An update from Jim Martintti, FACREP at MIA. For those of you who don’t know Jim, he is one of NATCA’s best and most effective representatives. Jim has been trying to prevent the consolidation of the PBI TRACON into MIA since the Bush/Blakey team decided to combine facilities for the hell of it. When you read this you’ll see the impact that NATCA’s PAC has.
Lahood/Babbitt PBI Update
The strength of Union was in full force yesterday. The proposal by the FAA to consolidate Palm Beach TRACON to MIA and leave Palm Beach Tower isolated has been going on for over four years. There have been two studies, in 2002 and 2004, completed by the FAA to support Palm Beach Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) having a new building built on PBI Airport property and expanding service north to provide approach control service to Ft. Pierce and Vero Beach. There is more, but this update is going to be long enough as it is and the basis of what the agency is attempting is easily understood.
Here are the players:
• Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood
• FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt
• Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-FL
• Congressman Alcee Hastings, D-FL
• Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, R-FL
• Congressman Ron Klein, D-FL
• Congressman Rooney, R-FL
• Representatives from the offices of Senator Bill Nelson, D-FL, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL, Congressman Kendrick Meek, D-FL, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-FL, and Congressman Robert Wexler, D-FL.
• Hank Krakowski, ATO COO
• Chief of Staff, FAA
• Deputy, Chief of Staff, DOT
• Brian Langdon, FAA, Government Affairs
• Diana Louis, Airport Director, St. Lucie County
• AOPA representative
• Palm Beach Airport representative
Some of the legislators brought several assistants. There were numerous other people in the room and I counted a total of forty-seven in attendance.
I was extremely proud that NATCA was holding nothing back for this meeting. Pat Forrey, Paul Rinaldi, and Victor Santore joined Mitch Herrick, Shane Ahern, Steve Wallace, and I at what will most likely be the turning point of this issue. It was an honor to be representing NATCA and have our President, Executive Vice President, and Regional Vice President with us.
Welcome
Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz opened the meeting. She was the host and she is the reason that we were able to have the opportunity to meet with Secretary Lahood due to their friendship while he was a congressman. Debbie gave a clear and concise overview of the issue and turned the meeting over to Congressman Hastings.
Alcee had everyone in the room introduce themselves so that the Secretary and Administrator knew who they were speaking to. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart spoke first as he had to leave early.
Mario has been one of NATCA’s biggest supporters over the past three years. He expressed a lack of trust for the FAA and frustration in the way the FAA has dealt with the Union in the past. He stated that all stakeholders needed to be involved and that the current FAA plan to move PBI TRACON is a bad one. Mario then reminded everyone of the FAA’s past failures, specifically mentioning how the FAA ignored the warnings of the workers when building our new tower and shortly thereafter our new runway, both of which had to be re-done shortly after being commissioned because we were right and the FAA was wrong.
Alcee took over and introduced NATCA. The congressman has been our champion on the PBI issue since the beginning. At first it was a matter of trying to reason with both sides, but when the FAA didn’t return the congressman’s phone calls of letters he began to take things personally. Then the FAA lied to him and treated him as they have been treating us and Alcee made it his mission to get answers and hold those responsible accountable. Alcee Hastings and his staff have been invaluable and we will always be indebted to him for his unwavering support.
NATCA
Mitch started things off. Our plan was for Shane to follow Mitch with more specific PBI related issues and I would wrap things up.
He began by thanking all of our honored guests for attending this most important meeting and pointed out that NATCA was of one voice on this issue and the fact that our President, EVP, and Regional Vice President were present indicated this. We truly are Team NATCA. He specifically thanked Debbie for organizing this meeting and Alcee for championing this cause as his determination and insight have been an inspiration and his leadership on the issue has been unparalleled.
Mitch mentioned a recent response by the FAA on July 14, 2009 to Congressman Kirk from Illinois where he was told “There is no relationship to the location of a TRACON and the quality or safety of the services.” Mitch described a recent FAA Focus article in which the controller was credited for a potential life-saving assist to a GA pilot because he was familiar with the roads and terrain and was able to describe landmarks to the pilot. It clearly showed how being certified in both the tower and an associated radar room is a benefit.
