Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

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Against the Wind
Sign of the times: This warning is posted
at all FAA centers, towers, and TRA-
CONs. After the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, the agency has been
improving security at its facilities. / Japphire
1982
28
Jan.
the skies had never been safer, the agency reported
589 near midair collisions during 1984, a 64 percent
increase over 1981. While rookies poured out
of the academy’s doors and spent several years earning
their stripes, near misses climbed another 80
percent to a peak of 1,058 in 1987 before declining
steadily thereafter. Despite the soaring number of
close calls, however, no major accidents occurred
that involved controller error.
Seeds of Discontent
In an effort to improve its relations with employees,
the FAA formed groups of managers and
controllers in early 1982 to address
local issues. With the right
people, these Facility Advisory
Boards and Human Relations
Councils—known as FABs and
HRCs—could give controllers
a voice and effect real change.
Too often, however, they focused
on inconsequential concerns
and management ignored the
committee’s recommendations.
As a result, the initiative proved
largely futile and piled on another
frustration for controllers.
A supervisor named Fred-
The FAA announces the National Airspace System Plan, which outlines
a twenty-year blueprint. Key elements include: Replacing the aging and
unreliable IBM 9020 mainframe computers and developing “sector suites”
die Fisher ran the FAB in Lincoln, Nebraska. Controllers
would submit suggestions for consideration,
yet he’d typically hand them right back, asserting
they wouldn’t go anyplace. Dan Brandt, a husky Midwesterner
who spent 8½ years in the Air Force before
joining the FAA after the strike, objected one day.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Isn’t this a group
decision?”
“I’m chairman of the board,” Fisher replied
crisply. “If I say it doesn’t go, it doesn’t go.”
Controller Fred Gilbert served as the FAB
chairman at Chicago Center. “We took the order at
face value,” he says, and became proactive on airspace,
personnel, and other issues. During monthly
telephone conferences among all
four centers in the Great Lakes
Region, Gilbert and his colleagues
realized they faced the
same problems. They quickly realized
that a meeting of all center
FABs made sense.
Gilbert crafted a questionnaire
to query controllers about
work issues and whether a national
meeting should be held.
The FABs from all twenty-four
centers and center-approach
controls—CERAPs—from Guam
to Puerto Rico responded with a
at the agency’s en route centers; consolidating facilities; implementing
Mode S transponders, which ultimately will enable e-mail communications
between controllers and pilots; and installing Doppler weather radar.