Tag: air traffic controller

Union leaders representing air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants issued an urgent warning on Wednesday that the month-long government shutdown was threatening the safety and security of the nation’s air travel system. “We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,” the union leaders wrote. Senate to vote on pair of bills that could end government shutdown Read more They said staffing at air traffic control facilities was at a “30-year low” as the rate of employee callouts continued to rise. To compensate for the staffing shortages, the union leaders said controllers were working overtime, including 10-hour shifts, six days a week. The Federal Aviation Administration has frozen hiring as a result of the shutdown, meaning they are unable to fill staffing requirements, the statement says. “As union leaders, we find it unconscionable that aviation professionals are being asked to work without pay and in an air safety environment that is deteriorating by the day,” the statement said. As many as 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are among the 420,000 federal employees working without pay as the shutdown reaches a 33rd day over Donald Trump’s insistence that Congress fund a wall along the south-west border. With reduced staffing, some airports have had to close security checkpoints or appeal for additional screeners to help with the long lines at checkpoints. Meanwhile, airlines are reporting tens of millions in lost revenue. The partial shutdown, which began on 22 December, is the longest in American history.

As the government shutdown continues, the union for air traffic controllers has decided to sue the Trump administration as they prepare to go another week without pay. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth…

Heck, this year Republicans can’t even agree with other Republicans on how the nation’s air traffic control system should be operated. That’s what happened in 2011. But last year, rather than do the hard work of settling differences and passing another actual FAA reauthorization bill, Congress passed an 18-month extension. They are sensitive to business and general aviation groups, and to many elected officials in rural states, who argue either that the big airlines would control a not-for-profit air traffic control organization, or that control towers in rural and thinly populated states would be closed down – all to the detriment of business and general aviation and rural states’ economies. Plus, many members of Congress enjoy the support of wealthy and well-to-do constituents who own and/or fly general aviation aircraft or business jets. Some of those constituents also at times make their aircraft available for use by Senators and/or members of Congress. None of this, of course, really addresses the policy question of whether the nation’s air traffic control system would be operated better if freed from the government financing and purchasing constraints and operating requirements that have hampered ATC system modernization and innovation over the last 25 years at a cost of tens of billions of wasted tax dollars. Airline executives argue – and have for years – that the existing antiquated ATC system and old fashioned procedures it forces upon the industry is the primary cause of their horrendous on-time performance over the years. Yet today’s airlines consistently get away with failing to deliver their passengers to their destination at the time they said they would more than 20% of the time, and more than 35% of the time excluding the DOT’s generous definition of “on-time” and all the extra time now included in published flight times.