Controlling NextGen

CAN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS AND FAA put their years of brittle, bitter bickering behind them and get on with it? The answer isn't academic. It matters, especially to the future of NextGen, the agency's highly touted yet amorphous set of technologies and procedures intended to bring the US air traffic control system into the 21st century and lead to dramatic improvements in efficiency for aviation over the next 10-15 years (ATW, 2/09, p. 49). Absent NextGen's expected capacity boost, airlines and FAA agree that today's clogged runways and airways will look like the Indy 500 compared to the level of delays air travelers will face by 2020.

To a degree perhaps little recognized outside the air transportation industry, the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., which represents more than 15,000 controllers in FAA's Air Traffic Organization, exerts a powerful influence over the assembly line in the sky. Its members are superbly capable, highly paid, well-organized and politically connected. As federal employees they largely have been insulated from the dramatic restructurings, downsizings and wage and benefit reductions that their counterparts in the airline industry have experienced since 9/11, and they are crucial to getting FAA and the industry where they want to go. Indeed, they are crucial to getting aircraft where they want to go today.

"I think it's imperative that controllers buy in [to NextGen]," says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the nonprofit free-market think tank Reason Foundation.

"It's critical they're onboard and have a say in how this moves forward," echoes Margaret Jenny, president of RTCA, the 80-year-old not-for-profit corporation that is playing a vital role in laying out the roadmap for how FAA and the industry get to NextGen, the cost of which has been estimated at up to $22 billion. RTCA recommendations are used by FAA "as the basis for policy, program and regulatory decisions and by the private sector as the basis for development, investment and other business decisions," according to the organization.

Where implementation of those recommendations ultimately is going depends hugely on NATCA. Even though controllers enjoyed a prominent place at the table in helping to formulate RTCA recommendations, it's by no means certain the workforce is aligned in toto with the agency's goals.

Controllers with whom ATW spoke appear to have questions about specifically how to employ NextGen's core technologies. While FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt says his aim is to include controller input "in more and more of our plans," a cohesive strategy for just how to employ controllers in NextGen's brave new world is still a work in progress. More importantly, neither side appears willing to confront seriously the elephant in the room: That the dramatic increases in efficiency promised by NextGen advocates could or should lead to fewer controllers being required in the future.

Mending Fences

Since becoming FAA Administrator last June, Babbitt has made mending fences with NATCA a priority (ATW, 1/10, p. 42). Controllers have a new contract to replace the one imposed by the Bush administration in 2006 under Administrator Marion Blakey, who is now president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Assn. The new pact eliminates the two-tier pay system for new hires, rolls back some unpopular work rule changes intended to boost productivity and should see a restoration of the upward trajectory of controller salaries that the Bush administration tried to slow.

Under the 1998 contract signed by Blakey's FAA predecessor, Jane Garvey, during the Clinton administration, average controller compensation soared 70% over the seven years of the agreement, adding "a staggering $3.7 billion in costs to FAA's Operations budget over that period," according to a 2005 report by the agency's Management Advisory Council.

Interestingly, Garvey was appointed to oversee the mediation that resulted in the new contract signed last year.

Commenting on the 2006 contract, which still rankles, NATCA President Paul Rinaldi says, "The interesting thing with salary was the air traffic controllers were frozen--from September 2006 all the way to January 2010. They've not seen any increases whatsoever. We're the only section of the federal government that did not receive presidential pay raises." According to NATCA, the average salary for an air traffic controller is now $99,000 a year, not including benefits. "This, in part, was about money," says Poole. "But it was also about respect. There's a lot of symbolic value in having a new contract."

"The [new] administration and the new [FAA] Administrator realize that what happened in 2006 was not a fair process," says Rinaldi. Now, he says, a fair process exists through which issues can be resolved at "the lowest level of each facility."

One thing NATCA is excited to win back is a provision that controllers can't work more than 2 hr. at a time without a break. "In the imposed work rules, that was removed," says Rinaldi--another indication, in the union's estimation, of an absence of respect.

FAA also is trying to move from what both sides have characterized as a "culture of blame and punishment" in the reporting of operational errors by controllers. Last July, Babbitt said that henceforth controllers' names will not be included in reports sent to agency headquarters on operational errors. The controller's identity will be known at the facility where the event took place, and "necessary training will be conducted and disciplinary action taken, if appropriate," FAA said.

Rinaldi believes the union has the respect of Babbitt, but he's not so sure about middle managers. "That's the challenge," he asserts. Babbitt says he's invested "personal time and energy" to convince careerists that the new approach works best. "We recently spent a fair amount of time, energy and money to train all of those mid-level supervisors."

FAA also is reaching out to involve NATCA more closely in NextGen. "What this contract is going to do is give us a seat at the table," says Rinaldi. It will let controllers in on "pre-decisional meetings" involving equipment, procedures and how to move flying machines more efficiently. Indications are that they'll have a lot to say.

Loss of Control

It is too soon to know whether that input will lead the workforce to embrace a system intended to transform them from air traffic controllers to air traffic managers as the system itself transitions from ground-based to satellite-based. It is not a step that all will necessarily welcome. There's a visceral fear that NextGen will strip away their controllers' cloaks and dress them in mere managerial rags. "As an air traffic controller, I'm working the airspace," says NATCA Safety and Technology Director Dale Wright. "I control that airplane. I tell them where to go. [And] if I tell them, they have to go." Under NextGen, as Wright envisions one possible scenario, airspace managers oversee the action while computers do the heavy lifting--especially in the en route regime. In that airspace, he says, "all conflicts would be taken care of" by black boxes. In that environment, "they probably wouldn't need more controllers."

