Originally published at: FAA Lowers Controller Staffing Target
Agency says revised model, scheduling tools will be used to address workforce needs.
FAA’s Bedford champions the mantra of doing more with less. His earlier quest to lower new entrant Pilot standards from 1500 hours to 1000 to grant regional airline relief telegraphed his downline intentions elsewhere. Until such time as more restrictive ATC capacity restrictions are implemented doing more with less will have unfortunate consequences.
What they always fail to consider in these grand ideas is that even IF they implement more technology and somehow make the operations more efficient, traffic numbers increase.
But my question is this: the last time I checked, they had around 11,000 controllers and they say around 4,000 in the training pipeline, yet they had over 43,000 employees. They had more employees at FAA headquarters than they had working traffic (something live 11,500 at HQ). That does not include the three Service Centers (formerly regions) and then 20 districts.
Some of the 28,000 that aren’t controllers or trainees are involved in maintenance work of critical infrastructure, some in safety-related jobs, and some in administrative tasks that are important to any organization. But that comes nowhere near 28,000. Seems like we are looking for efficiency in the wrong place.
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… or you aren’t aware of all that the FAA is supposed to do besides ATC…
Accident/incident investigation; negotiating regulatory changes with Congress/Manuf/Airlines/Pilots/Repair shops; monitoring and enforcement actions against pilots, FA, manuf, airlines, designers; certification of parts, airplanes, add-ons, both domestic and international; working groups for new technology; testing of pilots, instructors, mechanics, etc.; certification of simulators, pilot training schools, airline operations changes, periodic calibration/certification of ground based navigation facilities; coordinating revisions to published navigation chart data for obstacles, magnetic variation, facility changes; designing new approaches for GPS, noise abatement; reviewing construction permits for approach path interference; resolving complaints over drone operations; evaluating/permitting new drone ops for package delivery; harmonizing ops changes with ICAO, EASA, etc.; … dozens more…
If you think that grossly incomplete list doesn’t already account for 28,000, or (like Congress) haven’t yet begun to realize why they drop the ball on so many of their responsibilities, just ask them to complete the list—you’ll be lucky to get a response sometime next decade.
No, I certainly am not aware of all they are supposed to do. I’ve only work with them for a little shy of 40 years.
The reason they have 28,000 odd people on non-ATC duties is their processes and systems to accomplish nearly anything are something that would make Rube Goldberg proud. Their problem is not the number of people. Misallocation of people, yes, but not numbers. Tools for those people, yes again. But not numbers.
It would not take them decades to compile the list. That would get farmed out to one of the thousands of support contractors in DC and New Jersey over and above the 28,000. And somehow, despite those raw numbers, they also have too few safety inspectors and technicians to maintain the systems and infrastructure to complement too few controllers.
It boils down to priorities, or lack thereof. Every time they go in front of the NTSB, that is made apparent.
The NTSB has become an arm-waving publicity hound that is more into making a spectacle of itself, sometimes at the expense of a proper investigation. Don’t they delegate most of their GA investigations to the FAA?
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