KSQL going ATC Zero

Serco had the entire Western US. Maybe they’re doing the Contracting individually to Towers now instead of region, but I doubt it. This could come up more to Towers in high COLA areas
 
Why would the FAA sign a contract with a vendor who could not deliver on Day 1?

Why don’t they just stay with the current vendor, or tell the new one that they’re obligated to find controllers?
 
dans2992 said:
Why would the FAA sign a contract with a vendor who could not deliver on Day 1?

Why don’t they just stay with the current vendor, or tell the new one that they’re obligated to find controllers?
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I ain’t got a clue. Musta be sumpin’ political
 
dans2992 said:
Why would the FAA sign a contract with a vendor who could not deliver on Day 1?

Why don’t they just stay with the current vendor, or tell the new one that they’re obligated to find controllers?
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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.
 
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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That's not necessarily a bad thing. I have no knowledge of the quality of staffing at this tower (I don't even know what state it's in), but I do know that it can suck to be a "successor employer" and be saddled with ****ty workers the previous contractor never got around to getting rid of.
 
SQL is San Carlos, midway between San Francisco and San Jose on the south side of the bay. It has the SQL identifier but that’s coincidence that Oracle HQ is nearby. It’s been SQL since the 50s. I’ve flown into other airports with SERCO towers, never had any problems. Sometimes the contract controllers are scooped up by FAA.
 
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I've seen several Youtube videos of controller(s) at SQL being unprofessional jerks, and local commenters reporting that such things are pretty common there. With the proviso that such anecdotes can never reflect the whole reality, maybe the place would be better off without ATC?
 
Katamarino said:
I've seen several Youtube videos of controller(s) at SQL being unprofessional jerks, and local commenters reporting that such things are pretty common there. With the proviso that such anecdotes can never reflect the whole reality, maybe the place would be better off without ATC?
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When Ive been there it seem very busy. And without a tower enforcing the restricted noise abatement procedures it won’t be long before the residents (mostly rich) start complaining.
 
luvflyin said:
I ain’t got a clue. Musta be sumpin’ political
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Not likely in the sense of politics that most people know.
There could be some "old boys network" influence going on to change the contracting rules for how proposals are scored; but this seems unlikely.
Most likely in my dated opinion (I left federal contracting a dozen years ago, but still have friends in it), a new contracting supervisor who knows nothing about aviation said WTF, why are we giving more weight to technical merits versus price. Go with lowest price. So, new vendor wins the contract.

Under Federal rules, FAA will have to wait until the new vendor fails before issuing a new contract to someone else.

Last time I did some consulting for the FAA (some minor IT work), FAA had a lot of contracting actually outsourced to GSA. If this is still the case, this could very well be a screwup by GSA focusing on price.

Tim
 
Never been to SQL but I have seen some terrible ATC comms on YT. The one controller there was a pain to deal with based on YT videos.
 
Did a bit of research. Robinson (RVA) was one of 4 vendors awarded off the contract. RVA was awarded areas 3, 6, 8, and 10. You can see the map and towers here: https://govtribe.com/file/government-file/fct-section-j-attachment-j-4-fct-tower-map-2024-dot-pdf

SQL is one of a couple dozen or so FCTs spanning parts of SD, NE, OK, CO, NM, AZ, NV, WY, UT, and CA.

Until RVA starts having the same problems elsewhere, I suspect this is a localized issue. The initial period of performance for the contract is 14 months.

It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out.
 
Shepherd said:
JMHO, but some things should not be privatized.
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Not really privatized; it's a government contract. Everything about it is controlled by the contract, which was approved by the contacting officer and agency. It's unlikely this was a surprise.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
When Ive been there it seem very busy. And without a tower enforcing the restricted noise abatement procedures it won’t be long before the residents (mostly rich) start complaining.
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The airports I've flown that had noise abatement procedures, I wouldn't exactly call tower's involvement as being "enforcing". Granted, they do help with compliance but I've seen other pilots violate without any mention or repercussion.
 
tspear said:
Under Federal rules, FAA will have to wait until the new vendor fails before issuing a new contract to someone else.
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I'm not disputing you that there must be a breach for the contract to be re-awarded, but there is ample private sector doctrine covering anticipatory breach. Admittedly, I'm not yet neck deep in this stuff.

Brilliant that the KO overlooked the whole "ability to perform" part of the evaluation.

Oh, and there is no way the winning vendor could have "forgot" locality pay, especially in the SJ valley. They simply undercut the existing cost structure by 20%, planning to pocket the other 25%, while (wrongly) assuming enough existing staff would just lump it. Good show, chaps! I hope the winning bidder had to post a performance bond.
 
Seems like "ATC zero" ought to qualify as a breach of the contract.
 
Palmpilot said:
Seems like "ATC zero" ought to qualify as a breach of the contract.
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Depends on what the contract says. If the performance measurement is aggregated at the area level, the needle may not even move.
 
ahmad said:
Never been to SQL but I have seen some terrible ATC comms on YT. The one controller there was a pain to deal with based on YT videos.
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In recent years, there was a dramatic increase in quantity and quality of staffing at the tower. Sounds like it was too good to last.

I don't know what the criteria are for deciding whether a tower should be FAA or contract. The traffic levels at SQL have been high for the 33 years that I have been a pilot, so it makes no sense to me for SQL to be contract.
 
tspear said:
...

Under Federal rules, FAA will have to wait until the new vendor fails before issuing a new contract to someone else.
...

Tim
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nitpicking alert:

it's not quite that cut-and-dried. There are likely termination clauses in the contract, including a termination for convenience clause.
 
Palmpilot said:
In recent years, there was a dramatic increase in quantity and quality of staffing at the tower. Sounds like it was too good to last.

I don't know what the criteria are for deciding whether a tower should be FAA or contract. The traffic levels at SQL have been high for the 33 years that I have been a pilot, so it makes no sense to me for SQL to be contract.
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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.
 
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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Palo Alto (PAO) is single runway, and has had an FAA tower for a long time.
 
Not a good look right now to have a bunch of newbies (or nobody) managing traffic in the approach path of a major international airport (SFO)...
 
Stupid question.... What's the actual purpose of a contract tower like this if the new company just uses the same people? Knowing nothing about the inner working, they just seem like a middle man.
 
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