by NAATS President Wally Pike

In this month's issue of AOPA Pilot, AOPA President Phil Boyer addresses the modernization of flight service (FSS). This is in response to that article and is written from the perspective of the union that represents the air traffic controllers in the flight service stations. I won’t go into our inherently governmental arguments on why this workforce should remain federal as I believe the AOPA membership already understands that issue. Instead I’ll confine my comments to the points made in the article.

The article cites as fact that the FSS budgetary costs are greater than $550 million annually and that this breaks down to a cost of $15 per pilot contact. Actually the $550 million figure includes facilities and equipment (F&E) costs, some airways facilities (AF) costs as well as parts of the research and development (R&D) costs of the FAA budget. It does not correspond to $15 per pilot contact; in fact the FAA does not have an effective way to measure costs per pilot contact so these are always estimated. The FAA will vary that estimate depending on the particular audience and agenda they are espousing at the time. Apparently AOPA has adopted this methodology as later in the article the FAA costs have ballooned to "almost $600 million".

The article further makes the semantic argument about the difference in terminology between "privatization" and what the FAA is actually doing which is "outsourcing." We also encounter this argument on Capitol Hill after the FAA briefings. Privatization would mean that the FAA is divesting itself entirely from FSS; outsourcing means the FAA is contracting out the services to the lowest bidder. NAATS believes this is a distinction without a difference for the general aviation public. The A76 process does incorporate an "in house" or MEO bid and NAATS does have two members participating on the group. It would be a mistake, however, to portray the MEO bid as being jointly developed by employees and management. It is a management bid and we are allowed only the participation required by the A76 circular; we are very much junior members in the venture and any disagreements are resolved by FAA edict.

The article lists the bidders as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and "others". The others are CSC. The article does not mention the fact that NavCanada and Serco (a British based firm) have been approved by the FAA to partner with the vendors. The A76 screening information request (SIR) does not prohibit non-US citizens from becoming the ultimate provider of FSS services. NAATS has protested the SIR for this and various other reasons.

The article mentions that fact that congress has yet to weigh in regarding certain stations in their states or districts scheduled to be closed. Actually this is like the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the corner. Unless the FAA, NAATS and user groups such as AOPA come to an agreement on architecture there is almost no chance that congress will allow the vendors to reach the "end state" of their proposals. The result is a colossal waste of time and money.

NAATS does agree that FSS needs to be modernized. To this end NAATS made an innovative proposal to the FAA Administrator last summer that would result in approximately $600 million in cost savings. Unlike the A76 process, our proposal would enhance the services FSS controllers currently provide. Unfortunately this proposal was rejected but we stand by our concept and are willing to work with the FAA as well as the users such as AOPA to implement and realize the efficiencies identified.

Bottom line -- this expensive study is ill-considered and unnecessary. We should all be working toward a feasible modernization system that could actually be implemented. NAATS is prepared to do its part.

FMI: www.naats.org