Flight Service Sigmet

An example of the bad reportage we’ve come to expect from the AOPA is this article entitled “House bill could terminate flight service station modernization.” While typical of the ‘target rich environment’ of inaccuracy that the AOPA has displayed recently over the A-76 process, it’s the blue side-bar on the right that we draw your attention to today.

There is so much that is wrong in so little space that it’s difficult to know where to begin. But let’s start with AOPA president Phil Boyer’s first quote as he addresses the impact of the House bill;

"Everything that AOPA has worked for — improved services, performance
guarantees, Internet access to briefings, and $2.2 billion in cost savings over
the next decade — would be lost,"

This is a curious statement to make about a mere delay in a contract that is still under seal. No one outside of the Lockheed Martin bid team and the selection committee knows what’s in the contract (we’ve covered this before in our post entitled "With a Tangled Skein: Part 1"). Add to this that none of the other contract bids for the job are fully known either.

He then gets histrionic by saying “…GA pilots could expect to receive worse service at a higher cost, potentially compromising safety…” How can this be? Mr. Boyer doesn’t say. Probably because there is no reason to believe this is so.

Instead of posturing, let’s speak from knowledge. Should the House bill as amended become law, it means, at worst, current FSSs would function as is for no more than one year. On or before October 1, 2006, one of three things would take place: 1) the bid to LM would be reviewed and honored, 2) the bid would be awarded to the MEO, or 3) the contract would re-bid. Does any of these outcomes merit the dire warnings of Mr. Boyer?

On the other hand, there are definite reasons for the delay. As it stands now, no one is going to know what the contract contains until September. By then it will be too late for Congress to exercise its oversight powers to object to any significant flaws. Does this matter? Remember that this is the largest, most technical non-defense outsourcing ever done. The FAA is buying a yet-to-be-built, untested Flight Service system. Think of the military contracting for planes that have never flown…

As said before, this particular AOPA page is a target-rich environment. We’ll visit it again sometime soon. But as we read more and more from Mr. Boyer, the assertion that he is merely a third party advocate who wants the best for pilots seems less and less plausible.