KSQL going ATC Zero

TCABM said:
The contract has to be awarded before the new company can legally extend job offers. The new vendor underbid the old vendor by not including locality pay, which can be 45% of base pay or more.

If you’re going to expect me to perform the same job for $20K or more less per year, yeah; I’d walk.

That leaves the contractor trying to find someone qualified for the job who will take the job and that’s going to be hard to do because you can’t just print off a ATC certification card.

Whichever contacting officer accepted this proposal should be fired (I can say that, my wife is a DOD civilian contracting officer).

Now, the new vendor isn’t going to be able to meet the performance requirements of the contract and, after a certain period, the contract can be re-awarded and the new vendor is going to have to convince qualified applicants to apply.
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You can still say that, your wife doesn’t need a specific job to want to hold incompetent govt workers accountable, in fact the American people just did it in mass with Trump
 
ateamer said:
Controllers won’t be working on their own unless they’ve completed training. A different company managing them doesn’t mean they’ll be a bunch of newbies.

San Carlos isn’t exactly in the approach path to SFO.
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I hope we have some current controllers jump in here, because my ATC experience is getting dated, but the problem is that if everybody quits there's nobody to train any new hires. ATC facilities are by necessity self-sustaining - the current controllers train the new hires, who then train the next new hires, etc., forever. And getting rated in a tower, especially one as busy as SQL, is not a quick or easy process even for controllers with prior experience. I'd guess it's at least a few months.

So if the company does find people to hire, who trains them? Hire back the just-quit controllers as consultants? It's not like you can just have somebody from Palo Alto come over for the day to do a little training.
 
DJTorrente said:
Oh, and there is no way the winning vendor could have "forgot" locality pay, especially in the SJ valley.
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Nothing would surprise me honestly. We had a contractor accidently low-ball a building contract because they forgot to include the cost of the concrete slab in their bid. $100,000 oops.

You would be surprised how many public bids are scraped together at the last minute and are full of errors.
 
MauleSkinner said:
At one time (probably in that same 33 years ago range) I was told that an airport that was busy enough to go from uncontrolled to controlled had to have parallel runways to qualify for a federal tower.

Sounds kind of ridiculous, but I suppose they have to make a cutoff somewhere, and it’s no more random than anything else.
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FTG now CFO east of Denver got a tower in 2005, I think. 2 runways but in L configuration. The original reason for the tower no longer exists, and didn’t about 5 yrs after the tower was built, but it’s still there.
 
murphey said:
FTG now CFO east of Denver got a tower in 2005, I think. 2 runways but in L configuration. The original reason for the tower no longer exists, and didn’t about 5 yrs after the tower was built, but it’s still there.
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Federal or contract tower?
 
RussR said:
I hope we have some current controllers jump in here, because my ATC experience is getting dated, but the problem is that if everybody quits there's nobody to train any new hires. ATC facilities are by necessity self-sustaining - the current controllers train the new hires, who then train the next new hires, etc., forever. And getting rated in a tower, especially one as busy as SQL, is not a quick or easy process even for controllers with prior experience. I'd guess it's at least a few months.

So if the company does find people to hire, who trains them? Hire back the just-quit controllers as consultants? It's not like you can just have somebody from Palo Alto come over for the day to do a little training.
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They will hire back the ones they actually want.
 
RussR said:
I hope we have some current controllers jump in here, because my ATC experience is getting dated, but the problem is that if everybody quits there's nobody to train any new hires. ATC facilities are by necessity self-sustaining - the current controllers train the new hires, who then train the next new hires, etc., forever. And getting rated in a tower, especially one as busy as SQL, is not a quick or easy process even for controllers with prior experience. I'd guess it's at least a few months.

So if the company does find people to hire, who trains them? Hire back the just-quit controllers as consultants? It's not like you can just have somebody from Palo Alto come over for the day to do a little training.
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I’m not current but I know a little about it. I use to be one working for Serco at Fox Field, WJF after I retired from the FAA. I hadn’t worked in Tower for 25 years and it took me a little while to get my Tower skills back. A controller with recent experience at a similar airport could get to work in short time. A controller from Palo Alto, PAO, could walk in and be moving metal on day one provided he had the local procedures down already. A Tower Controller from say San Francisco, SFO, who hadn’t worked a GA airport before would take a lot longer. The skill sets are very different.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Nothing would surprise me honestly. We had a contractor accidently low-ball a building contract because they forgot to include the cost of the concrete slab in their bid. $100,000 oops.