Mitch stated that there were many Archie League award winners (he described what these awards are for) where the ability of the controller to be aware of the local terrain was vital to saving the lives of the people in the aircraft. He stated that if there was time during the meeting that he had a recording of one such event. Alcee jumped in and said, “Mitch, let’s hear it.” The tape was from Terre Haute and the recording had people riveted as they listened to the controller trying to work with the pilot who had encountered icing and was losing altitude (The pilot had descended from 4,000 feet to 1,100 feet and the MVA is 2,200). The controller was able to get the pilot safely back to the airport by describing landmarks such as roads, a mall, and a McDonalds.
Mitch did a great job showing the short-sighted way in which the FAA does business and proved that there is a “relationship to the location of a TRACON and the quality or safety of services.” Just because the technology exists does not mean it (consolidating facilities) is the right thing to do. Recently the Secretary was told that aircraft in Afghanistan are being worked by controllers in Miami. This was news to me. Mitch explained that the military does control drones in Afghanistan, but it is over a war zone, in uncongested airspace, and are surveillance and bombing missions. He said if this is a prelude to “NetGen” then I do not want to be the person trying to sell to the American public the idea of controlling airplanes full of grandmothers and grandfathers over congested Miami and New York from a building in Kansas (no shot at people from Kansas intended). People make the system work and there are still too many variables to begin allowing remote passenger aircraft to be worked by controllers thousands of miles away.
Mitch ended by describing the poor way in which Palm Springs was consolidated into Southern Cal TRACON and Pueblo was consolidated into Denver TRACON. We handed out informational packets entitled “ATC Realignment Gone Wrong” which gave a history of these two failures at realigning ATC facilities.
Then Shane stepped up and described how PBI management continues to act in as arrogant a fashion as ever and seems to relish in the fact that they believe there is nothing that can be done to stop the consolidation. Well, let them act smug and feel important. We will continue to fight for what is right and we’ll see what the end result is. Shane got this whole game started over four years ago and was instrumental in educating Congressman Hastings when this issue was still in its infancy. Shane also mentioned how there is a lack of engineering studies concerning the PBI construction.
The Users and PBI
Alcee then asked Diana Louis, Airport Director for St. Lucie County (north of Palm Beach), and asked for her opinion. Diana said that she did not want to take sides, but had polled many of the users at her airport. The users stated that they believed there was a degradation of service due to Miami Center currently being the controlling facility.
The representative from AOPA was next and he stated that they would like a way to provide input. AOPA does not feel that they are part of the process where they are able to communicate the impact of decisions on the users.
The representative from Palm Beach Airport was asked about the status of the new tower construction. He said that it was one and a half years from completion. Alcee asked that if the decision was made to build a new TRACON in Palm Beach would it be possible and the answer was yes. There are no issues pertaining to available land.
More NATCA
Things seemed to be wrapping up and Debbie asked if anyone else would like to speak. Well, Mitch, Shane, and I had a plan and I was going to carry my weight for the team.
I started by saying that we need a visionary. We needed someone who would not be short-sighted, but would think big and consider what is best for the users, the workers, the local communities, and the national airspace system. It cannot be simply to save a buck. I told them (Lahood and Babbitt) that they were a sign of hope and the light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t have to be a train, it’s sunlight.
I reiterated the two FAA studies that fully supported PBI getting both a new TRACON and assuming the VRB/FPR airspace to the north (it is currently worked by Miami Center). I told our esteemed guests that the Southern Region Division Manager had put a team together and tasked them with doing a comprehensive study for addressing the future of aviation for South Florida. This MATRIX Team put together a “detailed briefing paper” recommending that PBI get a new TRACON and assumes the VRB/FPR airspace. The Division Manager agreed. I then stated that the Division Manager at the time was Rick Day, the current Senior Vice President of Operations for the ATO. Hmmm…I think I know who’s getting a phone call this morning.
I threw out the rhetorical “so what has changed.” I explained that the previous FAA Administrator had decided to run the agency like a business. Well, our business is safety and business has been pretty good, but we can never take things for granted. We can never lower the bar because of cost. The main concern of a business is the bottom line and that cannot be how you run things when safety is the priority. We have the largest, most complex, and safest ATC system in the world and we are proud of that fact, but we must work to make it better. We should not wait to react when there is a collision or an incident similar to what occurred in the eighties when the FAA decided to move forward with LLWAS only after a Delta aircraft crashed. We need to be proactive.
