Equipment problems compounded with staff shortages to cause massive delays at Newark Airport on Monday night. Hundreds of flights were delayed or diverted starting in the afternoon and although the equipment issues were resolved relatively quickly the unexplained staffing problems at Philadelphia TRACON, which controls the Newark flow, prevented a full recovery. Among the diverted flights were those from overseas and they were sent to smaller airports where Customs facilities are unaccustomed to large influxes of passengers.
Your brain on leftist Kool-aid, you get the picture? I worked 29 years as a controller, and one thing I found out quickly, there will always be shortages of controllers working the boards, but never ever were there shortages of supervisors, staff or upper management. Maybe the FAA should becoming like the Marine Corp, every marine is a rifleman first, and all the extra stuff secondary…
Clinton Administration: Green book pay increase. Controller-In-Charge program (pay controllers 10% extra to do supervisor duties and reduce the amount of them needed). Money for infrastructure.
Bush Administration: FOUR YEAR HIRING FREEZE. White book 30% pay cut for new controllers. Pay caps for veterans leading to earlier retirements. Massive supervisor hiring bloating their ranks. Freezing controllers out of modernization projects wasting BILLIONS in failed NEXTGEN programs. Reduced money for infrastructure leading to further deteriorating infrastructure.
Obama Administration: Forced FAA back to the table, increasing pay back to previous levels, more funding for staffing and facilities.
Trump First Administration: Dumb push to privatize. No meaningful increase in pay or money for staffing increases or facility equipment.
Biden Administration: FAA Reauthorization act pushing for max hiring (FINALLY), increased hiring targets, fully funding the training pipeline.
TLDR: Controller staffing shortages and the decay of the NAS is 100% owned by the Republicans since 1998.
Ball in your court to prove me wrong. What in your entire career do you remember that the GOP did to increase staffing, pay, and modernization? And what did the the Democrats do to decrease? Because I
Thanks for the suggestion, but I spent 33 years building a business and then retired. As far as TDS, anybody using that term needs a foil hat adjustment. I just call 'em as I see 'em.
Russ: Thanks for all you do to provide relevant aviation content and comment. May I suggest you guys at AVweb consider being more proactive in banning or limiting the number of comments allowed by those few serial commenters who seem wont to turn everything in petty, politicized nonsense? We all know who they are, and many of us are quite tired of having to scan past their crap to find more thoughtful contributors. Thanks again.
May I suggest you guys at AVweb consider being more proactive in banning or limiting the number of comments allowed by those few serial commenters […]
No need for the moderators to second guess the rest of us on the question of how much is too much - we can decide for ourselves. Go to the Discourse Forum User Guide for instructions on muting or ignoring such individuals.
Thanks for the info… did not find when I poked around earlier. Click the name, click the name again on the user card. I’ll do that for the few who have nothing meaningful to say
From Russ:
You don’t see all of the stuff we do cut, either. It is a balancing act but Jason Baker is correct in that I do err on the the side of letting people have their say as long as they’re reasonably civil. He’s also not wrong about the popularity of the forum. Not many people regularly participate but quite a few pop by to see what they’re talking about and since that is our bread and butter I intend to keep it going pretty much the way it is.
Thanks for taking the time. Comments like yours do make me look more critically at the comments. Also, most of the folks you’re discussing are highly experienced and knowledgeable folks whose politics is just part of their overall presence. When they write about aviation, it’s generally worth reading. Long hours on the flight deck with not much else to do but think about things has likely hardened their opinions more than most I suspect.
Russ
According to AVwebs fearless leader, this sort of conduct in comments is appreciated and viewed as “healthy discourse”. Most of us “neutrals” are just here to consume large amounts of stocked popcorn.
Plus, the drama generates nice advertising revenue as comments likely now account for a healthy dose of repeat visitors and lots of extra impressions…
Passengers are getting stuck on airplanes as long as overnight, in various places.
Especially burdensome if diversion is to an airport in Canada.
(Alaska Airlines has a new plan to reduce congestion at KSEA - change some flights to KPDX.
(Alaska now has flights to HI and beyond after buying Hawaiin airlines.
In the past, some new or discount airlines in Canada and US avoided the big airports, which also gave them cost savings.
Windsor ON instead of Toronto ON, Abbotsford BC instead of Vancouver BC for example. However, some passengers strongly wanted the closeness of the large airport with its easier ground transportation links.
Alaska is now operating flights of of KPAE north of Seattle but that’s done to better serve the growing population of Everett and adjacent areas, KSEA is south of Seattle. Apparently KPAE is still somewhat in the airspace congestion of KSEA.)
“The issues came as the federal government has set an ambitious program to modernize and streamline air traffic services, particularly on the East Coast. Newark has been a flash point for traffic issues after a controversial shift of staff from Newark to Philadelphia last year.”
As a never Trumper myself I like to put facts first. The controller issue didn’t happen because of Trump or DOGE.
