"Upcoming retirements of air traffic controllers could hamper air travel"

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Upcoming retirements of air traffic controllers could hamper air travel
By Ken Kaye 
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel


About half of the nation's 15,000 air traffic controllers will be
eligible to retire in the next seven years, potentially choking air
travel with massive delays if replacements are not quickly hired, the
controllers union is warning.

Dozens of those controllers work in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm
Beach and are approaching the mandatory retirement age of 56 -- and more
could opt to retire early at age 50.
 
Rather than jeopardize safety, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association warns it will reduce the number of planes in the sky if it
faces a staffing shortage, which would hurt financially ailing airlines.

"Passengers would see delays and congestion," said Steven Wallace,
president of the NATCA local at Miami Center, one of the busiest air
traffic radar centers in the nation.

The union warns a crisis is in the making because the Federal Aviation
Administration has been slow to hire thousands of controllers, who
require about three years of training. Veteran controllers must be
pulled from full-time duty to conduct that training.

"It's a systemic problem that feeds on itself, and it burns the
controllers out," Wallace said.

To compound the problem, air traffic is projected to grow by 6 percent
nationwide and 23 percent in South Florida over the next year, the union
says.

The FAA on Wednesday said it would present a hiring plan to Congress in
December, ensuring the nation's more than 300 air traffic facilities
will be properly staffed.

The plan will take into account traffic growth as well as efficiency
gains made through advanced technology, said Ron Liszt, manager of the
Miami Center.

"We've got our work cut out for us," he said. "But we will be ready for
the future."

The FAA says the union's figures are inflated because only 350
controllers will be forced to retire within the next three years. And
while about 7,100 will be eligible to retire by 2013, Liszt said 75
percent of those who can retire at age 50 continue working.

Still, NATCA charges that the FAA already has let the situation
deteriorate too far because about 5,000 controllers are approaching or
have reached mandatory retirement age.

Most of those were hired to replace the 11,350 controllers fired by
President Ronald Reagan, after the Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization went on strike in 1981.

The union is asking Congress to provide $14 million in next year's
budget to hire and train 1,000 additional controllers. However, it
appears only half that amount will be approved.

Wallace said adequate staff for Miami Center is critical because of its
high volume of traffic. The center oversees an average of 7,800 planes a
day in a 500,000-square-mile region that covers the southern half of
Florida and a large portion of the Caribbean.

On a busy day in winter, the center's 265 controllers guide as many
9,600 planes through 32 radar sectors, and this November, two more
sectors are to be added. In the next three years, 22 controllers are
expected to retire.

Wallace said unless 20 controllers are hired immediately, the remaining
controllers could be overloaded. He said an increase in traffic already
has resulted in an increase in "operational errors," where two planes
get too close.

Liszt countered that the staffing situation at Miami Center has little
to do with operational errors.

"The vast majority of our errors occur at a slow time, not a busy time,"
he said.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport has 27 controllers, with
four eligible to retire now and seven more eligible in the next five
years, the FAA said. Palm Beach International Airport has 43
controllers; officials could not say how many are eligible for
retirement.

The Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
also has been critical of the FAA's hiring practices. It found that 74
percent of the controllers at the nation's 10 busiest airports would
retire within the next eight years. Miami International, the busiest in
South Florida, ranks 15th.

Ruth Marlin, vice president of the NATCA, warned, "the consequences of
inaction are dire."

"Without adequate numbers of certified controllers we cannot increase
system capacity and safely meet the needs of our nation's travelers,"
she said, while testifying before Congress last month. "For the
traveler, the math is simple: fewer controllers equal more delayed
flights."


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