You would be surprised how many public bids are scraped together at the last minute and are full of errors.
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Thats becasue the govt specs are thousands of pages long, the govt contracts are incredibly convoluted so in order to actually make any money AND do it properly you would have to bid VERY high (in cost AND schedule) and pad the bid for page 467 paragraph 3 subsection c that you missed. But then comes along joe snuffy who decides they are just going to spit ball it and hope nothing goes wrong in hopes they can pocket some outsized profits. So now the old company looses the contract and everyone is laid off, some months later its discoverd that joe snuffy didnt factor in the concrete pad (or whatever) so the contract fails. Now the govt has to go back out for bid except the first company who had the contract before laid everyone off and they all got new jobs and want significantly more money for the treachery (and possibly legally enforceable severance this time around), everything just got alot more expensive and now you have to deal with individual contracts with employees and severance pay outs if someone screws the pooch again.

Its like you have managers in positions who think they are dealing with some illegal sweat shop labor they can interchange on a moments notice on some dirt work construction crew, its absolutly crazy how the train is even staying on the rails. After Regan I am not sure who in their right mind would ever entertain becoming an airtraffic controller.

Then you have the govt contracting agent who is playing free cell in their non descript office who only comes out when theres an opportunity to flex on someone.

Additionally if there is something in error with spec itself the govt contract agent or "engineer" will usually double down on the error and flex on the contractor.

How do I know, I worked for joe snuffy enterprises for a min lol. What should have taken years to set up and understand/build they were trying to turn out in months.

Its a wonder that we are still the world power, it makes you wonder how inept and corrupt other nations are lol.
 
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MauleSkinner said:
I’m asking about the terminology for non-contract towers.
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Oh
MauleSkinner said:
I’m asking about the terminology for non-contract towers.
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Oh. You’re talking about NFCT’s, Non Federal Control Towers. There aren’t very many of those. There was one in Wyoming not to many years ago but it’s closed now. The city ran it. Deer Valley KDVT was one may years ago. Culver City, right next to KLAX was one. The airport isn’t even there any more. Howard Hughes owned that one. Actually it was Hughes Air corp
 
luvflyin said:
Oh

Oh. You’re talking about NFCT’s, Non Federal Control Towers. There aren’t very many of those. There was one in Wyoming not to many years ago but it’s closed now. The city ran it. Deer Valley KDVT was one may years ago. Culver City, right next to KLAX was one. The airport isn’t even there any more. Howard Hughes owned that one. Actually it was Hughes Air corp
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No…what do you call the tower in Minneapolis? (MSP)
 
MauleSkinner said:
Ok…so to clarify what I was told, in order to get an FAA tower at a formerly uncontrolled airport, it would need to have parallel runways.
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Now I am curious on the terminology. Dagnabit.
I recall hearing/seeing something about why the FAA uses more and more contract towers. Here is what I recall:
1. Due to some aspect of an annual appropriations bill decades ago, the FAA was forced to somehow codify how airports are selected for staffing by direct FAA employees versus contractors. This effectively mean the FAA was put in a situation where if the tower is staffed by FAA direct employees, the FAA will never be able to shut it down the tower.
2. Some aspect of the national union contract negotiation, the FAA did not really consider small airports, so to staff a small, low volume airport with federal employees takes many more than contractors can do it.
3. The color of the money, FAA employees come out of one bucket, contractors out of another. And it is very difficult or impossible to move the money between buckets.
4. Perception is that contract towers are easier to open/close and move resources around to best match capacity vs budget.

However, due to politics and Congress, number 4 does not happen. Which means, #3 is not addressed. Which means there is no incentive by anyone to fix the first two.

Welcome to inertia.

Now my question is, what are the correct terms. And what, if anyone knows is the actual reality of why so many contract towers.

Tim
 
tspear said:
Now I am curious on the terminology. Dagnabit.
I recall hearing/seeing something about why the FAA uses more and more contract towers. Here is what I recall:
1. Due to some aspect of an annual appropriations bill decades ago, the FAA was forced to somehow codify how airports are selected for staffing by direct FAA employees versus contractors. This effectively mean the FAA was put in a situation where if the tower is staffed by FAA direct employees, the FAA will never be able to shut it down the tower.
2. Some aspect of the national union contract negotiation, the FAA did not really consider small airports, so to staff a small, low volume airport with federal employees takes many more than contractors can do it.
3. The color of the money, FAA employees come out of one bucket, contractors out of another. And it is very difficult or impossible to move the money between buckets.
4. Perception is that contract towers are easier to open/close and move resources around to best match capacity vs budget.

However, due to politics and Congress, number 4 does not happen. Which means, #3 is not addressed. Which means there is no incentive by anyone to fix the first two.

Welcome to inertia.

Now my question is, what are the correct terms. And what, if anyone knows is the actual reality of why so many contract towers.

Tim
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Pretty much 2. We’re tired of fighting the union. You do it.
 
