FAA, Controllers Once Again At Odds

It's almost too strange -- like a time warp. In 1981, a Republican administration duked it out with unionized air traffic controllers. The controllers' union lost and they were all fired by the Reagan White House.

Now, controllers are again at odds with a Republican president. This time, it's the Reagan-esque Mr. Bush who wants to privatize some ATC functions. Controllers don't much like the idea.

Controllers say their jobs were protected from privatization in 2000 when President Clinton signed an executive order calling air traffic service "an inherently governmental function." Last year, President Bush reclassified the jobs as "commercial, but exempt from competition."

The FAA says it's only trying to save money here. But the union representing 15,600 ATC workers, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) says the cost savings come at the expense of safety.

In 1982, after the PATCO strike which ultimately led to the dismissal of more than 11,000 federally-employed controllers, the government started contracting control tower services to privately-owned companies. The government says privatizing tower services saves a tremendous amount of money. Federal figures show the average federally-run control tower costs the government $1.34 million a year. Those same figures indicate it only costs $421,000 a year to pay for privately-contracted tower services. As of this year, 219 of the country's 484 public airports which have control towers are run by contractors.

John Carr, NATCA President, says the Bush administration showed its continuing determination to privatize tower functions by threatening to veto a four-year, $60 billion aviation bill unless it included a provision to privatize 69 more airport towers. That could mean pink slips for more than 900 controllers.

Carr says contract towers are often run by a single controller. He says that makes the controller less accountable because he only has himself to rat on if there's a problem or an accident. But the FAA says the same certainly goes for federally controlled towers, which sometimes operate with a single controller.

The battle is already likely to end up in Congress, where Democrats promise they'll approve no bill that turns more government-run control towers to the private sector.

FMI: www.natca.org