"FAA set to restaff control towers"

Friday, July 23, 2004

FAA set to restaff control towers
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON (DC) TIMES


The Federal Aviation Administration tried this week to reassure
travelers that the nation's air-traffic system is safe and adequately
staffed, despite the planned retirements of half the nation's
air-traffic controllers in the next decade.

"We know it's coming, and we're going to be ready for it," Fraser Jones,
FAA spokesman, said during a press conference Wednesday at Ronald Reagan
Washington National Airport. "It's not like they all leave at the same
time." 

The House Appropriations Committee yesterday approved a $14 billion
funding bill for the FAA that would include $7 million to train and hire
controllers. A pending Senate proposal would give the FAA $14 million to
train and hire new controllers. 

The FAA is surveying the nation's more than 300 air-traffic-control
facilities to assess staffing needs. 

"In December, we will deliver to Congress a specific action plan based
on this exhaustive effort," said Don Simons, Reagan Airport's
air-traffic-control tower manager. "Instead of simply writing us a blank
check, this plan will drive our future funding." 

The controllers' mandatory retirement age is 56. Training replacements
can take nearly four years. Veteran controllers earn more than $100,000
per year. 

The retirements are bunched together because most of the nation's more
than 15,000 controllers were hired in 1982 to replace the 11,350 fired
by President Reagan for going out on strike a year earlier. 

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta this year called for tripling
the capacity of the nation's airways in the next two decades. 

In addition to new hires, the FAA plans to use new technology to reduce
the workload of controllers. 

Examples include the ARTS IIIE radar that automates some controller
functions for airports in the Washington and Richmond areas. The system
developed by Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. compiles radar
information from 15 sensors and displays it on a single screen. 

Unless Congress appropriates more money for training and hiring, delays
and safety hazards for travelers are inevitable, according to the
National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), a trade group for
air-traffic controllers. 

"Airplanes will wait on the ground until the few people you have can
talk to them," said John Carr, NATCA president. 

Mr. Carr says the FAA must hire 1,000 controllers a year to keep up with
retirements and growth of the air-traffic system. 

"The time to build the ark is before it stops raining," he said. 

Airport officials in the Washington area say they seen no evidence of
controller staffing problems. 

"We wouldn't see the impact of that, unless there were a lot of delays,"
said Tom Sullivan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports
Authority, which manages Reagan Airport and Washington Dulles
International Airport.


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