Congressman Vows To Fight Removal

Long Island's MacArthur Airport (ISP) will soon lose its computerized departure system to Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey... a move strongly protested by air traffic controllers and elected officials, who say the decision will lead to flight delays.

Representative Steve Israel (D-Huntington) vowed to "reorient the FAA's budget" if necessary to stop its officials from relocating critical air traffic control equipment. 
He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and is a frequent user of the airport.

Israel held a news conference Friday outside the airport control tower, along with Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southhampton), a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, reports Newsday.

"I don't intend to take no for an answer," said Israel. "I am interested in the FAA deciding not to move the equipment. Anything less will ensure a strong response - legislatively."

Islip Councilmen Christopher Bodkin and Gene Parrington, Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan, and James Wecht, representative for the air traffic controllers union, also joined the press conference.

Without the Departure Control System, air traffic controllers will have to make manual phone calls to obtain approval for each departure.

"If you're going to make manual calls, that means it's less efficient," said Israel. "If it's less efficient, that means it's going to have a negative impact."

"It's the electronic era and they're going in reverse," added Phil Nolan. "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac responded, saying the move to Morristown will make New York airspace more efficient overall and would not cause delays at MacArthur.

"The controllers will be doing the same job the same way they did before they got the Departure Spacing Program," Salac said.

The DSP was installed as a test program at MacArthur in 2002. It calculates the most efficient routes and automatically approves flights for departure.

The flight number appears in green on an LCD screen, meaning the flight is approved. "We don't have to call a soul," controller James Wecht said. "That cuts down on 95 percent of our coordination."

Without the system, Islip controllers will have to call the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), which oversees airspace in New York, Delaware, New Jersey and across the Atlantic.

According to Wecht, "The staffing at the ARTCC is so bad, nobody answers the phone anymore and when the weather goes bad, forget about it. You're going to sit on the ground for three, four, five hours."

Islip MacArthur has about 130 departures a day and close to three million passengers, in contrast to Morristown with no commercial airline traffic.

"The FAA is telling Long Islanders that their convenience is less of a priority than air travelers in New Jersey," Israel said. "The administrator of the FAA has agreed to meet to try to resolve this issue next week. If that doesn't work, we will fight this in his budget."

FMI: www.macarthurairport.com; www.faa.gov