NWP Reps/Members,
Most recently, the FAA’s relationship with the airlines has been called into question. Congress is not too happy with the FAA these days as it appears that they have moved away from their safety oversight role and seem to be more concerned with their customers; “The Airlines”.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with providing a superior service to the users of the National Airspace System (NAS), the FAA must always think about safety first and service second. Unfortunately, it appears that the FAA has its priorities backwards.
It is truly unfortunate that the only time the FAA springs into action to enhance and promote safety these days is either after an accident, near miss, or when Congress catches them in the act. Proof in point is the recent cancellation of hundreds of MD-80 flights that needed to have their wiring checked. When you ignore the calls by FAA inspectors and react to the scrutiny of Congress, the American flying public has to pay the price.
I pray and hope that it doesn’t take an accident for the FAA to wake up and realize that it’s faced with an absolute staffing crisis. I have never seen as many retirements, resignations, training failures, etc. in my eighteen years as an air traffic controller. Let’s hope that the FAA realizes sooner rather than later that the real customers are the American flying public and not the airlines.
Ham
NWP RVP
- I left Palmdale on Monday morning and drove to Las Vegas so that I could meet the members who were attending facility representative training. I was absolutely amazed by the close to forty (40) members from the Western Pacific region that were there to be educated on Labor Relations and how to be a NATCA representative. What a sight for sore eyes.
- The following morning, the class began at 9am and there were close to eighty (80) members in attendance from Western Pacific, Northwest Mountain, Great Lakes, Southern, Central, etcetera. WOW!
- Bob Taylor from the National office conducted the class and did a great job as usual. Mickela was also present to ensure that everything with the meeting went well.
- Many of the attendees left the class with a new found appreciation of what NATCA representatives do on their behalf and many are looking forward in stepping up to help.
- The next rep training class will be in Seattle on May 13-14, 2008. If you have any questions about this class, please call Mickela (mickela@natca.net) or Pam Wood (pwood@natca.net).
- Kevin Sherwood, BUR Facility rep works with NWP Pay lead Jeff Tilley to resolve, yet another, overpayment issue for a developmental at BUR. For an agency which claims to have transformed its archaic accounting system, there sure are a lot of overpayments!!
- As the FAA is faced with an ever rising number of retirements, resignations, etc. it appears that some managers who are not certified on any positions in the tower are putting themselves in charge of the operation. Obviously, this flies in the face of FAA rules/standards and is completely unsafe. The FAA needs to start taking a closer look at these operations before something happens.
- I worked with Mike Hull, Scott Sorenson HCF Facility rep, and Thom Gurule NWP LR rep/HCF VP regarding an issue with FMLA at HCF. We are hopeful that once management gets the correct guidance from HR that they will rectify this matter.
- We worked with Scott Sorenson HCF Facility rep regarding a news story dealing with an incident at Kona (KOA) last Thursday. The entire story can be viewed by going to our regional website, http://nwp.natca.net and clicking the news clicker on the main page.
“Hawaiian Airlines flight 1117 was scheduled for take off from Kona Airport just before 10:30 p.m last Thursday.
"The controller said I can't release you right now, I have got a aircraft on final it will be a couple of minutes," said Scott Sorenson of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "So basically these guys were head on."
The pilot then requests and is granted VFR departure, essentially departing at his own risk. A passenger on board recalls the feeling of acceleration.
"I would estimate halfway down the runway it abruptly began to decelerate and brake when it got towards the end of the runway -- the pilots were able to stop the plane -- they turned it off the runway --and a few moments later an oncoming plane landed behind us," he said.
"People had their hands up against the seats in front of them to brace themselves."
We have discussed the safety issues surrounding KOA (Contract Tower) with the Hawaii Congressional delegation. A major airline pilot called KHON TV anonymously and said we hit the nail on the head and that "Kona is an accident waiting to happen".
