Fatigue, Short Staffs ‘Recipe for Disaster’ in Summer Flying Season

– by James Parks

With the busy summer travel season fast approaching, the nation’s air traffic controllers are alerting the public that a combination of short-staffing, fatigue and faulty equipment in control towers is a “recipe for disaster.” 

Just this week, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association(NATCA) issued warnings about several near misses at two of the country’s major airports—Atlantaand Cincinnati. In Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport, the number of incidents when planes have gotten too close has already exceeded last year’s total—and the situation is getting worse. In Cincinnati, three such serious incidents have occurred in the past six weeks.

The problem is the same in Cincinnati and throughout the nation’s airway system: Controllers are being forced to work long overtime hours, creating dangerous controller fatigue. At the same time, experienced controllers are retiring early rather than dealing with draconian work rules imposed by the Bush administration’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The result: a staffing crisis. Says NATCA President Patrick Forrey:    

Their [FAA administrators’] recklessness toward the safety of the flying public and their morale-breaking treatment of the controller workforce is disturbing—but not at all surprising. Controllers have been working under imposed work rules for 20 months now, and the FAA has yet to realize or attempt to remedy the devastating effects that this controller attrition has and will play on the safety of the flying public.

Now, the FAA is considering canceling vacation time for controllers this summer travel season to deal with short-staffing, which will deprive controllers of the breaks they so desperately need away from this grueling job. This is a recipe for disaster.

After the FAA refused to bargain a contract with the controllers, and in September 2006, unilaterally imposed new work rules, an already short-handed controller force, rather than work under the conditions, began shrinking even further as workers eligible to retire began leaving. Younger controllers and trainees also began leaving at increased rates. That’s meant more forced overtime and fewer breaks and shorter breaks each shift for the remaining controllers.

Under the imposed rules, controllers are prohibited from using their accrued leave as sick leave—even if they are incapacitated due to fatigue. Veteran air traffic controller Kevin Campbell not only received a formal letter from the FAA accusing him of abusing sick leave after he took just one day off for exhaustion, but tight restrictions were placed on his remaining leave and he was threatened with dismissal, NATCA reports.

These latest safety incidents come a few weeks after it was revealed the FAA—already under fire for failing to meet inspection deadlines for the nation’s passenger air fleet—is now putting off inspections of equally vital ground-based equipment such as radar and instrument landing systems.

All these factors played out in the incidents in Cincinnati, according to NATCA. On Friday,two planes were lined up to land on the same runway. The first aircraft changed course but was instructed to turn too soon by a controller and ended up crossing in front of the other plane. The controller involved in this close call had just completed a six-day workweek.

At the end of March, a plane had to abort a landing in heavy fog in Cincinnati because two planes were crossing on the runway designated for the plane to land. The controller directing the plane was on overtime, working without an assistant controller and without a working ground radar warning system, which was designed to generate an alert for an occupied runway should an airplane try to land on it. Cincinnati has lost 24 veteran controllers over the past three years, from 84 to only 60. By the end of 2008, 24 more veteran controllers will be eligible to retire, 18 of whom could leave at any time—leaving behind 15 trainees who have at least a year left in training before certification. Says Jason Hubbard, NATCA’s facilities representative at Cincinnati’s airport: