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FAA furloughs kick in, some flight delays appear
Commercial airline flights started backing up and delayed some travelers Monday, a day after air traffic controllers started going on furlough because of government spending cuts. (www.chron.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Brilliant post, it is great to see the level of care in what you have written
Great post! I thank you very much for sharing your 'inside story' of things that I never knew.
Thanks for the post, information, and perspective. Welcome aboard.
It is refreshing to see a poster who has been registered for an hour and not spamming to every squawk how much their relative made last week on the Internet.
It is refreshing to see a poster who has been registered for an hour and not spamming to every squawk how much their relative made last week on the Internet.
great post and thank you and your co-workers for all y'all do.
Thank you. I was traveling yesterday and the delays were evident. I was waiting for someone to explain this without all the drama and political commentary
Great insight from someone actually there. I am one of those anti-union guys (grew up in Texas, not Ohio) who thinks there are many members among your rank and file who do indeed purposely slow things down, in a calculated and controlled manner, to get back at The Man. I say calculated and controlled because I would never think for one moment you guys would endanger the lives of anyone. I've seen it in every other sector of aviation and see no reason it would be different from yours.
I do not doubt the pride you and your coworkers share in being the best you can be. I also feel the same about pilot rank and file, ramp rats, flight attendants, mechanics, etc... They all employ the same union practice of biting back at the man, the collateral damage being the flying public.
I also do not doubt that, despite every obstacle your employer places in front of you, you and your colleagues will show up to work, ready to work. I think precedence dictates that is best decision for continued employment - a sort of precedence instilled by Ronald Reagan.
"Highly Technical Aspects" aside, failure to recover from a strike that occurred 30 years ago is more of a management failure rather than a technical failure. I fully understand the point you're making about the technical side, that cannot be denied. Still, even at a 50% failure rate, there can be no justification for management's failure to recover after 5 years, much less 30... That's one thing I think you and I can definitely agree on is a failure on the FAA's part to react accordingly, which is something even you guys have tried to get them to do over all these years.
Welcome to working for the Federal Government.
I do not doubt the pride you and your coworkers share in being the best you can be. I also feel the same about pilot rank and file, ramp rats, flight attendants, mechanics, etc... They all employ the same union practice of biting back at the man, the collateral damage being the flying public.
I also do not doubt that, despite every obstacle your employer places in front of you, you and your colleagues will show up to work, ready to work. I think precedence dictates that is best decision for continued employment - a sort of precedence instilled by Ronald Reagan.
"Highly Technical Aspects" aside, failure to recover from a strike that occurred 30 years ago is more of a management failure rather than a technical failure. I fully understand the point you're making about the technical side, that cannot be denied. Still, even at a 50% failure rate, there can be no justification for management's failure to recover after 5 years, much less 30... That's one thing I think you and I can definitely agree on is a failure on the FAA's part to react accordingly, which is something even you guys have tried to get them to do over all these years.
Welcome to working for the Federal Government.
For the nuts and bolts: The amount of airplanes we can take in any given control area is impacted by a few factors, the largest being the number of sectors/positions (staffing) open and the weather conditions. Studies on human fatigue show that the typical human being starts losing the ability to concentrate on complex tasks after about an hour of their performance and that ability starts decreasing even more quickly after two which is why reduced staffing levels impact us so harshly, unlike most tasks - within that two hours there is no room for a lapse in concentration, air traffic control is a hard job (but fun and rewarding too, if you can do it) - the cliche is that when it's slow is when bad things happen because people start feeling like they can relax.
When our 1-2 hours on positon is up we get a break that usually lasts between 15 and 30 minutes (the latter being for lunches). After our break we return to duty. In addition to overseeing the sector our frontline supervisors also manage our breaks and even step in to control traffic if needed, but that's not ideal because Controllers are paid to control and we take pride in our ability to do our job with professionalism, efficency and safety.
How enroute spacing works: The amount of airplanes that an area of sky (sector) can handle is based on a couple of factors: the type and number of airports and how they affect complexity and typical flow of traffic and how that affects complexity. Typically a few sectors will work together to "feed" one airport.
When our staffing falls below critical levels we actually loose the ability to open sectors and/or staff them fully, which greatly affects our ability to maximally utilize our airspace.
Exacerbating this problem is the fact that due to highly technical nature of Air Traffic Control work the FAA is still trying to recover from the PATCO strike. I've heard a rumor that over 50% of new hires are fired within thier first year of service because they simply fail to demonstrate they can do the job.
Anyways, the point of this post: the impact of the furlough is real. Due to the higly technical and intense nature of our work the national airspace system is very sensitive to staffing shortages, staffing shortages which existed before the furloughs started.
Also, I wanted to explain some of what we do because there seems to be some perception that we're purposely slowing things down. That couldn't be farther from the truth. In addition to the immense amount of pride instilled in the controller workforce and the constant competition twixt coworkers (we all want to be the best), we, by in large are filled with a sense of duty to the American flying public, and just like I did today, tomorrow I will show up for my shift, ready to work and just like today I will volunteer to sit on position and longer than is expected or required of me because it is my aim to help mitigate the affects of this furlough on my coworkers and the aforementioned flying public as much as possible. I took an oath, an oath I take very seriously and I work with 15,000 people who take that oath very seriously too. Make no mistake, no matter what the circumstance FAA controllers will show up to work, ready to work and we will do our best to make sure the system does not suffer no matter what the politics of the day are doing.