This is a crosspost from AFL-CIO Now.
Members of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) have long warned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about its short-staffing policies. This week, we learned that staffing concerns were voiced nearly two years ago at the Lexington, Ky., airport where 49 passengers and crew died in a Comair flight last month.
According to the Associated Press (AP):
Nearly two years before the fatal crash of Comair Flight 5191, a control tower supervisor at the Lexington airport reported staff shortages that "can cost lives." According to a safety memo filed in September 2004 and obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press, the supervisor reported the airport's radar system wasn't working properly but that the air traffic manager refused to call in a mechanical specialist because it would mean paying two hours of overtime.
So, apparently it's not just union members raising staffing concerns.
The AP article goes on:
Victor Santore, Southern region vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the memo proves that staffing complaints aren't just coming from rank-and-file controllers seeking more overtime pay.
"The FAA just characterizes it as union rhetoric, but here you have a member of management trying to warn someone that the facility is short-staffed, and nobody's doing anything about it," Santore said.
The FAA employed 15,606 controllers in 2002, according to NATCA, but now that number has shrunk to 14,305 while air traffic continues to grow.
And what's the FAA's response? On Labor Day, yes, Labor Day, the FAA unilaterally imposed a contract on air traffic controllers with new rules that pose real and potentially dangerous consequences for the safety of airline passengers and crews, according to NATCA. For example:
Under the imposed rules, controllers who do not feel they have gotten enough rest before a shift would be forced to work anyway. Controllers also can no longer take a break after two hours on the job, a longstanding practice that controllers say was a major way to fight fatigue.
The FAA claims the workers make enough money to be able to absorb a 30 percent pay cut. However, a big factor in controllers' pay is forced overtime. On average, in some locations, controllers can be assigned 52 overtime shifts per year just to keep up with the huge number of planes in the air, NATCA says.
The result is massive fatigue across the air traffic control system. Overtime and fatigue were the controllers' key issues in the contract negotiations. In April, despite NATCA's offer of more than $1.4 billion in pay and benefit cuts, the FAA cut off talks and declared an impasse. The U.S. House of Representatives on June 5 failed to pass a bill that would have forced the FAA to go back to the bargaining table with the nation's air traffic controllers, enabling the FAA to impose the contract.
A 22-year veteran air traffic controller, who must remain anonymous for fear of employer retaliation, recently sent us a description of the schedule of a typical Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). The controller describes the "quick turn around schedule" as typical.
...every night, hundreds if not thousands of ATC'ers [air traffic controllers] in this country work a day shift (typically from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.), then report back to work that night, eight or nine hours later. I personally have done this on and off for 22 years. This year (we bid different schedules each year and sometimes it can vary) I am assigned the following:
Sun. 4 p.m.-midnight
Mon. 2 p.m.-10 p.m.
Tues. 7 a.m.-3 p.m.
Wed. 6 a.m.-2 p.m.
Wed./Thurs. 11:30 p.m.-7:30 a.m.
This is the typical schedule a controller in a center works. You'll notice there are two short `turn-arounds' with about nine hours between shifts. (Monday night to Tuesday morning, then again Wednesday afternoon to Wednesday night.) This compresses a five-day workweek almost into four days.
Now, as a controller in my 20's, I welcomed this schedule and its "extra day off". But as I push my mid-forties, it's rough, both on the body and mind.
Monday night I rush home, try to relax and go to bed for about five-and-a-half-to-six hours of sleep (one has to commute and eat and unwind and shower and whatever else in those nine hours). The alarm always seems to go off too early....
Wednesday afternoon is the same--rush home (through the afternoon commute, so it's a stressful drive in itself), walk dog, visit with wife/kids, eat, try to relax, take care of whatever daily `emergencies' have popped up, then try to force myself to sleep (which can be difficult when it's still light out and the sounds of early evening life go on around you...). On a good evening, I get four hours. A typical evening I get 2.5. That's right, 2.5 to four hours of sleep for an already sleep-deprived mind and body that has been going all week. Then it's in the shower, a snack, pack up and drive back to work to separate airplanes from the ground and from each other.
And this is an air traffic controller's schedule before the contract was imposed.