Fly Us Safe Campaign
FAA Mismanagement: Costing Taxpayers, Jeopardizing Safety

Under FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, the FAA has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars through mismanagement and poor implementation of programs. The results create unnecessary costs for American taxpayers and seriously jeopardize the safety of America 's aviation system.

$1.3 billion in FAA spending investigated by Transportation Department Inspector General. According to the Washington Post, the Transportation Department Inspector General's office is conducting a broad audit of FAA contracting practices. Concerns have been raised about how the FAA handles $1.3 billion in such programs with small businesses. ¹

Contractor invoices FAA for Vegas trip, Porsche and property leases. The Washington Post Story outlined invoices the FAA had received from a contractor for unjustified trips to Las Vegas, a lease for a Porsche, and property leases in New Jersey, Bethesda, Herndon and Australia.

FAA official orders contractor to keep wife on payroll. One of the FAA's contracting officers recently uncovered that a contractor had hired the wife of a top FAA official and that the company later was ordered by that official to keep his wife on staff after the contract ended, the Washington Post also reported.

$500 million wasted on failed deployment of digital air traffic control display system. The air traffic control system desperately needs a digital system for managing terminal air space. The FAA's answer? The Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS). Because of FAA mismanagement, the program continues to be hampered by numerous technological problems. According to the agency itself, their failure to involve controllers and maintenance technicians prior to the deployment of STARS delayed the system's deployment five years and increased the cost to the taxpayer by $500 million. ² Currently, the largest facility to which STARS has been deployed is Philadelphia and it continues to deal with operational problems and failures.   

GAO slams FAA for wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, vital program delayed six years. According to the GAO, the FAA's failure to enlist the technical expertise of air traffic controllers when deploying WAAS ( a GPS -based navigation and landing system that provides precision guidance to aircraft in all phases of flight) is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The agency's mismanagement resulted in unplanned work and contributed to the rise in WAAS' cost from the original estimate of $509 million in 1994 to a massive $2.036 billion in 2005. The program finally needed a six-year extension to its commissioning date. ³

FAA fails to meet cost targets on four major system acquisitions. In a June 2005 report, the GAO concluded that the FAA's refusal to work with air traffic controllers on the approval and development process for system acquisitions “contributed to the inability of four of the 16 major system acquisitions to meet their cost, schedule, and/or performance targets.” These systems included a precision approach and landing system, a program that replaced outdated monochromatic monitors with multicolored ones, a program designed to replace outdated technology in automated flight service stations and a system that helps aircrafts during the final phases of flights. ⁴

FAA scaling back efficient and effective program to increase supervision.

For 30 years, the FAA has used a Controller in Charge (CIC) program to cover some of the duties of supervisors while they were absent. The CIC program is intended to reduce costs to the FAA by allowing a certain percentage of air traffic controllers to take on more responsibilities and reduce the number of necessary supervisors. This program provided flexibility to the smaller facilities, allowing them to operate beyond eight hours a day, five days a week, without the significant cost of excessive supervisors, and it focused the staffing of operating supervisors to the larger facilities. The 1998 collective bargaining agreement between NATCA and the FAA allowed for expansion of this program. Under this agreement, the FAA was supposed to decrease the number of supervisors (through attrition) and give more responsibilities to the air traffic controllers certified to be CICs. The FAA lived up to this agreement from 1999 – 2004 by reducing the total number of supervisors by 434 (from 1967 to 1533). In fact, d uring the first three years (FY '99 to FY '01), the expanded CIC program saved the FAA almost $40M ⁵. But in 2004, they began to move away from that agreement, increasing the number of supervisors, and decreasing efficiency.

¹ Washington Post, August 14, 2005, FAA Orders a Closer Look at Contracts
² http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05331.pdf
³ http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05485t.pdf
⁴http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05331.pdf
⁵FAA / NATCA Second Report, Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), draft, NATCA and FAA Metrics Team, 200-2001