In the meantime, NATCA reported another example of lights in an instrument landing system going out this week at Westchester County Airport in New York state. "The hardworking women and men charged with the critical task of keeping our aviation system safe, and the other federal employees impacted by this shutdown, deserve better." "The shutdown further threatens to undermine the timely training and hiring of new air traffic controllers at a time when staffing is already stretched thin and controllers in many places are working overtime," DeSaulnier wrote in an emailed statement to ABC News. The dwindling numbers of ATCs was already on the radar of Mark DeSaulnier, a congressman from Northern California, after a near-crash at San Francisco International Airport in 2017 involving an Air Canada jet. Out of 31 ATCs "on the board," Hampton said, 13 are still in training. "Almost half of our controllers are not fully certified," he added. It takes several years to recuperate from a mass exodus like that." "We're trying to catch up on a wave of retirements. "We been a staffing crisis mode, going on our fourth year now," said Hampton of the airport in Greensboro. 31, but the timing of their next paycheck is uncertain.Īll training for ATCs has also been halted as a result of the shutdown, further disrupting the new ATCs who are desperately needed, according to NATCA. The nation's airspace system and airports are fully operational and continue safely to do so," a spokesperson for the FAA told ABC news in an email.Įven though full-time ATCs are working throughout the shutdown, the existing shortage means they've been working six-day weeks and many hours of overtime at an "already stressful job," Gilbert said. "Air traffic controllers and the technicians who maintain the system continue to work. The mandatory retirement age for ATCs is 56. And approximately 2,000 ATCs are scheduled to retire this year. The number of fully certified ATCs, as they're called, is 10,500 - the union would ideally like to have 2,000 more. air traffic controllers particularly hard because their numbers are already at a 30-year low, according to NATCA. The partial federal shutdown is on its 12th day, with President Trump and Congress at impasse over Trump's campaign promise to build a wall along the Mexican border. Maintenance workers, aircraft certification specialists, engineers, infrastructure workers and others in positions key to air travel safety are also furloughed, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) executive vice president Trish Gilbert told ABC News. But the system relies on several moving parts, not the least of which are the air traffic controllers that are human and subject to the stress of anybody else would be in this type of situation," Hampton said. As long as the controllers are coming to work, we'll do our jobs and the average passenger will arrive safely without putting passengers at risk. Planes rely on lights to guide them onto the runway, and while they are normally repaired quickly, a government shutdown means those type of fixes could be delayed, according to Ryan Hampton, an air traffic controller and a representative for the controllers' union, told ABC News. government shutdown.Īir traffic controllers are currently reporting to work, despite the uncertainty a paycheck on Jan. The controllers are considered "essential," even though they work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) - one of the many agencies subject to the partial U.S. The lights were part of an instrument landing system for inbound aircraft, some of the criteria pilots use to guide planes onto a runway, especially during bad weather, an airport facility representative said.įortunately, air traffic controllers were able to guide the plane to land. A few days ago, several bulbs went out in a lighting system at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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