To My New-Found Friends, the Controllers…
… I’ll take the bait and follow up on my pre-Christmas blog that has generated considerable interest from the NATCA community. If nothing else, it is impressive how controllers rally around anything they see as potentially critical of them – which this wasn’t.
First, the point of the blog was two-fold: to highlight two shortages the industry is facing – pilots and controllers; and, to suggest that while the pilot shortage is primarily a manpower (and associated career-incentive) issue, the controller shortage is more complex and heavily involves a technology solution. We live in a tech-driven industry and society, and only a Luddite would suggest that the long-term solution to ATC modernization is strictly a manpower issue.
That said, the short-term problems facing the U.S. air traffic control system may indeed be more about controller shortages (and facilities maintenance, a key NATCA position), but as indicated in the previous blog, having NATCA and FAA butting heads is not the most desirable way to reach a solution. Nor is it desirable to have the controllers who operate the system feeling stepped on, to the point of wanting out. As Paul Rinaldi, executive VP with NATCA says, we need to invest in “NowGen”. I agree … but again, the original blog was intended to be about long-term.
A bit of background also seems in order, considering the bashing of the blog as coming from a cub reporter who just reads an FAA press release and comments. I started in aviation in 1984 at an aviation trade association (NATA) in Washington. In 1986, I was hired as editor for this publication, which was founded as FBO magazine and in 1993 transformed into AIRPORT BUSINESS. Over the past 21-plus years, I have probably been at more airports (as a reporter, not as a passenger) and more FBOs/airport-based businesses than 99 percent of the population. I’ve also been in many control towers, have spoken with controllers, know controllers, and have had this same debate over a beer on numerous occasions.
I have also covered more aviation conferences than most, and ATC modernization has been a hot topic for years. I’ve heard speakers ranging from the president of NAV CANADA to the Reason Foundation to The Boyd Group to Neil Planzer of Boeing (who, of all the speakers I’ve heard on this topic, is most impressive). Interestingly, I don’t recall any non-NATCA speaker ever saying that the long-term solution to ATC lies with more bodies in towers. It’s always about technology.
On the subject of research, I would recommend that the members of NATCA browse through the press releases put out by their organization for the past several years and I challenge them to find one that pushes for new technology. I did; I couldn’t. At the least, it comes off as purely self-serving to have the organization — whose reason for being is controller membership – to always claim that every problem with the ATC system can be solved with more members, er, controllers. If the controllers are truly the caretakers of the system, why isn’t NATCA leading the charge for new technology?
Through the years I’ve been critical of FAA, and I too have doubts as to whether the agency will have the ability to modernize the system. History suggests it won’t. My answer would be to pull the function out of government (except for safety regulation) and privatize it. But then, ‘privatization’ is a dirty word in the NATCA dictionary. So, while Canada prepares to install ADS-B system-wide to the north, we in the U.S. continue to debate the need and how to pay for it.
I appreciate the ongoing interest and comments from the controller community, particularly the measured response from former NATCA president John Carr. It’s a serious subject and the controllers should have a leading voice on the long-term solution. But it isn’t just about bodies; it’s about technology, too.
Thanks for reading. jfi
just a quick hello and congratulations to your nice website ! i’ll visit you again!
I finally decided to give you a little feedback ! well you got it! i love your site !!! no , really, its good…
Johnny –
You sure do know how to win friends I must say.
Most of the people who read the blogs here - including John Carr’s - the main bang - FAA Follies - or even mine at Jetwhine.com seem to be saying that technology alone and even more bodies alone are not the solution, but rather some combination of both.
But the technology solution is years away if it comes at all. In the mean time, we debate the issue among ourselves when few of us have the power to affect any change at all.
It’s a bit like complaining and then being to busy to vote.
Like one of your earlier readers, I too recall that $3 billion modernization plan from the early 80’s that never happened.
I wrote something about Bobby Sturgell and the leadership gap the other day that drew plenty of input.
And I’ll say the same thing here that I said there.
We need to stop preaching to the choir about trying to affect change at FAA. We are a small number of voices to all the junk Congress hears these days.
They are dysfunctional right now anyway.
We need to carry the message to other places - to business blogs, to travel blogs - and all the regular folk hang out.
And we need to get them to help us by trying to make them realize this isn’t simply a people or a technology problem.
It’s a safety problem.
If those two airplanes HAD actually run together at Hartsfield yesterday, the flavor of all these conversations would be much different.
The stats say a “deal” - as controllers call them - is coming and it won’t be pretty.
I’d like to make sure I’m not on that damn airplane when it happens. I’d like it never to happen at all actually, but the current state of management in the federal sector seems to make it almost a forgone conclusion.
Americans are fed up with a government that doesn’t work.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the person elected in November is going to be simply an agent of change, he or she will need to be a pretty good problem solver - and theat means fixing problems BEFORE there is a crisis.
