Although there have been fewer airline crashes than normal in recent years, the union representing the nations air traffic controllers says an overworked and understaffed work force will inevitably result in disaster.
The union also says there have been more than the usual number of close calls lately.
The New York Post reported Monday there have been five mid-air near misses in the skies over New York in the last month. The paper said the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the reports.
Snapshot of U.S. air traffic map at 3:30 pm EDT Tuesday, June 12, 2007. Source: Flight Explorer
Meanwhile, a recent letter from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member John Mica, (R-Fla.), asking the administrator of the FAA for specific details on the agencys air traffic control staffing plan has raised hopes by controllers.
Specifically, the union says it hopes Congress will compel the FAA to submit to a transparent analysis of how it concluded in March that it needed between nine and 26 percent fewer controllers than previously agreed-upon staffing levels.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is currently asking for inclusion of language in the House FAA Reauthorization bill calling for the FAA to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study to estimate staffing needs for FAA air traffic controllers to ensure the safe operation of the National Airspace System.
It is vitally important that FAA staff its facilities so that controllers can safely and efficiently handle the levels of operations encountered at the facilities, Mica said in the letter.
We are very pleased to see Ranking Member Mica keeping the staffing issue in the forefront and calling for a staffing model based on safety and traffic needs, NATCA President Patrick Forrey said.
There is no way to overstate the critical nature of the staffing crisis and its impact on the margin of safety. Based on what we have heard from the FAA, the plan is to staff to budget, not what is needed to safely and efficiently move traffic.
The FAA maintains that there is no systemic shortage of flight controllers and that the size of the staff is adequate to meet safety standards. The union disagrees. It cites a February 22, 2005 letter from then-FAA Central Regional Administrator Christopher R. Blum to Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore to make its point.
The union says Blum wrote to explain why more flight controllers were not being added at specific airports, saying the agency has the number of positions at each facility it can fund and remain within budget.
While maintaining that its air traffic control system is completely safe, an FAA report released last month concedes that the air transportation system is under stress from increased air traffic.
The air transportation system is stretched thin, the report concludes. Currently, the system handles 750 million passengers each year. We expect this number to reach one billion by 2015 and forecasts indicate increases in demand ranging from a factor of two to three by 2025.
NATCA officials say that, despite increasing air traffic, nearly 1,100 fewer air traffic controllers are working in U.S. facilities than three years ago.
