Says FAA Paid Record O/T To Cover Staffing Shortages
The National Air Traffic Controller's Association tells ANN the
FAA was forced to spend roughly $865,000 in overtime at the Atlanta
Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility, from October
2006 to March 2007, due to a continuing shortage of qualified
personnel to staff the facility.
NATCA says that is nearly seven times the amount of overtime
spent in the same six-month period in 2005-06, and directly
correlates with the lack of controllers at the TRACON.
There are 71 fully certified controllers currently on board,
according to the union, but four are not working due to long-term
medical conditions. Six of these veteran controllers are eligible
to retire by the end of this year. There are 22 trainees in the
facility, but none of them will be fully trained and able to work
traffic before the end of this year.
Five of these trainees are what the FAA calls "certified
professional controllers in training," (CPCIT) meaning they have
prior experience as fully trained controllers at other facilities
before transferring to Atlanta TRACON, where they are now forced to
re-certify.
NATCA also reports FAA officials have also decided, beginning
June 24, to close one large sector of Atlanta airspace one hour
early every night and a second large sector of airspace two hours
early every night due to staffing shortages... which the agency is
now calling a "resource management problem," according to a recent
agency memo.
Until March, the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association agreed there should be 104 controllers on staff to
safely and efficiently run the operation at Atlanta TRACON. The FAA
now states a new "range" of 80-98 controllers is acceptable to
staff the facility... but has failed to produce any documentation
or studies to show how it arrived at this range and why it needed
fewer controllers to handle what has been a four-fold increase in
recent years in the amount of airspace that Atlanta TRACON
controllers are responsible for.
"The FAA likes to say they are 'staffing to traffic,' but we
have taken on hundreds of square miles of airspace in our coverage
area and yet have less staffing now than when we were responsible
for a smaller amount of airspace" said Jim Allerdice, NATCA
representative for the Atlanta TRACON.
Speaking of traffic, NATCA also reports there is more of it than
ever.
On Wednesday, Atlanta TRACON controllers worked with Atlanta
Tower personnel to set a record by moving 3,096 flights into and
out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. At its
peak, controllers handled 207 flights in one hour... a "staggering"
total, the union says, that left controllers pushed to their
physical and mental limits.
At least 70 percent of the controllers are working six-day weeks
or 10-hour days (two hours of overtime on top of regular eight-hour
day) to cover the demand; recently, controllers have also had to
deal with strong thunderstorms in their airspace.
"We were already working six-day weeks and 10-hour days and then
you throw the thunderstorms on top of that and you end up with
extremely stressful and heavy, complex traffic periods," Allerdice
said. "Having to do that for extended periods of time wears on
you."