Delays Likely for Holiday Travel Season

The nation’s air traffic controllers warn that the upcoming holiday travel season is likely to be plagued by delay problems because there will be 7.5 percent fewer fully trained controllers working and veteran controllers continue to leave the workforce. Some aviation experts have drawn a clear link between falling controller staffing levels and rising delays. Last week, former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said that, “we are currently in the middle of an air traffic controller staffing crisis. Fueled in part by the lack of a contract, this crisis has industry-wide consequences including: more and longer flight delays, combined radar and tower control positions, and an increased use of mandatory overtime resulting in an exhausted, stressed out, and burned out workforce.” Hall added that total controller attrition in fiscal year 2007 “nearly wiped out any net gains in total staffing made by the FAA’s hiring efforts.”