HR5449 (ATC contract)

[Pantherjon]

As a current CTI student...this blows...really blows...we all got shafted. Ill be doing the exact same job as everyone else...but making pennies for one of the most stressful jobs one can have. Talk about getting kicked in the gut, the FAA are idiots and Marion Blakely is an incompetant imbecile. The sad thing is i usually vote republican...im ashamed to say that now. My bung hole hurts from the ass raping CTI students just recieved.:angryfire uke: :crying: :uzi: :bawling: :angryfire

Don't hold it back..Let us all know how you really feel..Yeah, it truely does bite..I wont go into a diatribe on how I really fill, but, needless to say it would be very vitriall, so that it would overwhelm any point I would make(and if you understand what I just typed, let me know..lol)..I wish the best for you and your brother controllers..It's a thankless job, but let me just say this: THANK YOU

 

[kf4amu]

I feel bad for my 4 close friends who are waiting for calls from the FAA for class dates...they all just got screwed.

One is considering packing fudge for a living. Seriously, hes going to start cooking and selling a family fudge recipe at fairs and stuff. I helped him open the box that his fudge cooker came in.

Moral of the story, its better to pack fudge than be a new controller.

 

[dseagrav]

Lord knows the FAA needs that money to pay for the budget shortfall that will happen when their budget is reallocated to shooting more brown people.

 

[RichardRambone]

Wow and I tried to go to an ATC place a couple years ago. I knew I should follow my soul on what to do with my career and chose pilot but good luck to those that choose ATC. You'll still be banking more than me.

 

[smellthejeta]

Yeah, and I'm glad I only had to do a semester of CTI school to get it done (previous aviation degree). I feel bad for the people that have 4-year CTI degrees from UAA, UND, or ERAU.

Took me a year to do it. And I moved across the country to a place where I have no family and had to support myself and pay for CTI at out of state rates. To bad I found a line job that pays me $40k+/yr (not including tips) and foots the bill for 80% of a Masters Degree from Riddle. Same employer paid for my spring ATC classes too. Shucks.

 

[smellthejeta]

A 4 year ATC degree is a huge waste...

I'm taking the CTI course as a minor.

Agreed. Anybody who did ATC for a major at a 4-yr is pretty stupid. I would expect that most of them are minors.

 

[smellthejeta]

No mass resignations - but a whole lot of retirements over the next three years or so. Mine included.

I'm not in a position to argue with you on this point, but I happen to agree with you for whatever my lay opinion is worth.

The system won't collapse. There won't be chaos in the skies. What there will be is a slow erosion of the margin of safety, as fewer, more fatigued controllers try to keep things afloat, while training new hires. One of the FAA's plans involves checking out new hires on just a couple of sectors, then letting them rot there. It'll be cheaper, since they won't have to pay partially qualified controllers as much as fully qualified controllers.

What makes you think there will be enough newhires to do anything practical? Yeah, despite the fact that they claim they were going to accelerate the CPC process, my bet is that they would just let us rot on our "training scopes" or whatever you call it. The longer we're not CPC's, the less we cost. If the rumored new hire payscales are true, I make more money pumping jet fuel than I would on the first three or so (including OKC) training pay grades.

The system is fragile enough already, as anyone who flys on a mid-summer thunderstorm day knows. It's going to just get a little more fragile.

When I worked for the airlines, I spent a week at our ORD Station Ops center (hub for our UAX affiliate regional airline). We had embedded T-Storms in huge lines up and down most of the central part of the country. We were cancelling flights left and right, and our aircraft were backing up on the gates and overflowing the penalty box. Things were so bad we couldn't get our inbound crews off of the planes to crew the planes sitting at the gate. All the while we were posting all sorts of useless delay messages on our boards.

If that scenario is representative of what the future of ATC will be like, how is that not complete collapse?

 

[Hold West]

What makes you think there will be enough newhires to do anything practical? Yeah, despite the fact that they claim they were going to accelerate the CPC process, my bet is that they would just let us rot on our "training scopes" or whatever you call it. The longer we're not CPC's, the less we cost. If the rumored new hire payscales are true, I make more money pumping jet fuel than I would on the first three or so (including OKC) training pay grades.

There will be those who want the job at all cost - there are those who've done the ATC as a major, and don't have anything else going. Think of all the folks signing up for PFT to get a job at a regional airline paying a pittance. There will be plenty of people willing to take the job.

When I worked for the airlines, I spent a week at our ORD Station Ops center (hub for our UAX affiliate regional airline). We had embedded T-Storms in huge lines up and down most of the central part of the country. We were cancelling flights left and right, and our aircraft were backing up on the gates and overflowing the penalty box. Things were so bad we couldn't get our inbound crews off of the planes to crew the planes sitting at the gate. All the while we were posting all sorts of useless delay messages on our boards.

If that scenario is representative of what the future of ATC will be like, how is that not complete collapse?

Well, one basic consideration is this: airplanes on the ground are safe. As long as someone has the balls to keep 'em on the deck when there's no where to put 'em, we'll be OK. But, and this is a big but, in a system that's being run "as a business" providing service to "customers", there is increasing pressure to get airplanes in the air. Couple many of the things that alone aren't that big a deal, like:

1. Eliminating Center Weather Service Units
2. Inadequate training of controllers regarding convective weather
3. CONUS centers dependent on a flight data system (URET) that has no effective backup
4. FAA's new fix-on-fail "no preventive maintenance" scheme for many systems

Together with a few overly-weary, underexperienced controllers in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I think it's easy to see the potential for disaster in convective weather is being steadily increased. If ATC bows to the pressure, puts too many airplanes in the air, into the wrong place, and there's a ATC system failure of some sort, and the controller(s) on the spot are not that experienced, and running on empty besides... there are too many possibilities, none of them good. Again, it's not one major defect that alone can be fixed, it's the erosion of the margin of safety.

Any acccident is the result of a chain of events. Break the chain, and disaster is averted. One of the FAA's fairly decent refresher training presentations a couple of years ago was actually called "Breaking the Chain", demonstrating how one of any number of people, acting appropriately, could have stopped a particularly nasty ATC incident. I wish the FAA would today take their own advice, and break this chain. I don't think they will; the FAA is not called the "Tombstone Agency" for nothing.

 

[iflyjets4food]

What makes you think there will be enough newhires to do anything practical?

They are back to offering the test as a method of getting an ATC job. This means you don't even have to pay to go through the CTI program. Any old Joe can apply to take the test. There are plenty of folks who would love to make $30,000+ in this country who have no other chance to do so.

 

[BRIGADEAVIATOR]

I'm pretty disappointed with the whole situation. After watching all the CNN interviews with Blakey and Carr, Blakey came across to me as shady, and one sided. From what i understand, there will be pay freezes for those already working and new hires are screwed. Doing such a hard and stressful job, knowing you have no chance of getting a pay raise, and if your a new hire forget it. Like mentioned earlier, if you can make more pumping jet fuel, just disappointing.