FAA Says It Will Keep ATC Meteorologists

The FAA says it will keep staff meteorologists at 21 air traffic control centers. A few days after the union representing the weather specialists issued a press release saying the agency planned to get rid of them in favor of automated systems, the agency said it wasn't so. "The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service will continue our long-standing partnership to provide weather services to ensure the safety of the National Airspace System," an FAA spokesperson told USA TODAY in a statement.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/faa-says-it-will-keep-atc-meteorologists

Dateline, USA — Stop the presses! The FAA has announced it will not be sending its trusty weather forecasters to the unemployment line…

Years ago i got an advisor that told me of impending weather 250 miles away from me, that i didn’t see on my telephone, nor on the FBO computer. In the area where I was planning on traversing.

Since i couldn’t confirm or deny it, i took a chance, and went for it. Luckily there were 2 smaller airports on my line of flight. And yes, i had to put down and ride out the storm…

This comes up every few years when the FAA wants to stop paying NWS salaries. It’s always a bad idea. Good thing they’ve once again figured that out.

What a joke. Outside those towers FAA mandates tower controllers to be LAWRS certified, certified weather observers which can operate the NWS’s ASOS equipment and make corrections. Unions once again keeping useless/outdated people and concepts employed rather than focusing on better training, tech, and the big one staffing(not meteorologists, but actual controllers)

Are you actually trying to draw some equivalency between professionally qualified and experienced meteorologists and tower weather observers?

1 Like

Absolutely “experienced” meteorologists will sit in their office at the terminal with an obstructed view and call the sky “clear.” They are a joke, they are only needed at a few towers to make corrections to the ASOS and they can’t do that correctly.

This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.