And The Budget's Getting Tighter And Tighter

Rising costs. Declining revenue. Antiquated equipment. Outsourcing. Maintenance problems. No, we're not talking about a financially troubled airline. We're talking about the FAA.

The FAA issued a self-critique this week, saying that while the number of aviation accidents had declined, it will have to cut programs whose revenue is based on the Aviation Trust Fund. The fund has lost a quarter of its value over the past four years. Yet, the number of aircraft in the sky has increased. The number of controllers has declined and is expected to drop sharply as the current slate of employees reaches retirement age. There's no money to replace them.

Computers are old and now IBM, which supplies them, says it won't stock spares for those machines after 2008. There is no money budgeted to replace them. Ironically, none of the computers in the FAA's current inventory can run the agency's current software. There have been huge, embarrassing computer glitches and reports that at least 20 en route centers might be vulnerable to hackers.

"I think things are coming together in a bad way," said DOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead, in an interview with the New York Times.

There Is A Bit Of Good News

There's no question but that the FAA is handling the increased traffic load. In fact, the agency said, more and more, it's giving pilots direct routing to save fuel. The number of GA accidents has declined, as has the number of commercial mishaps.

Not one cabin-class commercial passenger plane has gone down since AAL 587 plunged into a New York neighborhood three years ago. There have been two commuter mishaps over the past three years, which have claimed 34 lives.

"This has been absolutely a banner year," said Blakey (above). She said the rate of fatal accidents on airliners was now one in 5 million takeoffs.

But while the FAA predicted the Aviation Trust Fund would receive $14 billion during FY 2005, it now projects income of only $11.1 billion.

While income is down, the FAA -- like a lot of government agencies -- is plagued with cost overruns. Take the STARS system, for example. When it was originally conceived, STARS was supposed to cost $949 million and use off-the-shelf equipment. But developers packed it with custom features and add-ons and the cost ballooned to $1.69 billion. With few alternatives, the FAA cut the number of STARS facilities and lengthened the timeline for their deployment.

The program became so cumbersome and out of control that Mead told members of Congress not long ago "the benefits that supported the initial acquisition are no longer valid."

The "R" Word

After President Ronald Reagan fired striking PATCO controllers, the FAA hired a bunch of young people, many from the military. In doing so, the agency created an age bubble, which, 24 years after the PATCO firings, is about to burst. Some are reaching retirement eligibility. Others are creeping up on 56 years of age -- the mandatory retirement age for controllers.

ANN has often chronicled the consternation of unionized controllers, aviation advocates and even FAA officials as they search for answers to the age bubble. Few controllers were hired in FY 2004. Administrator Marion Blakey says she'll try to find the money for training more new controllers in FY '05. But the intensive, painstaking training given to controller candidates means there won't be a flood of new controllers anytime soon.

FMI: www.faa.gov