WashingtonWire - 2005-01-17

FAA To Hire 12,500 New Air Traffic Controllers
The United States will delay the mandatory retirement age of 56 for some air traffic controllers and hire 12,500 new ones in the next decade to help stem attrition in their ranks, the Federal Aviation Administration said. FAA expects about 11,000 air traffic controllers to retire in the next decade, which is about 75 percent of the 15,000-member workforce. They include many of the workers hired after former President Ronald Reagan fired 10,438 striking controllers in 1981.

The agency will eliminate old equipment, reduce hours at some less-used facilities and increase use of part-time employees and split-shifts to help pay for the new hires, said FAA head Marion Blakey. A drop in passengers and airfares reduced the amount the agency collected from passenger ticket taxes to $9.3 billion in 2003 from $10.5 billion in 2000. "We will continue to operate the world's safest aviation system by being smarter and more efficient about our staffing needs,'' Blakey said. "This plan is our blueprint to put the right number of controllers in the right place at the right time.''

John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, criticized the agency's plans to boost its part-time workforce and allow split shifts. "A part-time controller from our perspective will get you part-time safety,'' Carr said in a telephone conference with reporters. "The idea of split shifts is ludicrous.''

Blakey said FAA is trying to find creative ways to manage its workforce on a tight budget. In addition to the new hires, as much as 15 percent of the current workforce may be eligible for a one-year waiver of the mandatory retirement age, so long as they pass a physical and have a strong performance record. The mandatory retirement age has been in place since 1971, when Congress required workers 56 and older to stop directing traffic, although they are allowed to take other jobs within the agency.

FAA also will boost classroom training and use new high-tech simulators to cut training time for new employees to three years from five, Blakey said. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta called the plan "a first step in confronting the challenges that must be addressed if we are to ensure the continued efficient operation of the nation's airspace.''

More than 15,000 FAA air traffic controllers currently staff 315 facilities across the country that range from small towers to large air traffic control centers. They guide aircraft that use 600 commercial airports and 3,300 smaller public-use airports.

U.S. Plans to Triple Flight Capacity in 20 Years
The United States will triple flight capacity in the next 20 years to make trips faster and adapt to new technologies, such as commercial space vehicles and air taxi services, the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a report that did not detail how the goal will be achieved. The report, entitled "Integrated National Plan for the Next Generation Air Transportation System,'' is intended to be a "blueprint'' to transform the current air transportation network, said Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.

"It won't be long before the nation's airspace will be filled with more aircraft of all kinds, like air taxi services, new commercial jetliners, on-demand microjets and commercial space vehicles,'' Mineta said. "This plan sets the course as we begin our journey into the second century of aviation.''

The plan seeks to enhance security and speed trips by as much as 30 percent with new technology to help guide planes. It also says the current infrastructure must be adapted to new, larger capacity planes being developed, such as the Boeing 7E7 and the Airbus A380.

It also predicts as many as 13,500 microjets will be used to fly passengers between small airports by 2022. The report sets a goal of 95 percent on-time arrivals. In October 2004, the most recent month for which data was available, that rate was 83 percent.

Bomb-Sniffing Dog Teams Deployed at 11 New Airports
The Transportation Security Administration announced 11 new teams of explosive-sniffing dogs have been deployed at U.S. airports as part of an effort to boost the number of canine teams by nearly 13 percent nationwide.

The teams, trained at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, were deployed to airports in Atlanta, Columbus, Ohio, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and Tulsa. The number of canine explosive detection teams has more than tripled since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, TSA said. Fifty-four new teams are expected to graduate in 2005, bringing the total number of teams at U.S. airports to 420, it said.