspaces are understaffed. These include Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities (TRACONs) in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and New York. At these five facilities, the number of fully certified controllers is below the level deemed adequate by FAA standards, and controllers are forced to work six-day weeks.

NASA warned the FAA four years ago that chronic controller fatigue was undermining safety and urged the agency to eliminate six-day work weeks as soon as possible. The FAA had asked NASA to study controller scheduling and its impact on fatigue.

Jim Marinitti, the union’s southern regional vice president, said controllers at the Atlanta approach control facility, one of the nation’s busiest air traffic facilities, have been routinely working mandatory six-day weeks since 2006.

The continual six-day work weeks “definitely raise the safety risk,” said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and aviation safety expert.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432224/-Air-traffic-controllers-are-sounding-the-alarm-is-anyone-in-Congress-listening?detail=email

[DMX7]

That graphic exaggerates the change.

[Spurminator]

If my math is correct based on the info here: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/acts/customized/table?adfy=2011&adfm=1&adty=2015&adtm=7&aos=6&artd&arti&arts=3&asts&astns&astt=3&ascc=2&ascp=1

...total U.S. flights (domestic + international) are down about 6% since 2011. Based on your chart, ATC staffing is down 7% in that same time. So, not very compelling chart for the case they're trying to make.

We should certainly keep an eye on working conditions for ATCers but technology advances are also automating a lot of their work.

[m>s]

None of them even want to hire. I knew a girl who had to wait on a list for 3 years and work outside of her field until a position opened up for that.

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://images.dailykos.com/images/170321/large/natcastaffing_copy.jpg?1444838776

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/14/1432224/-Air-traffic-controllers-are-sounding-the-alarm-is-anyone-in-Congress-listening?detail=email

Repugs will obstruct any solution to this problem

furious dailykos copy paste fail :lol

[Wild Cobra]

If my math is correct based on the info here: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/acts/customized/table?adfy=2011&adfm=1&adty=2015&adtm=7&aos=6&artd&arti&arts=3&asts&astns&astt=3&ascc=2&ascp=1

...total U.S. flights (domestic + international) are down about 6% since 2011. Based on your chart, ATC staffing is down 7% in that same time. So, not very compelling chart for the case they're trying to make.

We should certainly keep an eye on working conditions for ATCers but technology advances are also automating a lot of their work.

Especially since technological advances make it easier to manage planes.

[TeyshaBlue]

:lol failykos

[Wild Cobra]

:lol failykos

LOL...

I like that!

[boutons_deux]

rightwingnuts show up and fuck over employees, esp govt union employees.

[Wild Cobra]

rightwingnuts show up and fuck over employees, esp govt union employees.

Don't cry.

[boutons_deux]

LAX's air traffic controllers are exhausted; overtime's up 2,000% in last decade


But high up in the control tower of the nation's second-busiest airport, the outlook is not so good. Air traffic controllers are working longer and harder than ever to safely handle the enormous volume of aircraft that arrives and departs at this prominent West Coast gateway.

Overtime is soaring and serious staff shortages loom despite warnings issued in 2009 by the inspector general for the U.S. Transportation Department.

The dropout rate for trainees has been as high as 60%, and

many controllers routinely work more than five days a week, raising concerns about fatigue.

The situation has become so bad even seasoned professionals seek reassignment to less stressful airports.

"We are not saying the sky is falling or an accident is imminent. But fatigue is a real thing. We are tired, and we have been grinding this out for years. It is in the best interest of everyone, especially the flying public, that the staffing and overtime issues get resolved."

The controllers association said some of the most acute staff shortages are at five air traffic control centers that guide aircraft into several dozen major airports. They include Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson, Chicago O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston Intercontinental as well as La Guardia and John F. Kennedy in New York.

But LAX is "in worse shape than a lot of the facilities we have concerns about because of the complexity of the traffic," said Patricia Gilbert, executive vice president of the controllers association. "You just can't take an academy graduate and expect him or her to qualify in a complicated tower like LAX's."

The FAA and union leaders attribute most of the problem at LAX to three major things:

deep congressional budget cuts, Thanks, Repugs! crapify everything

an unexpectedly heavy rate of retirements and

the complexities of maneuvering hundreds of commercial planes a day — from regional carriers to international jumbo jets — around a relatively small, 3,500-acre airfield surrounded by urban development.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lax-controllers-20151104-story.html