Monday, August 08, 2005
Marion's Poodles - Act 3
Our friends at AOPA seem intent on continuing to entertain us with their attempts at cheerleading Lockheed Martin as Heir Apparent to the nation’s Flight Service Stations.
The latest installment appeared on August 5th. You can read the whole thing here.
The first thing we noticed is the now familiar repetition of old, disproved excuses for supporting the contract; 20 minute wait times, $550 million per year cost, undocumented (thus far) metrics that are little or no improvement over the current system.
There are a couple new wrinkles to the arguments; they are weak attempts, and false as well. Contrary to Mr. Boyer’s assertion, FSSs can indeed measure hold times and abandon rates. Any controller that has walked by a supervisor desk and viewed the call monitor screen or printed out the end-of-day traffic log knows this (further proof that AOPA is only repeating what the FAA tells them without talking at all to the controllers actually doing the work).
But the article also represents an apparent change of heart for the AOPA on how this will effect controllers. For the first time we can remember (and we confess that we haven’t read everything written by Mr. Boyer and the AOPA on the matter), there is an grudging admission that there will be some significant difficulty for the controllers themselves. Andy Cebula (Government and Tech VP) and Mr. Boyer soft-peddle the issue and avoid the real problem facing controllers (more fully, but still not completely, covered in our post ‘On a Pale Horse’). While still a tap-dance around the hard facts of the matter, we must admit that this is a small step in the right direction, a far cry from parroting the inaccuracy that the contract will “protect the employees.”
But Messrs Boyer and Cebula still can’t resist a couple opportunities to mistake assertion for fact. The article ends with Mr. Boyer’s contention that "In a recent AOPA survey, the overwhelming majority of our members told us that they would be satisfied with the government contracting out FSS services." The AOPA webmaster knows how to use links. He (or she) uses them quite often. Curious that they are not utilized here for the benefit of the reader. But we have noted before (see Marion's Poodles - Act 1) that pilots are quite satisfied now.
Secondly, Mr. Cebula states that “…rumors pilots are hearing are just plain wrong." What these rumors are he doesn’t say. The article only says “One accusation is that AOPA has not supported the FSS employees in their concerns for job losses or the need to relocate.” Mr. Boyer’s response to this is that such concerns are not part of AOPA’s job. That is not a denial, but a justification of position. True, that is not AOPA’s job, and we at Flight Service Sigmet do not disagree. But we do wonder why Mr. Boyer continues to misrepresent our performance as controllers, and misinforms his membership over his knowledge of the contract and how it will negatively impact those who serve them.
The latest installment appeared on August 5th. You can read the whole thing here.
The first thing we noticed is the now familiar repetition of old, disproved excuses for supporting the contract; 20 minute wait times, $550 million per year cost, undocumented (thus far) metrics that are little or no improvement over the current system.
There are a couple new wrinkles to the arguments; they are weak attempts, and false as well. Contrary to Mr. Boyer’s assertion, FSSs can indeed measure hold times and abandon rates. Any controller that has walked by a supervisor desk and viewed the call monitor screen or printed out the end-of-day traffic log knows this (further proof that AOPA is only repeating what the FAA tells them without talking at all to the controllers actually doing the work).
But the article also represents an apparent change of heart for the AOPA on how this will effect controllers. For the first time we can remember (and we confess that we haven’t read everything written by Mr. Boyer and the AOPA on the matter), there is an grudging admission that there will be some significant difficulty for the controllers themselves. Andy Cebula (Government and Tech VP) and Mr. Boyer soft-peddle the issue and avoid the real problem facing controllers (more fully, but still not completely, covered in our post ‘On a Pale Horse’). While still a tap-dance around the hard facts of the matter, we must admit that this is a small step in the right direction, a far cry from parroting the inaccuracy that the contract will “protect the employees.”
But Messrs Boyer and Cebula still can’t resist a couple opportunities to mistake assertion for fact. The article ends with Mr. Boyer’s contention that "In a recent AOPA survey, the overwhelming majority of our members told us that they would be satisfied with the government contracting out FSS services." The AOPA webmaster knows how to use links. He (or she) uses them quite often. Curious that they are not utilized here for the benefit of the reader. But we have noted before (see Marion's Poodles - Act 1) that pilots are quite satisfied now.
Secondly, Mr. Cebula states that “…rumors pilots are hearing are just plain wrong." What these rumors are he doesn’t say. The article only says “One accusation is that AOPA has not supported the FSS employees in their concerns for job losses or the need to relocate.” Mr. Boyer’s response to this is that such concerns are not part of AOPA’s job. That is not a denial, but a justification of position. True, that is not AOPA’s job, and we at Flight Service Sigmet do not disagree. But we do wonder why Mr. Boyer continues to misrepresent our performance as controllers, and misinforms his membership over his knowledge of the contract and how it will negatively impact those who serve them.
# posted by Skywise @ 9:43 AM 
