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FAA FUNDING AND REFORM: MAKING A STRONG CASE FOR WHY THE STATUS
QUO IS UNACCEPTABLE
NATCA President Paul Rinaldi chose an ideal time and place for public and
media exposure – last Thursday ' s (June 2) major aviation industry RTCA annual
symposium – to lay out the strongest case yet for why the status quo is broken and FAA
reauthorization and reform is needed. He used many examples of the current system
and agency challenges, and forcefully and effectively rebutted those on the panel that
don't want reform and inexplicably argued "P roblem? What ' s the problem with the
current system? " Paul's remarks were very well received. Some highlights:
"People may say the system is fine because we do the best job, we run the
safest, best NAS in the worl d. While that's true, what we need is new equipment and a
steady stream of air traffic controller candidates coming through the system to keep it
that way."
" I don ' t have enough controllers to help implement NextGen. We ' re 140 CPCs
down just at New York TR ACON. Several of our other busy TRACONs are also short ,
including Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Chicago. They ' re working six - day weeks. I have
a staffing crisis. These are the people you want to test and train on new equipment, but
we can ' t get them off th e boards. "
" We are falli ng further and further behind. FAA leaders are squished between
Congress, the White House, the Department of Transportation, the Office of Personnel
Management – it's a strangulation against moving forward. If we continue to ignore the
current problems with our funding, infrastructure, and staffing, we will create even more
problems."
"Let ' s be clear and go back to what we saw in 2013. The government proposed
closing 238 towers , not for safety, but to save money. They went to a fix - o n - fail policy for
our equipment, not for safety, but to save money. They stopped stockpiling critical
equipment at facilities , not for safety, but to save money. If we think the government
doesn't have a bottom line, we're fooling ourselves."
"We've tried to streamline processes but the current system onl y slows down the
process. Something has to give. We need stable, predictable funding and reform to run a
dynamic air traffic control system, not more bureaucracy."
To read the full story about Paul's remarks and the panel, from last week's NATCA
Insider, please click here.
WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERVIEWS PAUL AFTER THE PANEL : Wall Street
Journal reporter Andy Pasztor watched the RTCA panel and interviewed Paul afterwards
