NAATS - NAATS Statement to Congress on the 2005 FAA Budget

STATEMENT OF

WALTER W, PIKE, PRESIDENT

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AIR TRAFFIC SPECIALISTS

ON THE PROPOSED FY 2005 FAA BUDGET

BEFORE THE

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION

WASHINGTON, DC

March 17, 2004

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

My name is Walter W. ("Wally") Pike. I am completing my fifth year as President of the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS). I have worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for thirty-five years and in air traffic control continuously since 1973, with assignments at Fort Worth, Childress, and San Antonio, Texas, and at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

At the same time, I have been a NAATS union official since 1979, serving in various capacities.

NAATS is the exclusive representative of the more than 2,100 controllers and automation specialists who work at the Flight Service Stations throughout the United States, and I am here today to give you their views. I want to note that these dedicated men and women continued to work during the 1981 strike providing vital safety functions to the flying public.

My testimony will focus on our recommendations for the FAA's FY 2005 budget. I respectfully request that my entire written statement be made part of the record.

THE FAA'S BUDGET

A76 OUTSOURCING PROCESS

Mr. Chairman, our major concern for you and the Subcommittee to consider this year is the fact that the FAA will, once again, continue the unnecessary and ill-considered A76 outsourcing process that was initiated in May, 2002.

By the FAA�s own estimate, the cost of conducting this A76 process will exceed $20 million. All of this is unnecessary and constitutes a colossal waste of resources in these times of budgetary constraints.

NAATS made a very innovative proposal to the FAA last year. Projected savings were $70 million over the seven year transition period of this proposal. Unfortunately the FAA rejected the offer without even discussing it in detail with NAATS. We continue to be willing to move to these efficiencies without this misguided outsourcing process. That the FAA continues to mismanage its budget will come as no surprise to this subcommittee but this A76 process is particularly wasteful.

Notwithstanding the above, the NAATS workforce is the wrong group to out-source. OMB has stated that we are the most complex workforce ever to be studied for outsourcing. It is important to note that we do not disagree with the concept of outsourcing. In fact, we feel it makes good economic sense in some instances. Our workforce, however, is clearly the wrong one to contract out to the lowest bidder. Even the National Weather Service, the certifying agency for pilot weather briefing (PWB), has stated that "PWB is a federal government responsibility" . PWB is one of the many essential and critical services our controllers provide to ensure aviation safety and security.

There are 75 Flight Service Stations (FSS) throughout our country. Last year over 30 million services were provided by this professional air traffic work force. These services are provided to the pilot flying a single engine Cessna who might be flying his family on a vacation trip, or to the airline captain on a flight that you or I could be on. Below is a brief description of what these men and women do:

Our air traffic controllers provide briefings of weather conditions along a pilot�s route of flight. Although this is done with mostly general aviation pilots, we also work with a number of corporate and military pilots, and often with airline pilots. This is done either with the pilot on the telephone before they depart, or on the radio while they are airborne after they have departed.
Particularly after a pilot departs, they will call our controllers and receive information about severe weather conditions such as icing and thunderstorms. Instructions are passed on to them by our controllers on new routes they can deviate to in order to avoid these conditions.
Traffic conditions are given to pilots, by our controllers, who are landing and departing at airports where there is no control tower, or at airports where the control tower has closed for the day.
The FSS air traffic controllers maintain the nationwide information system that has data on the conditions of runways, significant restricted areas as well as the national enroute navigational system used by pilots to safely guide them along their route of flight
FSS controllers are responsible for providing the temporary flight restriction (TFR) information to pilots so that they do not stray into prohibited, restricted or special use airspace. Examples of these are the restrictions during the President�s State of the Union Address, the unfortunate tragedy of the space shuttle debris and the Air Defense Identification Zone restrictions, implemented here in our nation�s capital and planned for other areas across the US. When President Bush travels by air his location is frequently identified in advance using TFR�s. It�s hard to imagine a more inherently governmental operation relating to national security. Without doubt the duties performed by FSS controllers are central to the core mission of the FAA.

The FAA has acknowledged that the remarkable air traffic control efforts in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks could not have taken place without the FSS controllers. The FAA has stated that all of air traffic control (FSS, enroute, terminal) is interrelated and interdependent. Already critically short-staffed, the FSS employees absorbed a fourfold or greater increase in workload and were instrumental in accomplishing the agency mission during the trying days that followed. FSS controllers should be included in any legislation identifying inherently governmental air traffic operations. In the interim we ask that this subcommittee withhold funding to the FAA to continue this outsourcing process in FY2005.

