UPDATE: Friday, Jan 31, 2025 · 10:58:51 PM +00:00
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Irontortoise
It looks like the immediate crisis at San Carlos has been averted, at least for now -- from Raw Story:
The staffing issue that nearly shut down San Carlos Airport is now being scrutinized in the wake of the deadly midair collision Wednesday night at Ronald Reagan National Airport that claimed the lives of all 67 involved.
In a public statement sent just hours before the disaster over Washington D.C., San Carlos Airport manager Gretchen Kelly announced that its towers would be unstaffed beginning Saturday, SF Gate reported. The small airfield sits approximately 12 miles from the San Francisco International Airport, the publication added.
Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA) described the contract negotiations as “complicated” by the high cost of living in the Bay Area, the report stated.
However, the air traffic controllers and aviation services company overseeing their salaries reached an agreement Thursday, avoiding an employee walk-off.
“We are hopeful that air traffic services at San Carlos Airport will not be interrupted,” Kelly told SFGATE, while declining to elaborate on specific agreement details, including if a housing stipend had been matched as the air traffic controllers wanted.
The episode unfolded as a preliminary safety report over the air crash Wednesday night suggested that “abnormal air traffic control tower staffing issues” contributed to the cause, the publication reported.
This story about a relatively small general aviation airport in California’s Bay Area seems to have slipped under the radar due to the tragic air crash over the Potomac Wednesday night, but it might ultimately prove to be even more important for the future of safe air travel in this country. From the East Bay Times:
An airport on the flight path into San Francisco may lose its air traffic controllers as soon as this weekend following a pay dispute, raising safety concerns on the Peninsula.
The general aviation airport is one of a few in the region staffed by controllers contracted by the Federal Aviation Administration but not employed by the agency itself. The administration intended to switch contract providers to Robinson Aviation at the beginning of February, but all of the current controllers declined job offers because the new contract didn’t include additional pay to account for the high cost of living in the Bay Area.
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A news release from the county of San Mateo stated that safety remained it’s top priority, and it was in negotiations to resolve the issue without disruptions. San Carlos Airport is under the oversight of the FAA’s Northern California Terminal Radar Approach Control, or NorCal TRACON, which manages air traffic throughout the region.
AlterNet has a rather more alarming perspective on the situation, which goes way beyond a mere “pay dispute”:
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that beginning this weekend, the San Carlos Airport, which lies along the final approach to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), will no longer have anyone manning its control tower. The resignations came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reassigned controllers' contracts to a firm that pays less.
Airport manager Gretchen Kelly said "understandably, all current controllers have declined [the firm's new] offers." The proposed compensation packages for air traffic controllers reportedly did not account for the Bay Area having the highest cost of living in the nation, which is roughly 18% higher than the national average.
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San Carlos Flight Center owner Alessandro Franco said air traffic control at the airport is "hugely important" due to its proximity to SFO and its typically busy airspace. Aircraft approaching the San Carlos Airport alternates between communicating with air traffic controllers at San Carlos and those at SFO. Now, he's worried the resignation of controllers will mean there is "another layer of safety that’s not going to be present."
"We’re a mile or two off the final approaches to SFO — it’s a complex space," Franco told the Chronicle. "This is a situation that puts us in limbo next to these busy airports."
Kelly has asked the FAA for additional staffing help for the San Carlos control tower, but her request was refused. Other airports in California are dealing with chronic shortages of air traffic controllers, which has become a worsening problem over the years.
