Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Marion’s Poodles – Act 4
Earlier we touched on this article in AOPA’ web site (see ‘Marion’s Poodles – Act 2’) and promised to look at it again.
This time we want to concentrate on a couple additional comments by AOPA president Phil Boyer who more and more talks like someone who wishes not to make sense. Specifically he says the following about a proposed one-year delay in the contract:
1) Reducing the number of controllers from 2200 to 1000 is acceptable, but dropping an additional 34 (for a total of 966) is not.
2) 600 fewer employees on October 4th is ok if Lockheed Martin takes over, but not if the Federal Government continues to provide service for up to a year more.
3) Three facilities instead of 20.
Mr. Boyer calls the above scenarios “grim.” His objections are ‘res ipse loquitur’ absurd, but let’s address them anyway.
To the first point, if there is no discernable problem in a 54.5% reduction in the controller workforce, why should a 56% reduction become a harbinger of doom? We would think the first 1200 controllers shown out the door would raise eyebrows, not the following 34.
Second, if 600 fewer controllers would be a problem for the FAA, why would they not be missed with LM at the helm, especially given that there will be no facility or equipment changes during the first six months of the contract?
An additional note…that 600 person guesstimate has little basis. Given the FAA’s heavy-handed tactics in keeping the workforce temporarily in place, we’re not likely to see that sudden a drop in personnel by October 4th. While many hundreds of new controllers are hired off the street, only about 150 current, experienced controllers have found work outside of Flight Service and will be leaving no matter what. What’s left of the ‘600’ are those who plan on retiring rather than work for LM. Should a delay mean that the FAA continues to provide Flight Services past October 4th, expect many of those retirement applications to be quickly withdrawn.
Finally, let’s look at the number of facilities, 20 for LM, 3 for the FAA in-house bid. It should be made known that LM has not guaranteed that the 17 ‘legacy’ stations will remain after three years. In fact they’re quite adamant about keeping their options, not the stations, open. It has yet to be explained why Mr. Boyer prefers any given number of stations. We can’t help but get the impression that the answer is simply, as always, “Because the FAA told me so.”
This time we want to concentrate on a couple additional comments by AOPA president Phil Boyer who more and more talks like someone who wishes not to make sense. Specifically he says the following about a proposed one-year delay in the contract:
Lockheed-Martin's bid keeps 20 facilities in place with 1,000 employees, whileNow let’s see if we can decipher Mr. Boyer’s main points:
the FAA's in-house bid would build three new facilities and keep only 966
employees… With no funding for outsourcing, services would have to be provided
by federal employees. Unfortunately, there aren't enough federal employees to do
the job. The FAA estimates that more than 600 FSS employees will have
voluntarily retired or quit by the time the measure could take effect.
1) Reducing the number of controllers from 2200 to 1000 is acceptable, but dropping an additional 34 (for a total of 966) is not.
2) 600 fewer employees on October 4th is ok if Lockheed Martin takes over, but not if the Federal Government continues to provide service for up to a year more.
3) Three facilities instead of 20.
Mr. Boyer calls the above scenarios “grim.” His objections are ‘res ipse loquitur’ absurd, but let’s address them anyway.
To the first point, if there is no discernable problem in a 54.5% reduction in the controller workforce, why should a 56% reduction become a harbinger of doom? We would think the first 1200 controllers shown out the door would raise eyebrows, not the following 34.
Second, if 600 fewer controllers would be a problem for the FAA, why would they not be missed with LM at the helm, especially given that there will be no facility or equipment changes during the first six months of the contract?
An additional note…that 600 person guesstimate has little basis. Given the FAA’s heavy-handed tactics in keeping the workforce temporarily in place, we’re not likely to see that sudden a drop in personnel by October 4th. While many hundreds of new controllers are hired off the street, only about 150 current, experienced controllers have found work outside of Flight Service and will be leaving no matter what. What’s left of the ‘600’ are those who plan on retiring rather than work for LM. Should a delay mean that the FAA continues to provide Flight Services past October 4th, expect many of those retirement applications to be quickly withdrawn.
Finally, let’s look at the number of facilities, 20 for LM, 3 for the FAA in-house bid. It should be made known that LM has not guaranteed that the 17 ‘legacy’ stations will remain after three years. In fact they’re quite adamant about keeping their options, not the stations, open. It has yet to be explained why Mr. Boyer prefers any given number of stations. We can’t help but get the impression that the answer is simply, as always, “Because the FAA told me so.”
# posted by Skywise @ 9:25 PM 
