Controllers debate safety
How safe are the skies? That question was uppermost in the minds of travelers last summer after Ronald Reagan fired 12,000 striking air controllers, leaving supervisors, non-strikers and military controllers to do the job. But as the months passed and 10,500 skywatchers, rather than the previous 17,400, manned the nation's control towers, airports managed to operate without major mishaps or too many exasperating delays. Fear of flying faded fast. Now, although the Federal Aviation Administration strongly disputes them, some controllers are warning that there may still be reason for renewed concern. Says one Atlanta controller: "We need our people back."
One problem is the high dropout rate among air controller trainees at the FAAs Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. When the strike began last August, the FAA announced plans to train 5,500 new controllers a year, triple the usual number; nine months later only 1,490 have graduated from the Oklahoma academy. Of the 717 trainees who enrolled in the first class last August, only 406 passed; normally 75% of the trainees graduate from the twelve-to 16-week program. Since then, the entrance exams have been made more stringent, and the FAA claims that now about 65% of those admitted eventually graduate. Officials of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), insist, however, that the real figure is 45%.
With new recruits coming so slowly out of the classrooms, many controllers working in the towers complain that their hours and work load are too strenuous. At the nation's 22 busiest airports, some controllers may work as much as ten hours a day, six days a week. They contend that many of the 500 military controllers brought into the towers to help out after the strike were not qualified to handle heavy commercial traffic; others complain about the inexperience of controllers transferred from smaller airports to major ones. "We're getting them from places like Charleston and Tallahassee," says one Atlanta controller. "Some were sent home. They couldn't handle it."
Perhaps the most serious charge leveled against the FAA is that morale in the towers is deteriorating as a result of poor relations between tower supervisors and the controllers—which was a major cause of last year's strike. Says one New York controller: "You are discouraged from calling in sick or taking any time off. The attitude is, 'There is a job to do, and we don't give a damn what problems you might have.' " A study commissioned by Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis shortly after the strike began and released last March showed that management practices were still unnecessarily authoritarian. Said the report: "Supervisors tend to 'vector' people like they did airplanes. It doesn't work well."
The FAA stoutly denies the criticisms—and so do many controllers. Officials point out that a controller's work is easier than it used to be, thanks to the installation of new computers and a reduction in the number of flights. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, for example, now handles only 85% of the flights it did before the strike. Many controllers agree that the mood in the towers has actually improved. Says Larry Donald, a controller at Charleston Municipal Airport: "There's more camaraderie now."