Citing impending shortages in experienced controllers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the Southern California TRACON (SCT) and the Northern California TRACON (NCT), the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General (IG) said the three facilities either have or will have too many trainees to experienced staffers within a year.

The report was ordered by California Senator Dianne Feinstein and validates the contentions of the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers that staffing shortages and the reliance on trainees are jeopardizing safety. Controller staffing, work conditions and training is a recurring them at hearings on Capitol Hill. The problem stems from the retirement levels of the controllers hired in the early 1980s resulting from the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike which resulted in mass firings by then President Ronald Reagan.

With retirements at record levels in both 2007 and 2008, the IG said they will continue to rise through 2012. Over the next eight years, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to hire and train nearly 17,000 new controllers nationwide, a level not seen since the hiring of 8,700 controllers between 1982 and 1983 in the wake of the PATCO strike. The IG doubts the FAA's ability to absorb and train those controllers while maintaining safety levels. It said the situation was already critical at SCT where 32 percent are in training which will rise in FY2009 to 40 percent when it will have more than 100 controllers in training.

The FAA is now offering relocation allowances of up to $27,000 for controllers who transfer to LAX as well as retention bonuses of up to $25,000 at SCT for retirees who extend their employment one year. The IG wants retention bonuses expanded to SCT and LAX. There are no bonuses at NCT.

"Ensuring these facilities remain adequately staffed with qualified air traffic controllers is vital to the safety and efficiency,” said Deputy Inspector General David A. Dobbs. “With the surge in attrition and hiring, FAA faces an increasing risk of not having enough fully certified controllers in its workforce—with 27 percent of the workforce now in training compared to 15 percent in 2004. LAX, SCT, and NCT are critical locations within the National Airspace System — combined they handled nearly 4.5 million operations in 2008. Maintaining a cadre of experienced controllers is growing increasingly critical.” NATCA cited the IG’s finding of a 32-percent decline in the number of fully trained and certified controllers at SCT, the nation's busiest TRACON.

"A large TRACON like the ones in Northern and Southern California, or a major airport control tower should never be where a new trainee with no previous experience is sent to start their career,” said NATCA President Patrick Forrey, noting the IG’s reference to large washout rates. “It's terribly unfair to these trainees to put them in such a ridiculously difficult situation that most often results in their failure to succeed in training, which only worsens the problem for all involved."

He added that the washout rate was compounded by FAA's imposed work rules and pay cuts, which the IG found in a report last June. “This has resulted in a drastic decline in the number of controllers who want to transfer to hard-to-staff and busy facilities like the ones in California discussed in today's report,” he said. "Simply forcing out experienced controllers through imposed work rules and pay cuts and unfair, demoralizing working conditions, only to replace them with lower paid trainees, has resulted in high training failure rates, low experience levels and short staffing.”

The IG recommended the FAA validate the staffing ranges needed at its large TRACON facilities while making SCT and NCT a top priority. NATCA contends the agency has consistently failed to properly identify the right number of controllers needed to safely work these facilities. The IG agreed.

Finally the IG cited the extraordinary increase in overtime hours at the three facilities saying that since FY 2006 LAX, SCT and NCT overtime has increased 868%, 400% and 120%, respectively. The FAA said it was prepared for the influx of trainees since it has been acknowledging for years the challenge that lies ahead. In addition, it is now assessing the overtime hours at the three facilities.

LAX, the fourth busiest airport traffic control tower, handled 659,000 operations in 2008 with 20 percent of its workforce in training. Traffic there has dropped more than 20% since 2000.

SCT is the busiest TRACON and handled nearly 2.25 million operations in 2008 with 32 percent of the workforce in training. NCT is the fourth busiest TRACON and handled nearly 1.59 million operations in 2008 with 24 percent of controllers in training. In addition, appropriate staffing levels for SCT and NCT have never been set by the agency, said the IG.

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