May 5, 2001 Brothers and Sisters, Wow! I can't believe it has been another week already. I started my week with a great Saturday trip to NKT (Cherry Point), spent Sunday taking care of all of the mundane chores that don't get done when I am on the road and getting ready for another trip. I used to love to travel, but nowadays I look forward to sleeping on my own bed. Monday morning it was into the office to play tag with John, and catch up on the business of last week and coordinate our plans for this one. I finished a huge pile of bills and vouchers, took two press calls, talked to Kevin McGrath about his office lease, talked to a AFSCME member about a complaint filed against on of our members, which he has agreed to withdraw, spoke with our member about the complaint, had Wade send a copy of the posting AFSCME put up in HQ (which did not mention NATCA) talked to John about congressional testimony, and reviewed a stack of papers related to the panel I would be serving on in Long Beach. There is a growing sentiment in DC that controllers are against new technology. I have heard it from too many people to ignore. Considering we have members working on 65 technology projects and no one has pushed harder for new equipment than we have, I find this stereotype frustrating. Be prepared for our publicity to include what NATCA members or doing to promote modernization. Someone is using us as their whipping boy, and we are not sure who it is. Who it is does not matter at this point because it has become pervasive. There are a lot of people in DC that only think of AAS and blame controllers for the requirements creep when they talk about ATC modernization. I also heard that we want to increase spacing between aircraft. I am pretty sure these are the same people that said we would use the ops error MOU to run aircraft too close. Tuesday I caught an early flight to LA, met up with Jose, waited forever for my luggage and go to Long Beach with just enough time to grab a shower, iron a dress (this job involves a lot of ironing) and meet Langhorne Bond for dinner. Bond write the act that created the Department of Transportation and served as Administrator under Carter. I was glad Jose was there because Bond wanted to do a lot of reminiscing about the Secretary's office. We talked about dozens of issues, not the least of which is his current support of the Poole report, but he wanted to talk about the risks of moving to GPS as sole means for communications, navigation and surveillance. We had a long talk about the surveillance side since I served on the RTCA team for future surveillance systems and I have always argued that it has a lot of benefits as an enhancement to the system, but it should not be used as a replacement for Radar since it cannot detect noncooperative aircraft. At the end of dinner, Bond asked if NATCA would speak more publicly on the issue because we bring a lot of credibility to the debate and he could use the support. I told him that I would have plenty of time to do that once I have beaten back this privatization monster. Wednesday morning I sat on the panel, "Strategic Issues in ATC" at the NATA conference. It was a breakfast (7:30 in the morning!) and we each gave opening remarks followed by Q & A. The panel included Robert Poole, Linda Barker from the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, Langhorne Bond and myself. Poole gave his usual speech, Linda talked about the progress that had been made since the NCARC report came out, my remarks are at the end of this post, and Langhorne said why everyone who opposes the nonprofit corp. is wrong. The only thing he said about unions was that labor should not be concerned as long as the current protections are extended to them. I was offended that he based his conclusion on an assumption that we are so parochial that our concerns do not extend beyond labor statutes. Last I checked we actually cared about the safety of the flying public and the efficiency of the system. We followed up the panel with an informal discussion and many people stopped me in the lobby to talk about my remarks. The feedback was very positive. Poole asked why we had changed our position since the USATS proposal and I explained that we supported USATS because we were working to get personnel reform to reclassify the facilities and we supported freeing up the trust fund and it was the only vehicle out there to do it at the time. Those two things have already occurred. I also told him how poor the experience has been for controllers in Canada even though they supported the privatization and worked to get it done. I said that I did not know what kind of access to the FAA technology types he had, but that if he wants to learn about modernization in the FAA today that our members would be more than happy to tell him what is going on. Our biggest problem is that people on the outside are trying to change the FAA from the way it was 5-10 years ago and have virtually no information on how we are doing things now. Each and every person I met at the conference believed controllers are fighting against new technology. I had to tell them the fights are to get it sooner. You want to get controllers mad, tell them they have been moved down the waterfall! After the conference, it was back to the airport for a red-eye to Ottawa, to meet Randy Weiland on our mission to find the truth about NAVCANADA. He had started the investigation before I arrived. Randy has done a fantastic job of finding people for us to meet with to get the real scoop. He met with COPA (Canadian AOPA) on Wednesday and got their perspective. Thursday, after a brief stop at the hotel, we went to CATCA headquarters to meet Fuzz Bhimji and Michael Murphy, the Chairman of the Air Passenger Safety Group. He talked about the safety concerns with NAV CANADA especially related to the reduction in services and gave us in depth information about the ATC modernization. We followed with a meeting with Ron Smith, former president of ATSAC, the union for Canadian FSS. They have merged with the Canadian Auto Workers and while he still represents FSS, it is now as a CAW staff rep. Labor relations at NAV CANADA are poor. In fact, Murphy who used to be management at Transport Canada, said that they never thought anyone could make the controllers think managers at Transport were enlightened and benevolent, but NAV CANADA has. We spent a few hours going over specifics with Richard Nye the