BTW John — stop reading all these posts and get in here and stand up for yourself. If I have to do that at http://www.jetwhine.com you can do it too.
I think that since you have a few dozen posts here, the next round of beers is going to be on you when we all connect. What do you say folks?
John -
looking at your listed credentials above, where you lead into a short arguement for privatization, consider the aviation conferences you attended — where you “heard speakers ranging from the president of NAV CANADA to the Reason Foundation to The Boyd Group to Neil Planzer of Boeing (who, of all the speakers (you’ve) heard on this topic, is most impressive). Interestingly, (you) don’t recall any non-NATCA speaker ever saying that the long-term solution to ATC lies with more bodies in towers. It’s always about technology.”
Well, yeah….. you seem to be attracted to conferences/speakers who ALL HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN PRIVATIZATION, are anti-union, and are in the ATC TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS. So, yeah, you’ll hear a LOT about the virtues of snake oil if you attend a conference put on by the snake oil companies, or attend to speakers who work for or have interest in those companies! DUH!
If you think controllers are against tech improvemnts, would you say the same of pilots? Of course not. Controllers and pilots are often cut from the same cloth (or at least the same type fabric) in that we have a complicated, sometimes difficult job to do and love the gee whiz stuff that makes it easier. We welcome and usually embrace (as much as pilots do — often with a little hesitancy until said technology is well proven!) new tools. But here’s the question: despite the fact that the technology already exists and has been proven to work extremely well, would you start removing pilots from aircraft? Would you start replacing the ‘human error’ factor from the cockpit? I’m guessing not. Use the same logic used to answer that question, and ask the same question of the controller’s position. Do you really want a humanless ATC system? I think not. And I don’t think your family would, either.
john -
Looks to me like your ego is in the way of good reporting. Please recheck your facts on NATCA and it’s invovlement with developing, designing and implementing new technology in the ATC workplace.
As far as privatization goes, to compare the US system to any other system in the world is silly at best, dangerous at worst. The size and complexity of the US dwarfs any other airspace system. To put into the hands of a money making entity would be a huge mistake for taxpayers, for users, for the security of the US itself. (Do you want a TSA like workforce separating your wife’s flight from the a/c carrying your kids? I don’t).
Economically, think of these points - there are reasons pilots from all over the world come to the US to train. From Private, GA to Corporate to Airline to Military, pilots come here to train and fly in our system because they can afford to and because it’s the best and safest anywhere on the planet. Privatization would squash GA much like it has done in Europe, Australia, and even Canada is experiencing troubles. Not to mention the fact that privatization almost always ends up costing MORE, not less.
As far as your choice of aviation conferences go, it seems more like a list of corporations selling thier concepts of ATC (and I do mean SELLING) and politically conservative, anti-union, big-business think tanks whose members are often corp execs and are on the record of supporting privatization anywhere in government….of course they are - they’re in the Privatization Business!
Sir-
You are doing a disservice to yourself and to your readers, many if not most of which are in the ‘flying’ business.
Please consider the fact that your first opinions on the controller issue may, yes MAY, have been wrong (gasp!). For whatever reason, your facts were thin, misapplied, or perhaps just incorrect. Your conclusions and opinions, based on those fact, were then flawed and should be revisited.
As far as your insinuations about the ‘reason for being’ of NATCA, you should be informed that NATCA represents ALL controllers, whether they are members of NATCA or not. Any controller, be they dues paying members or controllers that prefer not to join the union, are within the ‘bargaining unit’.
Much of the uproar you hear from controllers was happening well before out current contract dispute with management — NATCA has been warning the FAA of the coming controller shortage years ago. it dosen’t take a rocket scientist (or a cub reporter) to figure out that if 90% of our nations controllers were all hired within a 5 year period (after the Big Strike), then you can expect them to retire in roughly the same timeframe (as we are forced out by age 56…). The deplorable way the FAA management is currently treating it’s greatest assets — it’s own words to describe it’s employees — is only serving to push many controllers out the retirement door (and many trainees are just flat out quitting!) way earlier than they would have otherwise, exacerbating the situation. Whether the FAA should have chosen to hire more controllers earlier, or pursued technological answers to this problem was not NATCA’s call. The point being that NATCA was pushing for the FAA to do SOMETHING to alleviate the coming problem, which by the way is a SAFETY problem, not a let’s-raise-the-membership-numbers-of-NATCA problem. And if you think NATCA is not worried about the safety of the flying public, then you sir don’t have a clue about us at all.
technology huh. New stars display, color radar, new control tower, new radar room, traffic management displays. Explain why our takeoff and landing operations are below 1993 levels. Record numbers of passengers. Jam packed aircraft. Refer to this link. Historical Data for Seatac
http://www.portseattle.org/downloads/seatac/2006activity.pdf
Maybe the fact that they don’t ever address manpower is an indication that they really don’t understand the problem, John.
