Saturday, September 01, 2007

 

Maid Marion and the Train Wreck

Imagine the following scenario…a railroad engineer accelerates a train to top speed toward a broken bridge. Once the train reaches top speed he leaves the engine cab. With the train unable to stop before reaching the bridge, a second engineer takes control and does not prevent the crash. In fact, the actions of the second engineer are debatable as to any positive effect in mitigating the situation, and may have made it worse.

Question: who is most responsible for the crash, the first engineer or the second?

To use the reasoning found in some Air Traffic Control (ATC) blogs, the answer is the second. Everything that is wrong with ATC can be laid at the doorstep of departing FAA administrator Marion Blakey, and all was hunky-dory prior to her arrival.

Let’s add a second facet to our initial scenario: the passengers on the train were cheering the first engineer as the train gathered speed, yelling “Faster! Faster!” while accusing the second of “malfeasance in office, perjury, theft, and treason.”

In FAA terms, the first engineer can be thought of as Ms. Blakey’s predecessor, Jane Garvey. During her term, controller compensation skyrocketed, operational discipline declined, infrastructure problems went unaddressed. Controllers grew to expect that they also controlled the FAA, in effect at times, displacing local management. No wonder they enjoyed her reign and despise Blakey’s, who saw the out-of-control work area, sky-high compensation structure, loose work rules, and tried to do something about them.

This is not to say that Blakey made the right choices; we disagree with some of them ourselves. But there’s no question that ATC operations were out of control and needed to be reigned in. The excesses of the previous administrator set the table for a financial train-wreck that led to the AFSS outsourcing. No matter what the “right” choices were that Blakey did or did not make, they would have raised the ire of her NATCA detractors.


Comments:
Garvey definitely left the bar door open! NATCA talks about where Blakey is going. Where did Garvey end up? Our contract problems started with her.
 
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