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ATC blunders spur calls for broad FAA reform Posted: April 22nd, 2011 08:56 AM CDT MICHAEL COLLINS, Scripps Howard News Service A series of embarrassing blunders involving an air traffic controllers at airports across the country may have put the Federal Aviation Administration on the spot, but U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. thinks the revelations point to a much bigger problem. Federal personnel policies make it extremely difficult to fire problem employees, the Knoxville, Tenn., Republican said. They desperately need to be changed, he thinks. "There are too many protections for most federal workers," Duncan said. "It's too hard...

Do you ever fall asleep on the job? Posted by: Jay Kernis - Senior Producer ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's OFF-SET questions is Billie H. Vincent, president an CEO of Aerospace Services International. --------- Based on your experience, will these changes make a difference? "And, is a controller better suited to function alertly if he/she has to work a week of straight mid-shifts, a month of these shifts - or an occasional one every other week? In addition, the FAA Administrator has announced that he will take the head of the Air Traffic Controller’s union along with him on...

It's a flier alarm. The feds are investigating charges that New York air-traffic controllers endanger passengers by working just three hours per shift and acting like slackers -- chatting, texting and even watching movies when they should be monitoring planes, The Post has learned. At times, so few are at their posts that a single controller must do the job of two or three and track 15 aircraft simultaneously, which is too many, according to allegations filed by a supervisor. Evan Seeley, a frontline manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma, LI, fired off complaints...

Iran has been able to smuggle advanced technological equipment to its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz via a complex smuggling route based in Dubai, the Sunday Telegraph reported on Sunday. According to the report, an Iranian company has purchased control systems from one of Germany's leading electronic manufacturers. The deal was negotiated with a Dubai trading company, which in turn sold Iran a range of electronic equipment for use at its enrichment facility, the British website reported. The report comes amid growing concerns that though Iran claims its nuclear program has only peaceful aims, Tehran is in fact working toward...

Most of the nation’s air traffic controllers charged with making the friendly skies safe for millions of airline passengers won’t be in their jobs in the next few years. A generation of rookies hired in the early 1980s, after President Reagan fired more than 10,000 controllers for going on strike, is now approaching the mandatory retirement age of 56. By next year alone, about 7,000 controllers—nearly half of the workforce—will be retiring from the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a report by the General Accounting Office in 2002. Thousands more will reach retirement age within about five years. The anticipated...

Fox News Alert MAJOR problem with national air traffic...specifically flight plan system....All air traffic halted, nationally.

The FAA has offered an unprecedented $100,000 bonus to air-traffic controllers throughout the country to lure them to the New York area's five understaffed radar centers - and has even begun trolling local high schools to recruit for the jobs. The FAA began its recruitment efforts in high schools and through online ads on MySpace and Craigslist because of a severe staffing shortage and lack of experience among workers at its air-control towers.   (edit) By 2011, 59 percent of all controllers will have less than five years on the job.  

NATCA Says Membership May Opt for early retirement.

12/29/2005 - ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- Another small dot drags a string of numbers with it as it hesitantly shuffles onto the screen. Now there are 30 dots with numbers. Airman 1st Class Grant Gers slips a strip of paper, no wider than a magazine and shorter than two end-to-end sugar packs, neatly but quickly enters the squawk (four of the numbers —- the call sign) and the time, adjusts his microphone and makes contact. “Welcome to my sky,” he said. The aircraft was in the 50,000 square miles of Iraqi airspace controlled by a small group of Airmen...

After years of labor peace under a friendly Democratic administration, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has chosen to take on the Bush administration over whether the Federal Aviation Administration can continue to contract out control towers at some smaller airports. At first glance the boisterous duel seems to be over whether to continue unchanged a program that the union once tolerated. But beneath the surface, it represents a decision by the union and Senate Democrats to use the issue as a battleground for the Republican philosophy of privatizing functions now handled by government employees. Union President John Carr said...

I was heartbroken. Eight months later, I admit it. There I was in Philadelphia, a handful of days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. I had taken Amtrak to the 30th Street Station from Manhattan because flights were limited. New York, the whole country, was not itself. And I had a broken heart. The stop in Philadelphia lasted 45 minutes. The passengers milled about. Train station muffin in hand, I looked at wall art. I've been genuinely moved by public art twice. This was the second time. The first was at a bus stop at Boston Common, where a bronze...