First, most air carriers fly at 150 knots on final, roughly 2.5 miles every minute. If an airport can document a 50-seconds-or-less average for an arrival to exit a runway, then the airport may have a waiver to reduce the standard separation (somewhere between 3 and 5 miles, depending on wake turbulence characteristics) down to 2.5 miles. That means one aircraft lands, and has about fifty seconds to exit the runway or let someone in the tower know it isn’t feasible. At that point, the tower has a safety margin of anywhere between ten seconds and one minute to let the next arrival know it can’t land on the runway. Every runway dedicated to arrivals at a major metropolitan airport has a capacity of something like 60-64 aircraft every hour, with additional arrivals either incurring delay or using a gap between departures on another runway.
With more runways and simultaneous precision approaches usable in bad weather, the arrival rate at an airport can reach into the mid-100s, as with IAH. But it’s ultimately about the runways available, because if IAH has an airplane blow a tire on one of its arrival runways, its capacity just shrunk by 25-30% until ground crews can clear that runway of the aircraft and any debris.
If the pilots and passengers are comfortable with their aircraft touching down on a runway a previous aircraft has yet to vacate, these standards can shrink and accordingly capacity can rise. Of course, then one has to deal with the possibility that one airplane can hit another as it rolls out the runway, that does not exist if your separation rules only permit one aircraft on a runway at a given time.
But building more runways doesn’t solve much if you don’t have the taxiways and gate space to accommodate arrivals, either. Only one airplane can occupy a given space, unless we try engineering subterranean gates for passenger aircraft in the U.S.
None of the technological solutions currently proposed do anything meaningful for capacity at the major metropolitan airports, because passenger aircraft cannot fly much more slowly than 150 knots and no one is comfortable with putting two passenger jets on the same runway at the same time. Satellite-based radar? Okay. ADS-B? Fine. What does any of that matter? There needs to be a sequence, and there needs to be spacing. If FAA and the contractors don’t like that they’ll need a system as good as the human one they’re replacing before we advocate replacing ourselves, too damn bad.
Well sir I am glad that you responded but I am disturbed by your unwillingness to even consider that you may have been wrong. Under Jane Garvey we had a working relationship with the FAA with collaborative design and testing of new technologies. This was described as the “test a little, build a little” approach and it was actually worked. Now the FAA has eliminated any controller involvement in the design and implementation process - wouldn’t you as a pilot feel some trepidation if a new aircraft/cockpit was designed without ANY actual pilot imput? The NAS system is in the midst of a slow motion implosion, why must we wait until a pink mist is falling on our head to act? That is what motivates us that work or in my case worked for the Tombstone Agency, we hold it together in spite of the obsolete equipment and the mismanagement of the FAA! Remember, most who move into mngmt do so because they were weak, scared, inept controllers, and they resent the ones they left behind who actually could do the Job! I hope you continue to listen and do some more research, we as controllers expect perfection, so get busy, check out the responses you recieved, look into the links and consider that you made an error or two in your assumptions. I look forward to your next post.
>>having NATCA and FAA butting heads is not the most desirable way to reach a solution. Nor is it desirable to have the controllers who operate the system feeling stepped on, to the point of wanting out
I suggest you go to http://www.faafollies.com and read the response that John has so conveniently deleted.
Awfully easy to hit the delete key when a response refutes everything you say isn’t it?
Wish I had the delete key for some of these pesky airplanes in one of the afternoon pushes but I don’t have that option.
I have to be 100% right 100% of the time or people die. Just that simple.
Even a “cub” controller has to be perfect. We can’t just reprint FAA press releases and call it our own words without checking facts like you can.
At my little ATC facility, we use ARTS 2E. We can only see precipitation and have to ask the pilots if their NEXRAD can see weather cell intensity. Modernization is a long way down the road for this system.
Mr. Infanger, I find your background interesting. I’m sure you are sincere about your experiences at airports and conferences enhancing expertise. I would point out that I can’t find that you are a pilot turned reporter, nor controller turned reporter. You are a reporter that has an aviation beat. Which is fine.
However, if I deliver bread to local hospitals in New York, that doesn’t make me an expert in the medical field. As a pilot,(commercial and instrument rating), and a soon to be retired air traffic controller, I find fault with your previous blog and the cynicism of this blog.
When I was hired in the 1982, the FAA had announced a $3 billion modernization program. When Administrator Blakey testified about the progress of the SAME programs in 2003, the projects were over $30 billion over budget, and wouldn’t be completed for another 10 years.
IBM was in charge of the AASS (Advanced Automated Sector Suites) which was eventually terminated in the mid 90’s after the FAA spent over $8 Billion of taxpayers money. One program. Eight Billion gone. That is more than the GDP of 100 countries.
Now the FAA wants the blessings of the public to write checks for billons more on technology that doesn’t exist. The same thing that the FAA did in 1982. Just as a side note, the monies of cancelled programs and cost overruns from these “black hole” projects is equal to total controller salaries from 1982 thru 2002.
