Turnover turmoil buffets air-control system

Addressing the PATCO Effect
More than 8,700 air traffic controllers were hired after President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association in 1981.

In what’s commonly called the PATCO Effect, the first big wave of post-PATCO controllers began hitting the retirement age of 56 in fiscal year 2007. More than 820 controllers retired, 29 percent more than the agency had projected.

The FAA’s controller workforce plan says nearly 5,000 more will be eligible to retire in the next two years.

As the experienced workers have departed, the FAA has gone on a hiring spree, with an eye toward taking on about 15,000 new controllers by 2017.

The FAA hired 2,196 controllers in fiscal 2008, its records show. Only 720 had previous experience in the military or at other FAA facilities. The rest, 67.3 percent, were developmental controllers.

The FAA said developmental controllers were closely supervised by fully certified controllers and were never assigned duties for which they weren’t qualified. FAA Administrator Randolph Babbitt told Congress this month that the agency always made sure that “the right number of trained controllers are in the right place at the right time.”

But Forrey, the president of the controllers union, said the FAA was “jamming the system with a bunch of trainees.”

“It means that there’s a whole lot less experience going on out there working the airplane,” he said.

Busiest radar site could be overwhelmed
The level of inexperience is “particularly critical” at the Southern California radar facility in San Diego, or SCT, the nation’s busiest radar control center, the Transportation Department’s inspector general reported in April.

What is an air traffic controller? The federal government specifies that air traffic controllers “coordinate the movement of air traffic to make certain that planes stay a safe distance apart.” “Their immediate concern is safety, but controllers also must direct planes efficiently to minimize delays. Some regulate airport traffic through designated airspaces; others regulate airport arrivals and departures. ... “During busy times, controllers must work rapidly and efficiently. Total concentration is required to keep track of several planes at the same time and to make certain that all pilots receive correct instructions. The mental stress of being responsible for the safety of several aircraft and their passengers can be exhausting. Unlike tower controllers, radar controllers also have the extra stress of having to work in semi-darkness, never seeing the actual aircraft they control except as a small ‘bleep’ on the radarscope.” Source: U.S. Labor Department

Because of new hires, there is no official staffing shortage at SCT, where the overall number of controllers has held steady. But the number of those controllers who are fully certified has plummeted — from 236 in 2004 to 161 in January, the end of the study period. Seventy-six controllers were working without full certification. And 52 of them — or 68 percent — were new trainees with no previous certification, the report said.

By the end of this year, controllers still in some stage of training will make up more than 40 percent of the site’s active staff, the inspector general projected, which could “overwhelm the facility’s training resources.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the certification pace was unacceptable. Because STC “handles some of the most complex airspace in the United States,” she insisted in a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, it “should be staffed with our most experienced controllers, not more than 100 controllers who are yet to receive full certification.”

Nationwide, the inspector general warned, the FAA should be able to maintain staffing levels but not the experience quotient, concluding that the agency “faces an increasing risk of not having enough fully certified controllers in its workforce.”

FAA juggles new system with old needs
The FAA is in the early stages of a long-term plan to move many of its traffic control operations from ground-based radar to a satellite tracking system dubbed Next Generation, or NextGen.

Radar signals become less reliable over longer distances, which means controllers have to keep planes at the same altitude at least 5 miles apart for safety. NextGen is designed to take much of the physical tracking of flights off the shoulders of controllers, exploiting the accuracy of satellite positioning to allow planes to fly nearer each other, thereby cutting delays and cancellations.

“You fly closer together, both vertically and horizontally,” said Headley, co-author of the annual aviation ratings. “You have more direct flights. You save fuel. You save time. Everything’s simpler.”

NextGen is a sprawling program involving billions of dollars in federal-private cooperative ventures, research, software development and workforce upheavals, and after four years, it remains largely in the planning stages.

In a report to Congress in March, the Transportation Department said the FAA had fallen behind on laying out clear priorities for NextGen. In May, Congress approved a multi-year FAA funding bill that significantly increases NextGen resources and oversight.

Jones of the FAA said the agency was already “taking incremental steps now that will lead us to full implementation” of the NextGen system and that “at some airports, we are using procedures and technology that are helping us gain efficiency right now.” 

In November, the agency approved construction of the first 11 ground stations in what eventually will be a network of nearly 800 facilities relaying real-time satellite data on air traffic and weather, as well as terrain in some areas, like mountainous regions, that can interfere with today’s radar system. “NextGen is now,” the agency said at the time.

Still, NextGen isn’t scheduled to be completed until 2025. While it makes progress on the new system, the FAA must also maintain its current facilities, 59 percent of which have passed their projected useful lives of 30 years. Trying to do both is an expensive logistical prospect.

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