So is NextGen essentially a jobs and esteem issue as far as controllers are concerned? Simulations show that when controllers become mere managers, "the need for controllers in the en route environment goes way down," says Poole. "Probably more than half." But despite the historic evidence in virtually every arena of human endeavor that more automation means fewer people, Rinaldi contends "there's no anxiety" on the part of his membership that controllers could be automated out of a job. Babbitt believes that as traffic grows, "We would forecast some minor increases" in the controller workforce . . . We don't see any reduction in controllers. What we would do is maximize efficiency to give controllers the automation tools they need to handle this increase."

Consultant Michael Baiada agrees. "I don't believe NextGen will have any impact on controllers' jobs," says the head of Evergreen, Colo.-based ATH Group. "Although controllers will definitely have better tools--such as computerized conflict probe--they will still be responsible for separating aircraft."

Dots On A Screen

If FAA and NATCA agree that a satellite-based system of air traffic management will not require fewer people to operate, how do they come down on issues of technology and traffic management? Again, this is unclear. At one point, Rinaldi characterizes NextGen as being based on a "Buck Rogers" theory "that all the airplanes will be on their own," with negative safety implications. "The futuristic sale on NextGen is that we will not need pilots or controllers [someday]," he says. "Our safety concern is that even while technology may change the system, and the jobs of the controllers and pilots, the human interface is stilland should always be--an integral part of the system."

For his part, Wright has some qualms about the changes that specific systems might engender. Consider ADS-B, a cornerstone of NextGen and a technology that will cost airlines billions of dollars to deploy. He is leery of how this tool might manifest itself on his screen. Aircraft equipped with the system determine their own position via satellite and periodically broadcast it. But, he contends, it can clutter controller displays and lead to an increase, not a decrease, in workload. Under one scenario at the Potomac TRACON, for example, not only would controllers have to monitor data-tags impregnated with call sign, aircraft type, speed and altitude, "they now want to put a little dot on it for ADS-B."

Some controllers also are not necessarily enthusiastic about FAA's plan to encourage airlines to invest in new technology ahead of federal mandates with a "best-equipped, best-served" philosophy that proposes to give priority to aircraft that are equipped to take advantage of the capabilities coming into the system. Southwest Airlines, for example, is spending $175 million to implement Required Navigation Performance across its fleet, including retrofitting its 737 Classics with new avionics and systems. The carrier's goal is to develop and use more fuel-efficient RNP approaches at every airport in its network, which also reduces CO2 emissions.

Efficiency is why airlines invest in the gear to begin with. "Yes sir," replies Wright. "But the controller is the one who has to sequence that traffic in there. That increases my workload." He accedes that "all that has to be decided yet," adding, "air traffic controllers are the biggest technogeeks that you'll ever find . . . The only thing is, we want it to work."

So is there controller buy-in at the coal face? Without it, predicting how much of NextGen's promised benefit will come to pass is difficult. If controllers view ADS-B as something that makes more work for them, if they don't support "best-equipped, best-served," if they don't want to become air traffic managers, then FAA has a lot of selling to do. But the agency may feel that time is on its side.

Auguring well for future relations, posits Poole, is the age of the controller workforce. Of the 15,368 controllers on the rolls as of Sept. 30, 2009, NATCA spokesperson Doug Church says 11,728 were Certified Professional Controllers while 3,640 were trainee controllers. Most of the current post-PATCO folks "will be retired and gone within five years or so," Poole says. Over the past five years alone, Church says "close to 40% to 45%" of that workforce turned over. Now that a new consensual contract is in place, he sees the controller contingent "stabilizing." Still, "it's definitely a young person's game now."

Perhaps ironically, it's this un-graying of the workforce that opens the window for the ATO "to change the training and acculturation" of new hires "to become air traffic managers, not air traffic controllers," says Poole. "If FAA and [ATO] leadership can seize the moment and really train a new-generation workforce from the onset . . . it could make a huge difference."

The Road Immediately Ahead

At press time, FAA was preparing to release its long-awaited NextGen implementation plan. While acknowledging the vaunted "2025" vision for ATC, there are strong voices in the industry who want to lock in on more immediately tangible benefits, calling it "NowGen." Among them is RTCA President Margaret Jenny. RTCA's 300-person strong NextGen Task Force represents the gamut of industry and government entities. "We're dealing with a set of users who run businesses," says Jenny. "And it's very hard for them to think about a business case for something in 2025."

"There are wildly differing figures as to the overall cost of NextGen, depending on how it is executed," says one industry source who prefers not to be identified. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt says, "We think it's closer to $6 to $7 billion" for the airline industry to equip its fleet.

Whatever the price tag, and whoever pays, Jenny says, "I think what [the Task Force] has learned over the last couple of years is that what we're really all about is the transition and what we're going to be able to do in the near term to make the system run more efficiently and safely."

She believes it's critical to note that of the 28 recommendations contained in RTCA's NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force Report of last September, "only a handful of them call for any new technology between now and 2018." What she says RTCA really wants is to "take full advantage of the technology that's already been put on aircraft." Do that, she contends, and it will sow seeds of trust in FAA's ability to implement "more sophisticated technologies."

Not to mention assuage the angst of those uneasy about morphing from air traffic controller to air traffic manager.