I mentioned something about putting a band-aid on a compound fracture and saying that it is healed. The agency needs to stop putting band-aids on problems and start fixing things the first time. As Mario had stated earlier, I reiterated the failures of the recent past. You would think the three strikes rule would have caught up to the agency and I stressed how this issue was following the same path. I told them how the agency refused to listen to the controllers prior to beginning construction of our newest runway six years ago. We told them it was unsafe. Once the concrete was poured we had an average of thirty aircraft a day almost land on the wrong runway (documented). Finally, after working with our local legislators and getting major media attention the FAA fixed the problem and we have not had one problem since.
The FAA needs to stop fighting with its workers and embrace them for the talents they possess because we all want the best system possible. We need to work together. No single entity can do it alone and the “we” I spoke of was every person in the room—the agency, the workers, the users, the local communities, and the legislators whose responsibility is to serve us. I repeated what I said at the beginning about needing visionaries and stated the three main items that we wanted:
1. Build PBI a new TRACON in Palm Beach.
2. Expand PBI airspace to the north to provide approach control services to VRB and FPR.
3. Utilize a process by which all stakeholders are involved—FAA, NATCA, the users, and the local communities.
After I got the first two or three sentences out everything else seemed to flow. Much of it is a blur. Reviewing my prepared statement I saw that I had indeed hit on everything that I had planned to say. I felt it was important to speak from the heart instead of reading a prepared statement. I thanked everyone for their time and turned it back over to Debbie and Alcee.
Alcee again thanked everyone for attending and hoped for a quick response to this issue. He addressed the NetGen term by calling it “WhenGen.”
Lahood/Babbitt
Secretary Lahood said that this is not your mom and pop’s FAA. There will be changes. He gestured towards Babbitt and said he was a visionary and this was going to be a new FAA. Babbitt said he was looking forward to moving things forward and will listen to everyone. Hank Krakowski said nothing during the meeting.
Lahood committed to us that a decision would be made by September 30.
Shane questioned the time period for an answer as the FAA continues to move forward with new Tower construction and the FAA loves to drag things out so that eventually they can say “we are to far along to stop or change now, sorry.” Lahood asked the Palm Beach representative if there was time to add a TRACON if so determined and the answer was yes.
It is an incredible honor being able to represent NATCA as we did today. We have stayed the course and moved forward regardless of the agency’s repeated attempts to derail us and kill our spirit. We fight the good fight simply because it is the right thing to do. Having our entire national leadership present was vitally important and we are incredibly thankful to Pat, Paul, and Victor for attending. Pat and Paul flew in late Sunday and flew out right after the meeting. Victor flew in a couple of hours before the meeting and left after the meeting. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I want put out one more thank you to all of the people who were not mentioned in the update, but were no less a part of the success of getting this issue to the level that we saw today. Solidarity is alive and well. It may take a hit from time to time, but we are one union.
Following the meeting there was the expected throng of media outside. Of course, they wanted to hear from the Secretary, the Administrator, and our legislators first. All of the NATCA guys were standing together and when the press turned to us we pointed them to Pat. He is our President and he is our voice. There were many pictures taken and I hope they get to the national office. For those of us locally we are merely soldiers trying to do what is right. Again, I can barely describe the immense feeling of pride from being able to work on behalf of my union brothers and sisters and I know that Mitch, Steve, and Shane feel the same way.
Let me stress one more thing. None of this could have happened if not for the NATCA PAC which has allowed us to build relationships with all of our South Florida legislators. The PAC does not buy votes or get us instant support. We still have to go in and educate our elected officials. Once you do this you have a friend for life. As you can see from our list of attendees we have support from the Ds and Rs alike. We don’t care what color a person identifies with, only that safety is the priority.
Jim/MIA
| Posted: 21 Jul 2009 10:58 AM |
Raymond Adams
National Air Traffic Controllers Association
New Jersey Legislative Coordinator
President Newark Airport
Safety Representative
cell 201-362-9305
rayadams@yahoo.com
Twitter: EWRPresident
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