Fly Us Safe Campaign
The FAA: Ignoring Vital Advice from Air Traffic Controllers

Air traffic controllers know the aviation system best: its strengths, weaknesses and the critical improvements that need to be made to protect safety in the skies. But in recent years the FAA has established a worrying pattern: actively shunning controllers’ advice on important safety and modernization projects. The agency has drawn strong criticism for its failure to cooperate from independent monitors who recognize that the effects of this serious mismanagement could critically undermine the safety of the whole air traffic control system.

FAA terminates the vital and productive Controller Liaison Program. On June 28, 2005, the FAA unexpectedly and summarily abolished a vital program designed to ensure better safety in the skies. Announcing its intention to shut down the program through a terse 79-word fax, the agency sent home the remaining nine controllers from an original group of 30 who had been working on important safety and technical projects. The group had been responsible for a host of important innovations, from the en route modernization program to runway safety technology. Even FAA officials agree that the program was working, previously describing it as “an integral part in getting many projects deployed” and “an asset to the program.”

FAA draws fire for failing to involve air traffic controllers in safety improvements. In a June 2005 report, the General Accounting Office criticized the FAA for not involving air traffic controllers in the deployment of important new systems. The GAO slammed the FAA's refusal to work with air traffic controllers on the approval and development process for system acquisition, declaring that the agency's attitude “contributed to the inability of four of the 16 major system acquisitions to meet their cost, schedule, and/or performance targets.” ¹

This wasn't the first time the GAO had called on the FAA to increase air traffic controller involvement. In the same report, the GAO noted that it had already called on the FAA to ensure greater involvement of air traffic controllers in safety improvement, saying: “As we reported in November 2004, FAA needs to take additional steps to ensure the continued and active involvement of the stakeholders in certifying new ATC system acquisitions….Given the importance of stakeholder involvement in the development and deployment of new ATC systems, their continued involvement in ATC modernization efforts will be important to help avoid the types of problems that led to cost growth and delays for STARS.” ²

FAA's refusal to cooperate wastes time and money on deployment of critical GPS. The FAA's failure to listen to the technical expertise of air traffic controllers resulted in a six year delay and a massive rise in costs for the deployment of a vital GPS system (the WAAS system). According to the GAO report, the FAA's failure to enlist the technical expertise of air traffic controllers resulted in a six year delay in its commissioning date and a rise in cost from the original estimate of $509 million in 1994 to a massive $2.036 billion in 2005.

FAA bungles deployment of new technology to manage terminal air space. According to the FAA itself, the agency's 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. Coincidentally STARS has only been deployed at 47 of the 172 facilities originally planned. As the GAO says in the latest report the “FAA had compressed the original development and testing schedule from 32 to 25 months, leaving only limited time for human factors evaluations. Allowing insufficient time to involve stakeholders, FAA and the contractor had to restructure the contract to address technicians' and controllers' concerns, including an inconsistency in visual warning alarms and color codes between the old and new systems.”

FAA fails to consult on staffing crisis. Controllers are bearing the brunt of a serious staffing crisis and have been begging the FAA to listen to their concerns. But in December 2004, the FAA released its long awaited staffing report, “A Plan for the Future: The Federal Aviation Administration's 10-year Strategy for the Air Traffic Control Workforce,” without involving NATCA or allowing it to see the report before it was publicly released. Despite the long effort and expended resources, the earlier study came to the same conclusion as the NATCA and GAO reports. ³

FAA fails to listen to New York controllers. In 2005, when operational errors started occurring at New York 's TRACON, the FAA failed listening to controllers to understand what the problem was. Instead of assembling a joint labor- management committee or asking an independent body (Department of Transportation Inspector Generals office, Government Accountability Office) to address the concerns, the agency assembled a one- sided management team. Without examining the problem of operational errors, the FAA deflected attention from legitimate safety issues and released a report, attempting to blame the workforce for management failings during a press event, held at a restricted location where employees were not even permitted to attend. ⁴

¹ http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05331.pdf
²http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05331.pdf
³http://www.aaae.org/_pdf/_regpdf/controllerstaffing.pdf
⁴New York Times, June 3, 2005, FAA Says Controller Abuse Overtime