Benefits from the
planned $42 billion investment in a new United States air-traffic control system
depend on being able to combine and move hundreds of radar rooms that
are obsolete or can’t accommodate new equipment.
That modernization effort
is at risk because U.S. lawmakers have blocked several attempts to
merge such Federal Aviation Administration facilities, according to
agency data compiled by Bloomberg and interviews with former FAA
officials.
“You tell a congressman
that you’re pulling a center out of his or her district, you’re going to
have a gigantic scream,” said George Donohue, a former FAA associate
administrator. “When you talk about consolidating big, expensive,
redundant facilities, Congress just won’t let it get done.”
The program known as
NextGen involves using global- positioning satellite technology to
replace radar to track aircraft and giving controllers better
communication tools including an e-mail-like link to pilots. The FAA
projects NextGen will save airlines $24 billion in fuel, delays and
other expenses by 2020 by letting planes fly more direct routes and
closer to each other.
The agency has come under
congressional criticism for delays and cost overruns on some early
parts of NextGen, including a new computer system to monitor traffic and
serve as a backbone for much of the new technology. The
bricks-and-mortar network of more than 500 radar rooms and towers form
the low- tech side of the system.
Patchwork System
The radar rooms -- which
range from small facilities at rural airports to centers overseeing
thousands of miles of airspace -- were located based on 1950s
technology, Donohue said.
That created a system in
which jets flying into congested airspace near Chicago or New York might
have to follow serpentine routes dictated by facility boundaries.
Air-traffic centers must be merged for those routes to become more
efficient, said Donohue, who is an emeritus engineering professor at
George Mason University in Virginia.
More than half of those
facilities were more than 30 years old, which is beyond their useful
lifetime, according to a 2008 study by the Transportation Department’s
inspector general. An unspecified number are so old they can’t
accommodate the new NextGen equipment, it said.
Political Pressure
“The FAA’s ability to
meet the future needs of the aviation system, including the
implementation of NextGen, fundamentally relies on the agency’s ability
to optimize our facilities and workforce,” David Grizzle, the FAA’s
air-traffic chief, said in testimony at a May 31 congressional hearing.
Logs of contacts between
members of Congress and the FAA obtained under public records requests
by Bloomberg show at least 26 cases of lawmakers from both parties
lobbying the agency on controller staffing levels or the location of
air- traffic facilities from 2010 through May 2012.
The pressure included a
2010 letter from 16 of Ohio’s 18 members of Congress opposing an FAA
plan to merge local Terminal Radar Approach Control rooms, or TRACONs,
into a newer, centralized facility. The FAA put the effort on hold,
according to an inspector general report.
Representative Alcee
Hastings, a Florida Democrat, fought off the FAA’s attempt to close a
TRACON at Palm Beach International airport in his district and move it
to Miami. TRACONs oversee traffic in a radius of about 40 miles (64
kilometers) around an airport and as high as 17,000 feet (5,182 meters).
Safety Concerns
The move would have created a safety hazard and wasn’t adequately planned, Hastings said in an interview.
The National Air Traffic
Controllers Association, the union representing more than 15,000
members, has also opposed some FAA consolidations. The union, which
hasn’t objected to all such plans, wants to be consulted in merger
proposals and believes they often prove costlier than first thought,
NATCA President Paul Rinaldi said in an e-mail.
The FAA could do a better
job of selling consolidations if it had more reliable data on how many
controllers were needed at each facility and by involving union members
in decisions, said James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who headed the
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee until his defeat in
2010.
“These are big-hit, very visible issues,” Oberstar said. “You have to make the case for that and they haven’t.”
‘Flawed’ Estimates
Former FAA officials have
acknowledged the agency has underestimated costs of merging facilities.
A 2010 inspector general review of a proposal to move a radar room from
Boise, Idaho, to Salt Lake City found cost estimates were “flawed and
lacked transparency.”
Another example of a
consolidation marred by surprise costs occurred in 2001, when the FAA
merged several Georgia facilities into a TRACON around Atlanta’s
Hartsfield-Jackson International, the world’s busiest airport.
Ninety-four percent of
the controllers transferring from smaller locations couldn’t qualify to
work the more complex traffic at their new facility. Under an agreement
between the FAA and the union, those workers kept raises they’d received
to transfer even after moving back to smaller TRACONs, according to the
inspector general. Costs of the move were 53 percent above estimates,
most of which was due to the pay raises, the report said.
Cost Increases
Though the FAA hasn’t
completed plans for relocating or merging facilities, the process could
involve most of the U.S.’s more than 15,000 controllers, according to a
July 17 inspector general’s report. Preliminary plans to merge 51
TRACONs and en- route centers, which oversee traffic outside TRACON
boundaries, from Illinois to Maine into four facilities would effect
almost 3,000 controllers and more than 1,000 managers and technicians,
according to the report.
Merging that many
facilities presents many hurdles, according to the inspector general.
The agency must persuade the controllers, some of whom are eligible to
retire, to move and must negotiate with the union over retraining,
moving-related bonuses and moving expenses.
Congress in a law passed
Feb. 14 ordered the FAA to come up with a list of air-traffic facilities
to merge. If lawmakers don’t vote down the plan, the FAA must move
forward.
“The FAA continues its
work to develop a comprehensive plan for the consolidation and
realignment of some of the agency’s 500 existing air traffic
facilities,” the agency said in an e-mailed statement.
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