Ron Levy said:
Depends on who you talk to. NATCA says so, FAA says not. Independent verification is lacking, but regardless of what you think of the conclusions in the report, the
facts on staffing levels and assignment procedures in the
report on the NY Tracon are worth reading. If you don't want to read the whole report, you can skim the
executive summary.
Thanks for the links, and I've already previously read them. I visited N90 last summer and talked to the controllers about the situation and I've made my own conclusions by gathering information from NATCA, the FAA, and the controllers themselves. I'm also going out to N90 again as well as ZNY in Ronkonkoma when I find some time to drive out to LI. Maybe the FAA should start hiring more controllers and getting new students trained which would solve their added expense of paying controllers overtime. The report is simply a report, and doesn't IMO state a real fix to the problem. Those reports that are written without solutions to the problem simply don't solve much at all.
ZTL is one of the most understaffed facilities and some of Don Brown's first hand accounts can directly prove that. Obviously the FAA says they are not because they don't want to have to increase controller salaries and hire more controllers. Remember? The FAA is broke....so they say.
You have to pick and choose the statements you feel are true and which are false. The FAA can write a 500 page report, but many times their is no practical value of such a report. I think if you personally visit the facility and see for yourself, you can make a better conclusion on the staffing crisis ATC facilities across the United States are facing. NATCA and the FAA are going to say completely opposite things, but there is some truth held within some of it. Here's a NATCA press release from August 05' about the staffing crisis in ZOA which wasn't simply "made up":
NATCA Press Release said:
FREMONT, Calif. – The critical condition of air traffic controller staffing levels at Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center was exposed in a dramatic and unsafe way early this morning when the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to combine two busy sectors that handle trans-oceanic traffic due to lack of staffing. The resulting traffic crush left one air traffic controller in charge of 50 planes, most of them Boeing 747s and DC-10s en route to Asia. This is twice the normal traffic load controllers are accustomed to handling on separate sectors that the FAA is supposed to staff with multiple personnel.
At 5 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the controller told a co-worker in an adjacent part of the facility that she was told there was not another controller coming in to relieve her until 6 a.m. Her sector was full of outstanding and unprocessed messages that needed to be relayed to oceanic flights. When she asked for help, the FAA supervisor was not in the control room. When the supervisor finally showed up, he told the controller there was nobody to open up a second sector. At 6 a.m., the combined sector was finally split when another controller came in for a regular shift.
Click here for the full story...
Personally I don't think the FAA is broke nor that they are doing much to help rectify the problem besides trying to impose user fees. The FAA IMHO to try and take the easy way out and try and skew all the reports possible. ...and the 11 controllers that were fired at N90 for not checking a box on their medical form were also re-hired after months of court battles:
John Carr said:
The FAA ate about a quarter million dollars in lost productivity, another quarter million or so in back pay owed and another quarter million in lost productivity for their legal team. They had a side order of shame and embarrassment for having gone zero-for-twelve on their vaunted New York TRACON cases, along with a half dish of crow and a bowl of public humiliation they have only now just started nibbling at. They also ordered a heaping helping of Congressional hearings into their ineptitude, but that will be served later.
...this is quite surprising too. Next time I hear a "what was that!?!" from Cleveland TRACON, I know a controller just got a drop of water on his/her neck.
John Carr said:
Remember, this is the FAA that discovered a leak in the roof at the Cleveland TRACON and....instead of fixing the roof.....decided to install gutters and a downspout IN THE TRACON that ran into a trashcan instead! Not a temporary fix, mind you, but real gutters and downspouts. The only thing missing was the leaf guards. I swear, you can't make this stuff up and if it wasn't so sad it would be damn good comedy.
It's tough to assess when much of the information out there is biased. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I have shared most of mine, and I am very open to reading other peoples comments/opinions too. It's an individual conclusion that is hard to make, and is different in everyone's own perspective.
Respectfully,
Jason
P.S. This wasn't all in responce to your [neutral] post, Ron. I thank you for posting those links for others to read and you brought up a major point in the whole dilema. I was simply following up to my previous post stating that I would chime in with a longer, more in depth post. Thanks!