Lindberg said:
"One California airport is now without any air traffic controllers . . . ."

Wait until MSN learns that hundreds of California airports are now without any air traffic controllers.
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That’s true, but virtually none of those run 100,000 operations/year, ranging from training to jets, and sandwiched in between the VFR transition routes, airliner arrival routes, and final approach course for SFO. San Carlos being uncontrolled is not only a step back in safety for those that use SQL and those that use SFO, but definitely a huge step backwards in convenience for pilots into and out of SQL when it comes to IFR operations and bravo airspace transitions. I can pick several CA airports where I would close a tower or reduce the hours in favor of getting the needed staffing into SQL: SMX, SNS, MOD, SCK to name a few. These are all positively sleepy compared to San Carlos.
 
clarkmueller said:
That’s true, but virtually none of those run 100,000 operations/year, ranging from training to jets, and sandwiched in between the VFR transition routes, airliner arrival routes, and final approach course for SFO. San Carlos being uncontrolled is not only a step back in safety for those that use SQL and those that use SFO, but definitely a huge step backwards in convenience for pilots into and out of SQL when it comes to IFR operations and bravo airspace transitions. I can pick several CA airports where I would close a tower or reduce the hours in favor of getting the needed staffing into SQL: SMX, SNS, MOD, SCK to name a few. These are all positively sleepy compared to San Carlos.
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San Carlos was once the busiest single runway airport in the country. I wonder if that’s still true. There are a lot of slow airports with Towers that have scheduled airline service. Some companies will not fly into an uncontrolled airport. I think it is an insurance thing. I think it was Sheridan WY KSHR where the FAA would not put a Tower nor would fund a FCT. So the city did it. It’s closed now. Don’t know why.
 
luvflyin said:
It’s behind a paywall. Did they get as much from Robinson as they were getting from SERCO
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The serco contract was extended
 

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It's now being reported that the partiess have come to an agreement with the current controllers to stay.
 
Shepherd said:
JMHO, but some things should not be privatized.
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I can't think of one govt agency I deal with that is worth a damn. Sure isn't the FAA. USCIS is 4+ years behind on cases.

The FAA ATC system is no where close to authorized staffing levels all over the country... but they can fix it???

The FAA was dumb enough to award a contract based on price alone. Someone should be fired for not understanding what they were paying (or in this case) not paying for.
 
Robinson was probably the lowest bid because they removed locality pay and probably hoped the controllers would take a pay cut. No joy. So now maybe they came to agreement to pay the locality pay and reduce their overall profit.

Oh, and now Sacramento Executive has the same problem and extended Serco 60 days...
 
@pfarber

You can thank your congressional critters for if not all, dam near most of what you complain about. USCIS has asked for additional funding for years. The last Congress and administration actually was going to address it, till Congress blinked because it was not politically convenient for some. Now, the chance of getting additional funding is basically non-existent.
FAA has a long time ago tried to "right size" towers and assignments. Congress blocks them, then congress does not give the FAA enough funding to meet all the demands Congress places on them...

Tim
 
luvflyin said:
San Carlos was once the busiest single runway airport in the country. I wonder if that’s still true. There are a lot of slow airports with Towers that have scheduled airline service. Some companies will not fly into an uncontrolled airport. I think it is an insurance thing. I think it was Sheridan WY KSHR where the FAA would not put a Tower nor would fund a FCT. So the city did it. It’s closed now. Don’t know why.
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Interesting—I could see something like that being the story at SMX. I split my time between the Bay Area and SBP, and I go to SMX for mx all the time. I've flown in there a lot. I haven't looked at the actual number of operations there, but anecdotally, I can't for the life of me understand why it justifies a tower. There's only one commercial flight, and no training activity. The odd military jet or firefighting aircraft. Even PRB seems busier.
 
tspear said:
@pfarber

You can thank your congressional critters for if not all, dam near most of what you complain about. USCIS has asked for additional funding for years. The last Congress and administration actually was going to address it, till Congress blinked because it was not politically convenient for some. Now, the chance of getting additional funding is basically non-existent.
FAA has a long time ago tried to "right size" towers and assignments. Congress blocks them, then congress does not give the FAA enough funding to meet all the demands Congress places on them...

Tim
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USCIS is funded by the fees it collects (96% ofits budget to be exact) and it recently raised processing fees (April 2024).

USCIS and almost every government office is a joke and not much more than a handout... like TSA, FAA, DoD the list goes on and on.
 
pfarber said:
USCIS is funded by the fees it collects (96% ofits budget to be exact) and it recently raised processing fees (April 2024)…
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Customs and Immigration is the second largest source of revenue for the US government behind the IRS. Import duties and tariff collection are significant revenue leaders.
 
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