I would agree that technology will certainly be an enabling process to help controllers move more aircraft thru the sky in a safe manner. But as this link will prove, even two new highly advanced aircraft can collide when they are the only two airplanes within 20 miles of each other. http://www.aero-news.net/Community/DiscussTopic.cfm?TopicID=3788&Refresh=1
I do hope that instead of dissing the people who use the technologies of today and tomorrow, you will ask the thought provoking questions of the same professionals that will shed light on the virtues and shortcomings of said technology.
Paul Cox (Blue Eyed Buddhist) from Seattle Center posted a very eloquent and factual response to your challenge. Yet you apparently do not have any integrity or courage and decided to delete it. Be a man, and be a “friend” to the controllers.
I’m a controller trainee (note the “trainee” part, which the FAA constantly leaves off when giving out hiring figures) and have followed the NATCA/FAA struggle for years now. While yes, NATCA is full of Type-A aggressive people, at the same time they are people who can see the big picture even though they’re down in the trenches. Look at the FACTS - numbers do not lie. There is more traffic, fewer controllers, and NATCA has been talking about this situation for years.
The FAA loves showing off places like Potomac TRACON which are new, big, and pretty. What you don’t see are the hundreds of facilities around the country which are still operating off early 1970’s-era scopes, using highly outdated communications equipment, and having to constantly use “workarounds” for everyday traffic.
I love technology and love getting new toys to play with. At the ATC Academy, I trained on STARS, the newer radar scope system. It has many new tools that are absolutely useful for controllers, including better conflict avoidance and distance measuring tools. Yet out here, in the real world, the FAA has dragged its feet implementing it around the country. The result is hundreds of FAA facilties nationwide are still using that same ol’ 1970’s-era technology.
The DOD air bases in our area have STARS, yet the FAA facilities don’t. When representatives, pilots, officers, and controllers from the DOD bases come over here, they’re all shocked about the conditions we’re working in and the equipment that we’re using.
The best comment to this blog hasn’t been posted here - it has been blocked by Mr. Infanger. It can be found at http://www.faafollies.com - the Wed. Jan. 9th update.
I invite Mr. Infanger to travel to Memphis and follow a center controller around for a week. Or any other city with a center or a FAA control tower - shadow a controller and find out exactly what the job is like from the trenches. I’ll even put you up in a posh hotel for a week. You’ll need a comfortable place to rest between shifts.
Please post the follies answer to your challenge.
Hi John,
Before I got into ATC I earned a degree in Physics and am a member of Sigma Pi Sigma the physics honor society. I think technology is a wonderful thing but understand that it has its limits. I’ve scored in the 99th percentile on the GRE and NTE standardized tests, so while I certainly have my blind spots (as any human does), I can pretty readily refute any argument that I might be a “dummy” or a Luddite. It may one day be possible to completely automate ATC - but they will probably automate driving your car first. (a question – how comfortable will you be sitting in a bus without a driver and watching the exterior traffic careening towards your vehicle?). I think “Next Gen” could be a very useful tool if it is ever perfected to the degree where it can safely be implemented in someplace outside of Alaska or a foreign country with less than 10% of the air traffic that exists in the USA. I imagine someday it may be possible to rely on the latest version of TCAS to prevent planes from trying to share the same airspace. Can you imagine the situation where an aircraft is flying up the Hudson river on approach to LGA with JFK & EWR arrivals and departures nearby and the pilot receives a TCAS resolution for a GA aircraft that has climbed above the VFR corridor and the pilot’s response to the TCAS resolution generates a ripple effect of TCAS resolutions from all of the adjacent aircraft over Manhattan. When do you think there will be a FOOLPROOF computer system to handle this?
Next Gen has many good possibilities for the future but the FAA’s claims about it’s utility are grossly overblown. The countries already using GPS technology for ATC services maintain similar or larger separation standards compared to in the USA. The reasons for this have nothing to do with ability to precisely locate aircraft. It has to do with issues like wake turbulence and reaction time – consider, two planes closing at 1000mph (500mph each) which are considered to be safely separated when three miles apart. When something goes wrong i.e. the aircraft going south descending from 33,000 to 29,000ft and it lingers too long at 32,000ft into the path northbound aircraft, the humans responsible, i.e. the controller and or pilots have 12 seconds to observe the conflict and react. Now admittedly, a good controller will have anticipated the potential conflict and resolved it before it gets to this point and I’m certain you can program a computer to anticipate these things as well but the real question is, what happens when things go wrong? Would you rather have an experienced controller dealing with it (i.e. the doctor with 20 years experience, not the 2nd year medical student) or a computer? How much are you willing to reduce this reaction time? (i.e. the margin at which the computer will “light up” and go “Houston, we have a problem here”). Do you want the pilots to be assuming the role of controller – well, perhaps if you remove “on time performance”? Do you think pilots can set up their own sequence of arrivals into Atlanta Hartsfield airport? What happens when a B757 blows a tire and gets stuck on the runway?