VP LR for CATCA. While controllers can be fined for ops errors by the regulator, even when there are systemic problems, like insufficient training or rest periods, the company is not fined. In FSS, however, since they do not hold a license, the company rather than the employee is fined. Finally we met with a former CATCA president who served as chairman of the advisory committee to NAV CANADA. They gave direction to the board of directors. Specifically related to the acquisition of new technology, they are told to monitor the progress of the US and Europe to see if they develop tools that NAV CANADA should purchase. So much for modernizing faster. Friday morning, after my first real good night's sleep, it was back to CATCA HQ to go through some documents and then to a meeting with Doug Mein, the Director of Air Navigation Services and Airspace of Transport Canada. He serves as the regulator for ATC. He briefed us on Performance Based Regulation, which allows companies to determine how they comply with regulations, rather than prescriptive regulation that tells them what procedure to follow. Back to the office to go through piles of papers, and our evening meeting with another union president was canceled because he had to manage a strike in Halifax. Tomorrow we will spend the day in the CATCA office going through their files to find any data that can help in our battle against privatization. Fuzz will be speaking at NATCA in Washington, so if you see him there, be sure to thank him for the spending so much of his time and resources to help NATCA on this issue. In Solidarity, Ruth Marlin REMARKS of Ruth Marlin at the NATA Strategic Issues breakfast, Long Beach, CA May 2, 2001 First I would like to thank NATA for the opportunity to participate on this panel today. My members work at over 300 air traffic facilities in the United States and we know that there is more to the aviation industry than just the passenger airlines. We have the same high standards for Pensacola and Van Nuys as we do for O'Hare and Atlanta because we believe all users of the system are entitled to the safest most efficient air traffic control system in the world. The explosive growth in aviation has as much to do with fractional ownership as it does with the passenger emplanements. In order to meet the growing needs of aviation, we must focus on all segments of aviation and ensure any plan provides the access you demand. ATC modernization is an issue for all of us, but it is the Air Traffic Controller who is not only the first to benefit from new technology, but also the first to suffer for inadequacies. There is no element of my work that has a greater impact on my quality of life then the quality and reliability of air traffic control equipment. Throughout the 1980's and into the early 1990's, when equipment outages plagued the system, my organization was the first to sound the whistle. In fact, it took the collapse of the Advanced Automation System (AAS) program to effect real change in the FAA. Controllers are aggressively working to field new technologies and procedures which allow more aircraft in the system. Working on the front lines, we have a bird's eye view of modernization. We are the first to see problems as well as the first to see change. We are keenly aware of the high standards that must be maintained to ensure the safety and integrity of the system. The US system is the most sophisticated in the world, because it needs to be. We handle nearly half of the world's air traffic using automation that is unparalleled. This is both good and bad news. From a technology perspective, our system has evolved to meet the demands of our vibrant aviation industry, which has required tremendous innovation and investment in research and development. The downside of being a world leader is that you cannot simple copy someone else. It also puts us in a position where the infrastructure cannot be easily replaced. The US cannot stop by Wal Mart to pick up an air traffic control system, however, other nations can, and do, purchase equipment from FAA vendors once we have paid for the development, testing and certification. Quite honestly, the FAA tried to buy a turnkey system. What they found is that there is no system in use in the world that has as much functionality as we have had in the US for over a decade. Congress granted FAA sweeping reform that exempted the agency from most limits placed on a government bureaucracy. The FAA in turn has taken advantage of this freedom. They have embraced an evolutionary approach to modernization that takes advantage of new technology without abandoning the state of the art benefits we enjoy. They are able to use the input of the people who will use and maintain the equipment as well as industry in making their acquisition decisions. I have experienced the benefits of this reform first hand and if the equipment weren't working, you can be sure my members would be the first to complain. But there is more to meeting the demand of aviation than equipment. Our current problem, accommodating the explosive growth in air travel is one of infrastructure, not just technology. We could insist on ADSB equipage tomorrow and solve the problem of delays overnight. Not because the system would have more capacity, but because there would be fewer users. I don't believe the answer to congestion lies in shutting some users out of the system. Mr. Poole mentioned privatized systems in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Airsys in Australia has stated they will have to reevaluate their ability to provide service to aircraft in distress because of the liability, last week New Zealand had no service at a major airport leaving 25 aircraft in holding because they had inadequately staffed the system in search of the "efficiencies" of the private sector. NAVCANADA has shut off US aircraft deviating for weather because they could not justify the overtime costs. I think it is far too early to call any of these systems a success. The solution lies in giving the existing reforms time to work. While I will argue that it is a 24 hour a day high tech service business, I would hate to see Air Traffic Control go the way of the dot coms. To build more capacity, we must build. Not change regulations or mandate equipage, but build. Build runways, taxiways and gates. Because, although we are aviation, our capacity limits are not in the air, but on the ground. [Back] [Updates]