Fly Us Safe Campaign
FAA Fact Check: Misleading Statements Debunked

Marion Blakey recently told the Washington Post that "What really matters is for all of us to stick to the facts ..."Americas air traffic controllers agree, which is why we're calling on the FAA to stop misleading the public about critical safety and contract issues.  

Air Traffic Controller Salaries:

FAA misleading about proportion of budget that goes to controller salaries. The FAA is implying that air traffic controller salaries are crippling their budget, stating that labor costs account for 80% of the operations budget. ¹ That misleadingly implies that the majority of the FAAs operating costs are comprised of air traffic controller salaries, when in fact, less than one third of the FAA operating budget is used for air traffic controllers.  The FAA figure for "labor costs" includes pay and benefits for all personnel, including those in management. According to the Administrators own numbers, the total compensation costs (pay, retirement, benefits, and overtime) for Air Traffic Controllers is only 17% of the total FAA Budget and 31% of the FAA Operations Budget.

Controller salaries start at about $16,000 a year. The FAA has implied that even starting air traffic controllers make over $100,000 a year. During a recent speech, Marion Blakey said "People will still have salaries that go over $100,000 a year.  And by the way, this is not necessarily any affirmative education requirements, i.e. college education, so you can come out of high school and do very well." ² But, in fact, according to the FAAs own recruiting documents, starting salaries for air traffic controller trainees is $16,016, increasing to $37,224 upon completion of initial training at the FAA academy. ³

According to news reports, the FAA has asserted that air traffic controllers are "overpaid and under-productive," ⁴ implying that increases in air traffic controller salaries have been excessive. But the FAAs arguments are misleading and incomplete: controller salary increases are in line with those of other federal employees. Much of the "average salary" increase is a result of the FAAs failure to bring in new controllers as needed, so the "average" reflects a very senior staff.  When the FAA hires the desperately needed new controllers, the "average" will decline, better reflecting a mix of experience levels.

Controller salary increases are in line with other government employees.
Air Traffic Controller pay increases follow those of other federal employees.  After the FAA implemented a new pay system for all air traffic employees (controllers, supervisors, managers, etc.) at FAA field facilities, the controller contract simply sets any annual increase to the amount determined by Congress each year.  The amount of money that would be used for step increases in other government agencies is instead subject to meeting performance targets set by the FAA Administrator in her Flight Plan.  By applying this format to all controllers, the FAA was able to streamline the step increase process and apply it on one day for all employees rather than one employee at a time on their anniversary date.

Staffing

The FAA refuses to acknowledge publicly that theyre facing a critical shortage of air traffic controllers, arguing that they have "the right number of people in the right place, doing the right kind of work." ⁵

The truth? Air traffic is increasing to record levels, but already there are 1,000 fewer controllers than there were just two years ago. ⁶ The FAA has failed to address the problem: in fiscal year 2004 only 13 air traffic controllers were hired. ⁷ Their plan for 2005 called for additional losses, the FAA expected 686 more controllers to retire, but only planned to hire 435 replacements. This crisis has been looming for years, but even though the FAA was repeatedly warned about it, the agency first ignored, and then completely mismanaged the looming crisis.  

Critical Safety Issues

The FAA refuses to accept that there are critical safety issues facing the air traffic control system. Marion Blakey, the FAA Administrator, dismissed air traffic controller claims of serious technology problems saying "It is not a safety issue. What were finding is that our equipment is working fine." ⁸

But the simple facts show that serious safety breaches are occurring. Thefollowing documents some of the real safety and technology failures in the last five months alone:

• August 14, Los Angeles: During a period of serious understaffing, two passenger planes come within 100 feet of each other.
• August 24, Newark: Controllers call on FAA to end violations of landing procedures at Newark airport. FAA takes no action.
• August 25, Oakland: During a busy time of day a single controller is forced to direct over 50 passenger jets by himself.
• September 2-5, San Juan, PR: Three power outages in three days leave controllers scrambling to keep airplanes separated.
• October 3, Washington, DC: Radar failure makes certain planes invisible to air traffic controllers.
• October 10, Orange County, CA: Air traffic control communications system fail, hampering controllers at the busiest air traffic center in the country.
• October 10, Boston, MA: Air traffic controllers saw "false targets" on their radar scopes - blips that they knew were not planes in flight.