Sweetening The Pot "A Deciding Factor" Among Some Military Controllers

"I have no quarrels with the Air Force. I wouldn't mind doing 20 years."

Those words from SSgt Anthony Haynes, a controller with the 48th Operations Support Squadron at RAF Lakenheath, as quoted by the European edition of Stars and Stripes. His attitude is typical of many men and women serving in US military control towers around the world.

But there's a catch. Will the Air Force, in Haynes' case, provide more retention incentives to controllers -- especially now that the FAA is hiring 12,500 new controllers within the next ten years. It's a given that the FAA will offer some pretty sweet deals. Haynes wants to know if the military can match those offers.

"That's going to be the deciding factor," he said.

FAA officials say the military is one of two prime recruiting grounds for new controllers. The other is collegiate programs, such as the one offered at Daniel Webster College. Already, the call for controllers at the FAA has caught the eye of a lot of military ATCs. Up to 3,000 of them leave the military for civilian work every year, according to the military newspaper -- before they reach retirement.

What will this latest call for FAA controllers do to the military's control tower workforce? "We're certainly looking at it," Chief Master Sgt. Donald Ball of the Air Force Flight Standards Agency at Andrews Air Force Base, told Stars and Stripes. "We're concerned, but it's kind of hard to speculate."

While Ball said the military is able to retain 53-percent of its first-enlistment controllers (two percent shy of the service's 55-pecent retention goal), "After 10 years, we've lost 75 percent of the people we brought in," Ball told S&S. "That's an alarming statistic."

It's a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario. Airmen like 23-year old Dustin Conner are determined to trade in their uniforms for an FAA headset. "I'm getting out," he said, just over a year before his first enlistment runs out. "Without a doubt. I've already started talking to a few guys back in Texas."

Why?

Forget about the pay for a moment, he said. Look at what happens to those controllers who stay on the job and become senior enlistees. "I look at my bosses. They're putting in 12 and 14-hour shifts every day."

For at least part of that, blame the FAA. The agency has a 56-year old age limit on controllers before mandatory retirement. For that reason, the agency won't hire controllers older than 31. It wants a full quarter-century out of its new hires.

The Air Force, quite aware of the potential drain on control tower manpower, offers ATC types a pretty hefty incentive to re-enlist. For a staff sergeant like Haynes, the signing bonus on a six-year re-up is $48,000.

"It's called re-recruiting, and we're doing that currently," said Ball.

He's also adamant that the USAF controller mission will continue, regardless of what the FAA does. He compares the current hiring push in Washington to the days just after President Reagan fired PATCO controllers more than 20 years ago. "It was the same scenario then," he told Stars and Stripes. "But we continued to do the mission."

FMI: www.faa.gov