One of the problems that I’ve noticed with folks who make a living by thinking without doing is that they believe that there is always someone who will show up with a magic wand and…viola! New technology will save the day! I wish it were that easy.
One of the observations that I’ve made about being an air traffic controller is the fact that 99% of the time the planes in my own small regional airport will do fine without my help, oh sure, it will be a lot sloppier but most of the time no-one will mess up their paint job….most of the time. The most important part of my job isn’t making sure that Southwest airlines doesn’t get delayed. The most important part of my job is as a safety net. My job requirement is (at a very basic level) is perfection – which doesn’t exist. 99.9% of the time everything would be fine without me doing my job. Because I’m doing my job that becomes 99.9999% of the time (or hopefully better).
The FAA business model appears to be aiming at trying to determine how many strands they can pull out of the safety net of ATC and still have the system function. The emphasis in the last couple of years has clearly emphasized cost savings ahead of safety. I mostly do my job well in spite of management, not with their aid. You may be familiar with the Peter Principle? The FAA literally runs on the Dilbert Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle. There are plenty of examples of weak controllers screwing up and then moving into a desk job (whence begins the climb). Believe me, my supervisors can barely do my job, my manager might barely understand my job and the folks above him and then down in Washington seem to operate from the belief that we make widgets instead of hundreds or thousands of daily decisions any one of which, if made in error, may result in the loss of hundreds of lives and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
From where you sit, it may appear that air traffic controllers are an over-reactive union with a bunch of “hit-men” looking to silence anyone who disagrees with their point of view. I would suggest that it would be more accurate to portray us as a group of professionals who are very passionate about what we do and very concerned about where the FAA management is taking an organization which we justifiably believe to be a vital element of public infrastructure and public safety. I have said numerous times that I wouldn’t object that strongly to working without a contract and having my pay and retirement effectively frozen with little opportunity for advancement and no prospects of getting a job elsewhere without having to start my life over, if I only had even a small degree of confidence that the people in charge actually had a clue about what they are doing. Unfortunately, I have zero confidence in the folks in FAA headquarters when it comes to Air traffic Control. All they seem to care about is union busting and funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to pie-in-the-sky programs which may have some utility in the long run and will most certainly make their future employers very rich. It worked for Marion Blakey, who got a very comfortable (and probably illegal) job for (purportedly about) 700k/yr. I’m sure that Mr. Sturgell & Mr. Krakowski and others have similar prospects in mind. But please don’t suggest that air traffic controllers are anti-technology. It is just that most of us are more concerned with having tools that work and not just the latest whiz-bang gimmick.
John,
I find the list of people speaking about the new technology we need quite interesting. Were any of them air traffic controllers? I ride in a lot of airplanes, and read a lot of articles; does that make me an expert on building airplanes or publishing magazines?
I have a GPS in my car, it is great for getting where I want to go without getting lost, but does it help me get down the expressway at 5:00 pm any faster? No, building more lanes on the expressway eases traffic jams; just like runways and taxiways at an airport. Why is this simple concept so hard for people to understand?
All of the bells and whistles the business people are giving speeches about won’t do a bit of good if the aircraft has an electrical failure or shuts off a needed device. Think about September 11th when the hijackers shut off the transponders, how did the FAA track the aircraft? Good old fashioned ground based RADAR; it’s been around since the 1930s I believe, and does a fabulous job tracking aircraft.
ASDE another wonderful piece of equipment does a fantastic job tracking aircraft on the ground. I wish we had ASDE at our airport; it’s great for seeing if aircraft are on runways or taxiways especially at night or when it’s raining. I told my manager one day we needed it, his response was “no we don’t it’s never foggy here”. I guess runway safety means nothing to him, but we’ve got a great new piece of equipment here that tracks delays for the number crunchers at headquarters. Yeah the FAA knows what’s important.
We love useful equipment that works, not pie in the sky concepts that make great sound bites.
Hey John,
What is the “turn on” date for Nex Gen? I believe it is in the vicinity of 20 years from now. We need a plan to get thru next week, not 2028.
The FAA threw all controllers off modernization teams several years ago. Guess what? Nothing new has come out since then. To say that technology improvements will ease the current controller shortage is naive at best. Controller TRAINEES need to be hired today, and maybe an automated system will be available when they retire. Oh, and when the FAA states they hired 1800 controllers last year, realize they hired 1800 trainees. These individuals won’t be controllers for a year or more, often MANY more. The 1800 they hired this year will probably look more like 1500 in the 4 years it will take them to all certify. They will be replacing controllers who retire in 2012, not the ones who left last year. Training all the new people requires more staffing, not less. The FAA is 5 years behind the power curve on this one. We should have 20,000 on board now, 15000 controllers and 5000 trainees.
