NYT: Air Traffic Controllers Abuse Overtime, F.A.A. Says(what's going on?)

[DeepModem Mom]

Traffic Controllers Abuse Overtime, F.A.A. Says
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: June 3, 2005


The Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday that abuses by some air traffic controllers at the office that handles traffic for the New York area's three major airports, as well as its own poor management, was costing it about $4 million a year in unnecessary overtime....

***

Earlier this year, as the agency tried to crack down on overtime, the controllers began protesting by anonymously reporting "operational errors," incidents in which planes were mistakenly directed to fly too close to each other. By pointing out the incidents, the controllers were seeking to demonstrate that they needed more people on duty to keep the skies safe.

In an unusual admission yesterday, the F.A.A. said that such errors, which official records measure in the dozens per year, were actually occurring at the rate of about three a day, and that if controllers followed the safety rules closely, flight delays would multiply.

But few of the errors put planes in jeopardy, the F.A.A. said. Officials said they would try to change the rules to fit actual practice, in which planes lining up for landing are frequently spaced less than the required three miles from each other. The controllers have accused the F.A.A. of playing down the risk of operational errors. The controllers can be forced into retraining for committing such errors, and fired if they commit too many, the controllers' union points out.

Greg Martin, the F.A.A.'s chief spokesman, referring to the intertwined issues of overtime and operational errors, said, "We have a scam; we don't have a safety issue."

But Dean Iacopelli, president of the local chapter of the union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the F.A.A. was trying to balance its budget by reducing staffing below agreed-upon levels and putting safety at risk....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03controller.html?

[DURHAM D]

1. Maybe Bush will just fire all of them - like Reagan did. eom

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Thank you Ronald Reagan.

[whistle]

3. Time for NATCA to come clean on the 9-11 audio tapes that were.....

...destroyed by the FAA managers who took air traffic controller's testimonies.

[tk2kewl]

5. a preemptive smackdown by bushCo,perhaps?

[leesa]

13. Methinks too! They know what happened on 9-11 and they know it was

treason. They don't want to be caught in the net. Someone's about to speak.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Sounds like what provoked the PATCO strike in 1981.

And Busholini would be at least as likely as Reagan to bust another strike now. There's hardly anything the Regime hates more than organized labor.

[Steel City Slim]

6. Uh-Huh

Change the rules to reduce violations. There was a reason those minimums were established in the first place.

[blueknight]

7. really sad,

reagan set the tone for the re-pugs hatred for organized labor when he busted patco.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. That's what seemed scary to me --

this is a very curious article.

[libnnc]

9. Never. Trust. FAA Management.

They play this game all the time. My partner's a NATCA ATCer. This Martin creep is full of shit. "We have a scam; we don't have a safety issue." bullfuckingshit on a platter.

[DeepModem Mom]

15. Thanks for passing on your partner's inside view, lib. nt

[Ksec]

10. Union bashing again

The media does nothing but bash unions. Have you ever seen a positive story on news concerning Unions? I havent...ever.

[Doremus]

11. Interesting timing

Hasn't the union been pushing hard to get replacements hired/trained for the thousands that are due to retire soon?

Lots of footdragging on that by the shrub's henchmen. Maybe they want to bust the union again, for good, and replace them with minimum wage part-timers.

Safety in the sky is an extravagance we don't need --- 'specially when we can put that money to better use in some CEO/whore's pocket, right chimp boy? :mad:

[Zan_of_Texas]

12. Recent article suggests Bushco wants to privatize FAA

That way, comings and goings of CIA black ops planes would be less documented. Those who read an article about rendition thought so, anyway.

CIA Expanding Terror Battle under Guise of Charter Flights

By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
The New York Times
Tuesday 31 May 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/053105Y.shtml

Smithfield, NC - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the way.
Aero Contractors' planes dropped C.I.A. paramilitary officers into Afghanistan in 2001; carried an American team to Karachi, Pakistan, right after the United States Consulate there was bombed in 2002; and flew from Libya to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the day before an American-held prisoner said he was questioned by Libyan intelligence agents last year, according to flight data and other records.

While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees.
MORE

[MADem]

14. Chimp is just trying to be Reaganesque

...he remembers Ronnie firing all those PATCO ATC's who just wanted reasonable hours and halfway safe working conditions....he wants some of that "tough guy" image to rub off on him. The Putz!

[libnnc]

16. The FAA has 30,000 paper pushers

and 10,000 controllers (most of them NATCA). They're always trying to blame the budget short falls on the controllers and not their own overpaid fat-assed staff.

Contract negotiations are coming up pretty soon. The FAA are getting their little nasty notes in a row so they can start making their accusations and demands to NATCA. I hope this isn't going to be 1981 all over again.