- Here is a poll that KHON TV conducted following the incident at KOA:
Should neighbor island Air Traffic Control Towers extend their hours of operation?
- Yes 87%
- No 13%
The opinions expressed in this poll do not necessarily represent the collective views of our community, this station or its management.
- Meanwhile, I heard about problems with yet another Contract Tower, San Carlos, CA (SQL), which recently had an Operational Error (OE). Apparently, the contract tower controller released an aircraft departing SQL and did not follow the current letter of agreement (LOA). I have been advised that during the investigation, it was learned that the contractor was not ensuring controllers were properly trained in accordance with current FAA Directives and much of their information was out of date or missing.
- This is how one of our reps at a busy tower in Northern California who is familiar with this issue related to the event in question at SQL:
“So how do we relate this incident with the poor safety inspections going on with some of the airlines? Well, the FAA used to do bi-annual assessments of all ATC facilities to ensure that they were complying with FAAO, directives and procedures. Over the past 5-6 years, the FAA ceased having evaluation teams perform these functions and each facility is required to do self evaluations. This incident really shows that with the agencies current lack of oversight, especially, with contract towers who's to say that they are following procedures to ensure that we continue to operate safely.”
- A national grievance is filed over changes to FAA Order 7110.65, paragraph 3-7-2 “Taxi and Ground Movement Operations”.
- As the FAA continues to rush more and more consolidations for the sake of saving money (Beaumont to Houston Tracon, Lincoln to Omaha, Pueblo to Denver Tracon, etc.) they need to take a step back and look at the failed consolidation of Palm Springs to SCT. Any good organization would learn from its mistakes and there are plenty of mistakes when it comes to the consolidation of PSP.
- Almost a year ago, the FAA ignored our safety concerns about the PSP consolidation. Back then, the FAA believed that they could take the two radar sectors without any additional staffing and certify the SCT controllers through simulation training. They continued to move ahead with the consolidation even though technicians were telling them that there would be problems.
- Almost a year later, this is what some of the controllers from the Empire Area at SCT (The two PSP sectors are in the Empire area) have to say about the consolidation:
“Of course, unstated by the FAA, is that the PSP-SCT "consolidation" isn't anywhere near complete... The PSP controllers who have been TDY'd (Temporary Duty) to SCT for over 10 months now, have been told they will likely be there until the end of this year. That will be 18 months of TDY for a process initially expected to take a couple weeks. They still don't have enough Empire Area controllers fully certified for the transition, and those that are trained have had very little proficiency time at the PSP sectors. Additionally, the Empire Area is so short of its' own controllers, that only TWO controllers out of 25 + aren't working six-day weeks. This was a hastily-planned, "get-it-done-now" type of operation that decreases safety and puts even more pressure on the controllers involved. Very sad.”
“I haven't trained on PSP airspace in almost 2 months. I have a whopping 3 hours of radar training there. Empire Area started today’s shift with 2 (TWO) full performance level controllers until 7:30am. (That’s for an area with 5 radar sectors, not counting PSP) I'm up to at least 12 weeks in a row of scheduled overtime.”
“In 51 weeks, the FAA has generously scheduled me for 4 two-day weekends. This has had a tremendously negative impact on my personal life and is also beginning to affect my health.
This relocation of PSP to SCT has resulted in overtimes spiking from 9 assigned in pay period #10 in 2007 to 69 being assigned in pay periods in early 2008. We average about 57 plus overtimes a pay period in this area.
In PP #11 there are 57 overtimes assigned. This is before any sick leave or unforeseen absences. Already two of those overtimes are invalid because the person assigned them is decertified and will not be recertified prior to then. Every CPC is assigned two overtimes, unless they are on leave. Two developmentals are scheduled one OT, the rest are all scheduled two. Every PSP TDY is scheduled two OT's if assigned to SCT.
- On 4-14-08 even with 4 OT's, the shifts were still 5 short of the mngt staffing number.