More controllers will add to safety, and may improve capacity, but until airports start building more appropriately spaced runways delays will remain. Either that or some kind of quota or size restriction.
If NATCA and the FAA come to a negotiated agreement, some may elect to stay for a few extra years. But I expect most will not. The hatred and mistrust have gone too far.
My friend, Tony Broderick, called me a Luddite about a decade ago. (In that you’ve been in aviation as long as you have I assume you know who he is.) Many of my controller friends said I was against technology — even though I was the one typing on the laptop and they didn’t even own a computer.
Of course, I was the one still using flight progress strips and working without radar when the 1950’s era technology (called radar) failed. By the way, that is still the case. The “new” technology (URET) isn’t certified for non radar operations and the controllers have to revert to using paper strips when the radar fails.
Controllers like technology — actually they *love* technology — they just insist that it works. For some reason, that just irritates the folks trying to sell the FAA another billion dollar piece of junk. They say we’re Luddites and “anti-technology.” It doesn’t hurt my feelings.
Technology to replace controllers. Good idea. It’s the same one they had in 1981, the year I hired on. I retired at the end of 2006. Tell me how many controllers technology replaced in those 25 years ?
http://gettheflick.blogspot.com/2007/07/faa-history-lesson-july-26.html
I like history. I hate repeating it.
Don Brown
http://gettheflick.blogspot.com/
Sir,
I applaud you for sticking your toe in the waters on this one and I’m sorry those on both sides (FAA and NATCA) are often too heavily invested in maintaining their place at the table with these issues to get it done right. That said, as a veteran controller who embraces the prospect of new technology to protect the flying public, I am very concerned by the FAA’s failure to properly include the people who actually have to do the work in the development and testing of new technologies. In all honesty, do you want someone with limited actual knowledge of what it takes to work airplanes developing technology for those that do it? Frequently, the agency gets an idea (Sector Suites or NextGen, for example) and runs with it, utterly failing to take into consideration the factors that come into play when trying to bridge the gap between existing process/ technology and the latest and greatest they roll out. NextGen won’t work without radical, practical and tested changes to the existing separation standards, especially in this day and age where delays are of such importance. What’s the point of putting more airplanes in the air and letting them fly a little closer if the runway acceptance rates don’t change? I can do it but why should the passengers be subjected to more time in holding in the vicinity of their destination while waiting in line for a spot to land? Of course, putting more aircraft in my airspace and making me busier doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies when thinking about summer thunderstorms but, if you’re okay with that, why don’t we reduce the lane size on our roads to eliminate highway congestion?
Practical, workable solutions require collaboration between all of the players and the FAA has done their utmost to ensure the biggest players aren’t included. That should be serious reason for pause, even more so when you consider the implications of the former administrator going to work for an organization that stands to profit handsomely from the implementation of the technologies they brought to her agency.
Bob, I also first interpreted your comments as implying controllers are “dumb”. Although I am a controller, I was smart enough to get past that reaction and realize I agree with you. Five years ago I was railing against my Union and stating “more people doing less work for more money is wrong.” Casting our current situation as a typical Management versus Labor dispute is one of the major hurdles that needs to be overcome. I have always valued my work as a civil servant. I serve the people of the United States of America in a unique way and take pride in that service. Please consider that perhaps both sides have fought misguided battles. I currently work at Phoenix Approach, a top 10 busiest airport in the country. Four years ago we had over 70 controllers certified to do the job that I do. Today we have 47 fully certified and 6 partially certified controllers. Next week we lose 2 and within six months we are guaranteed to lose at least 4 more. There are an additional 12 (including myself) who can go at any time. I’ll acknowledge that 70+ is too many. Please consider that under 50 might be a little dangerous? Our positions are frequently combined. We work twice as much airspace with two different frequencies often. The “handoff” positions, an extra set of eyes and someone to do coordination between controllers, are open less than half as often as last year. This has a negative impact on safety. I am not crying for more money or less work. I am screaming that people are going to die because of this “Management versus Labor” dispute while I spend every bit of energy and experience I have trying to prevent it.
John,
I am an Air Traffic Controller and love technology. You seem to think that controllers are against technology because they will replace controllers. I assure you that is wrong. Controllers want to have better technology that will enable them to do their job better and more efficiently. One of our big complaints is that air traffic controllers were “uninvited” to participate in the R&D of technologies to be used by the FAA. Apparently we slow down the implementation of “bad” technology.
There may come a day when the use of advanced technology can start reducing the need for large numbers of “bodies” to do the job. That day has not arrived, but the FAA is operating like it has. You need the proven technology to be put in place before you start reducing the need for bodies.
