Rationale And Impacts Air Safety Studied By House Subcommittee

The House Committee on Science and Technology’s Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee held a hearing Thursday to examine the FAA's efforts and rationale behind the proposed reorganization of the NWS aviation weather services. Members questioned witnesses about the possible impacts the NWS reorganization could have on effectiveness of the aviation weather service and air safety.

“This Subcommittee has frequently struggled with the peculiar nonchalance of some government agencies in the face of obvious dysfunction in critical programs. Today we struggle with the equally peculiar determination by the FAA to solve a problem that appears not to exist, to fix what ain’t broke,” stated Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC). “The current system for delivering aviation weather products for air traffic control appears to work pretty well.”
 
For three decades, NWS has provided the FAA with aviation weather forecast services that have appeared to meet all of the air traffic controllers’ needs. According to the FAA, this weather forecasting system supports a 1 trillion dollar aviation industry and only costs 12 million dollars to operate – compared to the 1 billion the FAA is spending on the development of NextGen. 
 
Since 2005, the FAA has been pushing NWS to reorganize their aviation weather service by consolidating the twenty-one Central Service Weather Units (CWSUs) into one national center. Currently, the 84 forecasters working among the 21 centers provide 16 hours of service each day.  Under the new proposal to consolidate this service, NWS would have just 36 forecasters working out of two centers providing 24 hours of service each day.  The result would be that on any morning or afternoon shift there would be only 8 forecasters covering the lower 48 states as opposed to 20 on shift now.
 
Originally, the FAA requested this reorganization claiming that it would lead to cost savings and improved products by NWS weather forecasters. However, no proposal for consolidation has demonstrated meaningful savings.  Further, the air traffic controllers who rely on these services have been found through FAA and NWS surveys to be strong supporters of the current structure for services and do not complain about the products they receive from NWS.  Finally, neither the FAA nor the NWS have performance-based metrics that allow them to evaluate current performance or compare it to any experiment at consolidated service. 
 
“Ultimately, the FAA has pushed for a plan to consolidate aviation weather services that does not respond to a clearly articulated need or problem, and would change a system that has air traffic controllers’ full support.  A shift in how services are delivered will cost money to test and, if adopted, will create new risks that don’t exist in the current system.  Perhaps that will result in a greater “mass” of expertise in one place, but the down-sizing of the staff will leave each forecaster responsible for more air space, and deprives air traffic controllers of a forecaster to stand over their shoulder in a weather crisis,” said Miller.

FMI: http://science.house.gov/default.aspx