ALASKA

Mr. Chairman, as you know Alaska is exempt from the A76 process being conducted by the FAA. This doesn�t mean, however, that we don�t have serious issues for the Subcommittee to consider.

Alaska is an extraordinary State with very unique aviation needs. In Alaska, perhaps more than any other state, the communities and villages rely upon aviation for their way of life and quite often their very survival. Unfortunately, even our remote sites in Alaska are suffering as a result of the outsourcing study being conducted in the contiguous United States. Even though exempt from this ill-conceived outsourcing effort, the Alaska aviation community is suffering as Flight Service Station staffing levels fall perilously low due to a "wait and see" attitude. In some cases, staffing levels are so low in Alaska that a Flight Service Station must be closed or part-timed if even one controller becomes ill and calls in sick. Undoubtedly this equates to a degradation of service because hiring new employees is simply not a high enough budget priority for the agency. Clearly, the number one concern for Alaska is our lack of human capital. In 1994 Congress mandated the establishment and implementation of an Alaskan rotational staffing program. This wise congressional decision served the Alaska aviation community well for many years but now it too is on the decline in the current A-76 climate. Adequate staffing is a top priority for all Flight Service Stations and Alaska is no different. Unfortunately this is yet another example of FAA mismanagement.

The FAA is famous for its new and improved technology. Very few of these projects, however, have served the Alaska aviation community as well as the basic Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS), Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) and Weather Cameras (WXCAM). The AWOS and ASOS locations across Alaska provide the FSS controllers with weather information that can be interpreted and relayed directly to the pilot. The Alaska Weather Cameras (WXCAM) also provide near real-time pictures of weather conditions at actual locations. These invaluable tools have been tested and proven by both Alaskan pilots and Alaskan FSS controllers. We simply do not have enough of them where we need them. Quite simply, this equipment saves lives and we need more of them throughout Alaska.

Basic facility conditions at Alaska Flight Service Stations are austere at best. In many locations FSSs are located in WWII vintage dilapidated buildings with non-potable water running though the pipes and wind blowing through the poorly insulated walls. Often, our controllers must where coats at work and can see their breath as they speak into the microphones. Due to budget cuts, however, numerous Alaska FSS building projects have been canceled and/or cut back.

Alaska needs the men and women needed to provide our life-saving services to Alaska�s pilots, the equipment to do it, and a safe, secure location to do it from.

OASIS

The FAA decision to cut the Operational and Supportability Implementation System (OASIS) budget by $4.2M in FY 2004 is devastating to the program. It not only hurts the Flight Service controller and their capability to do their job, but also the flying public that depends on FSS to receive information needed for a safe flight.

As the Subcommittee members know, OASIS is the program that brings new, updated equipment and capabilities to the Flight Service controller. It replaces dated and worn equipment and brings Flight Service into the 21st century. The Windows based system allows the FSS controller to use latest technology to accomplish their job. Multi-tasking, quicker access to more information, more user friendly data displays, more graphics and enhancements to those graphics are just some of the advantages of OASIS. With OASIS, Flight Service controllers provide quicker and better services to the pilot, both in the air and on the ground. This service includes flight planning and weather information used by the pilot to get a better picture of what will affect their flight.

The FAA cut in the program will stop deployment of OASIS to 10 of the 12 Flight Service Stations scheduled to receive OASIS based on the 2004 FY budget. Only 16 Flight Service Stations around the country will have OASIS. Seven of our ten busiest Flight Service Stations are among those that were scheduled to receive OASIS this year and now will not. These include MIAMI AFSS, ST PETERSBURG AFSS, FT WORTH AFSS, MACON AFSS and DENVER AFSS. The 10 Flight Service Stations affected by this budget cut performed over 6 million flight service operations in the 1st nine months (Jan -- Sept) of 2003. That equals over 25% of total flight service operations nationally for that same period.

The FAA decision to cut OASIS funding, thus denying the benefits of OASIS to these Flight Service Stations, their controllers, and the flying public that use these facilities is absolutely unacceptable. The better the service to the pilot, the safer the flight; the pilot has come to expect this from the FAA. We ask the Subcommittee to direct the FAA to install OASIS at the ten additional sites in FY05.

I would be pleased to respond to any questions. Thank you.

NAATS

The National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) is a labor union with national exclusive recognition as the bargaining agent for all GS-2152 series Air Traffic Control Specialists employed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the Flight Service option. NAATS was certified as the national exclusive bargaining representative in February 1972.