ADS-B in and of itself does not help to decrease a controllers work load. It will increase the update rate of display location. It will allow some automated information to be sent via datalink. It will give pilots more flight information and weather. It will also allow pilots to be monitored on more approaches to more airports….which will probably require more controllers to monitor more airplanes. However, ADS-B does not separate airplanes. Right now the only technology that can separate the large numbers of aircraft in the air is the human brain. Hopefully an experienced, well trained, and well rested brain!
A computer is a wonderful tool that can crunch numbers at light speed. But computers do not have the ability to learn. They can only do what they are programmed to do. The human brain is slower in the numbers crunching game, but is a vastly superior technology when you consider the ability to reason, the ability to adapt, the ability to learn, besides being able to see, speak, hear, feel and smell. That is the reason why it may take years, if ever, to produce a technology that can fully replace a human air traffic controller. I am not confident that the FAA has the ability to come up with that technology. Private industry has to be involved in research and development. I am sure that NATCA would be glad to work with private industry to develop better tech.
Privatization has its pros and cons for controllers and for aviation:
For controllers there is the stability of a government job and retirement. However government politics can be difficult to deal with.
Aviation as a whole would suffer under privatization. A private corporation would cater to the airlines to the detriment of business and private general aviation. That has been proven in every country that has gone private.
bob b - I am not sure if you intended it, but you seem to be calling ATCs dumb in general. Is this from personal experience, or just an impression you have? lol I am kidding, I don’t believe you meant it that way.
What I will say, though, is that I agree. I have been impressed with the people that I have seen hired. However, this is where the FAA has really gotten it wrong - because these people who are now being hired went into the ATC college process (CTI) under the impression that they should expect a certain wage and benefits package. Lo and behold, they get done with school, and are hired at 30% less than the starting point they were expecting.
I have a child who is a HS senior. I cannot imagine suggesting to him, or either of my younger kids, to go into this field at the current wage or working conditions. I have to retire by 56 (not likely I could do the job past that anyway, given many of the examples I have seen as they approach that age), have worked nights and weekends for my entire seventeen year career, and now see my wage effectively frozen for the remainder of my career.
When I compare what an ATC starts at in many facilities to what my oldest was told he could expect coming out of a 2 year school (with good rep) in a technical field, I see that he would be starting in a similar spot. The difference is that his career would not be short, his potential for advancement not limited, and he would be unlikely required to work nights and weekends to make his family life difficult at best.
We do need to strive for efficiency. We need to educate our people on a continuing basis. These are things that a good employer does.
Mine does not, sadly.
As a two term former Chair of the Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council (AFTRCC) I have sat in on many conferences and meeting with the FAA concerning the need to upgrade technology. While my meeting dealt mainly with the need to preserve radio spectrum and increase the number of ATC frequencies via TDMA, QPSK etc., sidebar conversations dealt with many other technology upgrades needed by the FAA to increase safety of flight, airport expansion, etc. Never once did I recall any person saying that the controllers and their union were even involved in the campaign let alone leading the charge. Is there a shortage of controllers; probably, a need for modern technology to be introduced; definately. As a former director of HQ FAA/ASR-100 stated years ago, everytime I get something funded, it is taken away for a congressman’s pet project. All of those at the FAA need to be involved, including the controllers as they are on the front line of aircraft safety. Until then, the FAA will continue to morph into a tombstone agency.
John:
I agree with you whoke heartedly. It seems that every organized people movement believes that hrowing more people at a propblem is the solution. Unions in particular have been terribly self-serving over their histories and promote more people as though that is helping everyone when in fact it only makes the union richer and perhaps “dumber”. Just look at what the current writers strike is accomplishing….nothing! The writers union has actually cost its members all furue negotiated benefits that were coming to them without a strike.
Air Traffic Controlers need better technologies and perhaps smarter people to operate them. More people that are “dumber” ie: bodies filling a slot, is not the answer. That is just plain dumb!
Regards,
Bob Brewster
Thank you for reporting the truth.
Not FAA truth,
Not NATCA truth,
Just the simple TRUTH.
John,
You are still missing the boat!
Technology can fix things. But ATC is not purely tech driven. It’s not like you are replacing traffic cops with stop lights. Someone still has to be there to make the split second decision involving your life.
Perhaps your incredibly naive stance for the future is driven by your backround and employer. Most businesses today are unable to believe that money spent on employees is money well spent. Look at how much better customer service is now that we are talking to India. Or is it…. Another great idea on paper but in real life…..Of course big business can look beyond the dollars saved to realize that their decision is a huge waste of time to the consumer, can’t they???!!!
You my have visited many towers at many airports, but did you understand any of it? By the continued short sightedness of your publication, you are not unlike a dog watching television. The dog sees it, but does he understand any of it???
The FAA has wasted BILLIONS of dollars in my 18 yrs. here. Most on foolish boondoggles thought up by people that think they know what they are saving money. Sound kinda familiar?
What is truly needed is a long term plan that recognizes both the need for the best people and the right tools to do the job. We haven’t had that chance yet. Inempt managers, poorly planned staffing number, programs to increase that and reduce this…. it’s endless. Maybe this is and industry that needs less polititions and screw up, move up paper pushers; and more people that truly should be making the big decisions doing that.
And in eighteens years, I highly doubt that day is coming.
If you want to see what is happening when the FAA Senior Management drives ahead with a technology program after it’s own employees warn against doing it that way, I suggest you google the phrase “FAA FTI failure”.
Then you’ll see.
Ah,as a cub reporter, I’ll have to knock you on this one:
You said: (and facilities maintenance, a key NATCA position),
Facilities Maintenance is not represented by NATCA, they are represented by Professional Aviation Safety Specialist union. http://passnational.org.
By the way- PASS is strongly in favor of many technological solutions- when they make sense. Presviously, PASS members were involved in key design and development issues. Now, however, this Administation has locked out Unions out of all partnerships in developing technology.
The result is that the airspace is LESS safe. Just look at the FTI issues, given under a huge contract to private contractors, that PASS warned would lead to massive communications failures.
It has.
And it will get worse.
Spending billions on Nex-Gen is the wrong answer, and will restrict VFR flyers who fail to spend the tens of thousands to requip their aircraft to be able to go where they can go today.
More concrete - more runways, will do much more, and at lower cost, then Nex-Gen ADS-B will ever do. But Ex-FAA Head Marion Blakey does’t work for the Concrete Companies- now she works for those will will fleece billions out of the pockets of GA flyers.
John,
consider me one of your new controller friends. I worked 5 years in Los Angeles Tower, 5 years at Los Angeles Approach and 15 years at Phoenix Approach. That makes 25 years, and at 48 years old I am now eligible to retire. Even if technology could eliminate the need for all air traffic controllers, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow. I on the other hand may retire tomorrow. Working for an agency which equates my work with being a bus driver is insulting. The lies from tha FAA, and I don’t use that word loosely, are amazing. A simple example that relates to safety: “Controllers can call in sick if they are not rested enough to work” was stated following the Comair crash in Lexington. The truth is that controllers will subjected to discipline and be required to bring in a note from a Doctor if they do this. The immediate, short-term solution is to keep as many controllers like me as possible from retiring now. The way to do this is to treat us with respect and dignity. We sacrifice an incredible amount from our personal lives in the persuit of the service we provide. There will be a lot of pain before the system is restored. It will cost a lot of money and I fear lives.
Now let me ask a question to see if it helps you understand why technology will not eliminate controllers. How long do you think it will be before technology replaces pilots? Why isn’t that the solution to the pilot shortage you describe? After all, the technology is already there and drones are commonly used by the military. The fact is, there will be pilots for commercial aircraft for a very long time for many reasons. Many of the reasons are the same as why there will be controllers. As long as there is a human at the controls, there needs to be a human at the other end to respond to human actions. Improved technology is a great asset to my work and throughout my career it was the controllers requesting new and improved equipment. I worked from 4pm until midnight last night and will work from 2pm until 10pm tonight. I can think of a lot of reasons to retire and not work tomorrow at 6:30am. Technology won’t fix that.
John - I am surprised that you cannot find press releases from NATCA about technology issues. I don’t read them all completely, but I do know that they exist. Here is a link to a page concerning one technology issue http://www.natca.org/safetytechnology/modernizationcutbacksreleases.msp
I do believe that there are not many that deal with new technology - most of our concerns lie in the consistently poor and short sighted implementation of technological improvements that affect our lives every day. Also, as you are aware, our union is spending most of its energy since September 3, 2006, fighting an upper level FAA management structure that has imposed work rules on its entire controller work force.
Every bit of technology we get creates another work-around situation. Hell, even the ridiculous program that we use to sign in and track our time requires us to work around it, rather than just use it, creating either bad data or requiring us to manipulate the program to make it work.
Oh yeah, we won an arbitration requiring the FAA stop using this poor program, but the FAA has decided to ignore that decision.
Don’t get me wrong - we find ways to work around everything that is inflicted, er, um, implemented. Then we bitch and moan until someone gets tired of hearing us and patches our newly implemented technology. In my 17 years as an ATC, these things have remained constant - controllers get the job done, regardless of the circumstances (I was there on 9/11, and had to listen to a few of our managers say in shock that they were so surprised that we were able to accomplish what we did that day), and that we are intolerant of incompetence and poorly implemented procedures/equipment “upgrades”.
I could go on and on, but I will stop at this. You say you have been at more FBOs and airports than 99% of the population. Maybe you can consider spending some time with those in the know on the ATC side of the business before you anoint yourself an expert.
Yes, it is about technology and personnel both, to be sure. However, I would invite you to come and check out the system from our side - you might just develop an understanding of why our union MUST focus on the issues it does. I can only imagine what would happen if it did not push and kick and scream and holler about manpower and technology issues the way it does.