- On 4-15-08 even with 5 OT's, the shifts were still 5 short of the mngt staffing number.
- On 4-19-08 even with four OT's and 5 holdover OT's, the shifts were still 5 short of the mngt staffing number.
UCR's were filed at least 12 times for staffing. Most recently on 3-23, 4-14, 4-15, and 4-19-08.
There have been multiple times when a hand-off could not be opened or a position split due to staffing.”
- I will be working with Mel Davis, SCT Facility rep and his local executive board to ensure that Congress and the American flying public are aware of the dismal state of staffing at SCT.
- Noel Kingston, NWP Legislative Lead puts out a very nice legislative update. Please note the subject line of these emails and DO NOT open any of them which state, “HATCH ACT- DO NOT OPEN AT WORK”. It would be a Hatch Act violation to view these emails at work. For a list of Hatch Act Do’s and Don’ts, please go to our regional website and look under the Legislative Tab for “Hatch Act Information”.
- I took annual leave on Wednesday April 16, 2008 so that our NWP Safety Lead, Eric Carter, could do a presentation at the Representative training in Las Vegas on official time.
- I worked with John Paiva, POC Facility rep/NWP LR rep regarding an accident at POC. As a reminder, there is an accident checklist on the regional website under the “Safety” tab for your use. Please use this checklist when there is an aircraft accident as it will guide you through every step of the way. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that you post the checklist on your NATCA bulletin board and even make some available to be picked up by members. The checklist has everything you need to help you through an accident.
- Early last week, we conducted an Arbitration hearing on a removal from a facility in California. Our Team was comprised of Kevin Sills, NATCA National LR Representative and Steve McCoy, NWP LR Rep. Our grievant was very happy with the representation that he received from Kevin Sills and Steve McCoy.
- I sent several emails to Western Terminal in which I expressed my concerns with a pattern of retaliatory behavior by the BUR ATM following a recent evaluation by a FAA “Go Team”; I have not heard back from Western Terminal.
- Recently, it was brought to my attention that there were some changes associated with agency rules on ERR’s (Employee Requested Reassignment). Here is the response from the agency regarding this issue:
“While the change has been somewhat marketed as an ERR change, the change is really to the qualification requirements for CPC and Developmental positions. These changes affect both MPP and ERR candidates.
CPC
Under the old requirements, one year of CPC experience was required to move to a higher or lower ATC level. Under the new qualification requirements, one year of CPC experience is only required if moving to a higher ATC level. This does not mean that each time a CPC transfers to a new facility, he/she must certify and then remain there for a year for a year before bidding to a higher level facility. Once the employee has one year of CPC experience, they are good for the remainder of their career, and can apply via MPP or ERR at any time. For CPCs looking to move to the same or lower ATC level, there is no time requirement; once they attain CPC status they are eligible to move to the same or lower level. I (personally speaking) see this change as a benefit to the employee; within the last year, we ran into several cases of employees wishing to ERR/MPP to the same or lower level facility, shortly after certifying, but they could not because of the one year rule; now they can.
Developmentals
There were also changes to the Developmental qualification requirements. The old rules were quite restrictive and required the developmental to go quite far in the training program to be eligible for movement. The new rules are less restrictive. To move to the same or lower ATC level, the developmental may be an Academy Grad, D1, D2 or D3 that has not yet received a notice of training termination. To move to a higher ATC level, the developmental must have completed the lowest Developmental level for his/her current facility.”
- I have asked Steve McCoy (NCT) and NWP LR rep to spear head the Reno to NCT consolidation. Steve will be working with the Reno Local and its members to organize them and prepare them to confront the upcoming proposed consolidation to NCT. Steve will also work with Noel Kingston on any and all required legislative work that needs to be accomplished to deal with this consolidation.
- Friday April 18, 2008, I got some currency at ZLA and delegated the official time to NWP LR Lead Mike Hull.
