Word: faa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...FAA, which is required by law to be neutral on the subject of an employees' union, has refrained from commenting on the NATCA organizing effort...
Controllers, even more than passengers, are feeling the effects of a record summer for domestic travel. NATCA claims that only about 62% of current controllers are fully qualified for all situations compared with about 80% of those employed before the strike. The FAA says 72% of the current controllers are fully qualified. NATCA also complains that many controllers regularly work six-day weeks without relief. Says Thornton: "They also put in too much time on a position without relief. Before the strike a controller typically worked a position two hours, then got either a break or a transfer...
...FAA insists that technical reasons are to blame for the snail-paced progress. But the bigger obstacle may be political. Some $8 billion has accumulated in an aviation trust fund dedicated to improving air safety; the money has been piling up from an 8% tax on every airline passenger's ticket. Many in the aviation industry contend that Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, who is FAA Administrator Donald Engen's boss, has been cowed by the White House Office of Management and Budget into holding these assigned funds in reserve against the federal deficit. "Hogwash!" says OMB Director James Miller...
Officially, the FAA blames the weather for 70% of this year's delays -- frequent fog and thunderstorms have plagued the busy Northeast, and other storms assaulted the Midwest. Any weather hitch quickly gets amplified in the prevailing system of hub airports, in which large airlines attract commuter feeders to major cities. A significant delay at one hub quickly affects ( connecting flights there and spreads to other centers...
While flatly denying that air traffic is being delayed by a shortage of controllers, FAA Administrator Donald Engen sees a far more fundamental problem as the villain. The number of U.S. airlines has jumped from 38 in 1978, when deregulation began, to more than 250 today, vastly increasing the number of airliners flying. Contends Engen: "What this nation needs right now is to wake up to the fact that we're already short of places to land. We don't have enough airports...