Here We Go Again

We get to get the threats of the "sequestration" again this fall. Of course we knew about it for most of the last couple years, and who has done anything about it? How about that, the only one who could do something, is congress, the same ones who chose to ignore the trouble.

Congress will play the same game of chicken again this weekend. Nothing new there.  Something will be the pawn, this time it is Obamacare. Fine, whatever, I really don't think we need congress messing with health insurance anyway, I can't see how they can make it better. (this conversation could get recursive about here, so I won't get into congress and health care).

The trouble is, the game of chicken costs everyone more money! Obamacare is in progress, and states have put money into making it work. The money is in the federal budget already, and could be funded. If congress tries to unwind Obamacare, well there will be money wasted by the states, and the fedral government that are working toward the Oct. 1 deadline. Corporations have their HR software ready, the rules were set over a year ago.

So they decide to boot the government out on Oct 1. Well, those government employees just go home, and watch daytime TV and don't get paychecks. Hmmm... they don't buy cars, and limit grocery purchases, and that ripples down to the Best Buy store, and the stock boys at the Albertson's. Yes the whole mess puts a strain on everyone, depending on how long things go on.

Lets see, air traffic control is in play again. Will congress like having their flights delayed? Maybe once, or maybe they have things rigged to not be personally affected this time. If they are delayed, you can bet congress will make a strong effort to adjust budgets to make that part less painful.

How is traffic affected by controllers?

As I wrote in my April Sequestration post, controllers are certified to work a limited section of airspace. If all the people scheduled to work a day can't cover a sector, then planes can't fly in that sector. There are also rules about how long a controller can work a sector without a break (bathroom and lunch breaks are not optional!).

Airspace in IFR conditions is positive control, or only one aircraft can be in a part of airspace until it is known where that aircraft is. I've flown IFR to Livingston Montana in a small airplane before. Livingston is in a valley, and unless you are over 12000ft up, there is no RADAR coverage, and there is no tower at the airport. Once I left Billings MT RADAR area, I was cleared for the approach into Livingston. That meant the controller gave me all that airspace, until I told her that I was on the ground, or back into some other controlled airspace. The controller had to give me exclusive access to that airspace, since she couldn't see me, and she wouldn't know where I would be relative to another aircraft.

If towers are closed the enroute controllers will give the aircraft the airspace around the airport, starting sometimes over 50 miles out. That means only one aircraft can be in that 50 mile area until it is on the ground, or reports that it is going somewhere else. With the tower open, the spacing can be 5 miles between aircraft. With the tower closed it maybe 50 miles of spacing. You can get 10 aircraft on approach with the tower open, and only 1 with the tower closed. Things slow down really fast like that.

Airplanes don't care if the towers are contract or FAA run. If there is proper staffing, then the pilot can fly closer to other aircraft. The aircraft won't have to hold or divert if there are enough people at the tower watching aircraft. There are towers that handle very little traffic, and the staffing could be reduced, and the FAA has tried, but usually some congress person has a special interest in that tower, and it stays open for many hours with few operations.

Again, as flights get late, the second shift or the midnight shift get to work overtime. Congress insures the money saving route actually costs more. If they would just do it right, and leave it alone, they could save real money. You and I have to live within our budget, and changes may cost us money. Congress ignores that whole thought, and let money get spent, knowing that in a year or two they will have to deal with a situation. Waiting until the weekend before will insure things will go bad.

We need a smaller government,  and we could start the cutting with congress.

P.S. Congress will continue to get paid during the shutdown. It is also likely that once the budget is passed, and funding is restored, all the government employees will get retroactive pay. 

Sequestration Ha!

I was going to write something about the furloughs and why they would cause the delays that they do, but I think everyone has heard enough. Now that they are over, it may not matter, but then again, how are they going to end...

So in a contract position, a fraction of the workforce was forced to reduce their work by 10%. Everyone is supposed be treated equal, so how can this be, not everyone had their work cut by 10%? How are they going to make it fair? The whole mess will take over a month to resolve, unless there is an emergency order, causing the folks who got the time off to be paid for the time they took off anyway (such a deal!).

I don't know if the whole deal was worked out yet. Sure congress got beat up, and something happened, but has the President signed off on it (does he need to, I am thinking he will eventually). The whole deal is a rob Peter to pay Paul anyway. No one authorized the FAA to spend what they used to spend, just that they can use some other money to pay the controllers. That money is still ready to be used for the projects it was originally intended to be used for, and someone else will be screaming if they don't get theirs.

Why do to furloughs cause delays? In a air traffic control center, there are various geographical regions that are covered, broken into sectors. Not all controllers are certified to work all sectors. The midnight shift will combine multiple sectors and work them together, where during the day, a single controller or team (RADAR (R) and Data (D) side) will work a single sector. If you don't have enough staffing, the number of controllers certified to work the sectors will be reduced.

One day the guy certified to work sectors 1,2 and 3 will have the day off, and the next day the guy certified to work sectors 2,4,6,8 will have the day off. Scheduling becomes a challenge. Then throw in vacations, and sick days, and some days you may only have one guy on a shift qualified to work sector 5 or something. For one guy to handle the sector, then only maybe 12 aircraft can be in the sector at a time. Maybe it is a gateway sector, and he is doing his best but that means that sectors 6 and 4 have to hold or slow down aircraft. Slowing aircraft has a ripple effect, and sectors 3 and 7 have to manage the aircraft coming into sectors 6 and 4 smartly (and so on).

Equipment went from same day repair to next day repair. It wasn't just the controllers on furlough, but tech support as well. If the only person who normally would be on staff certified to repair some piece of equipment was off that day, the equipment was out of commission. Maybe it was not terribly critical, but caused more inconvenience to the controller, they will have to slow even more.

So traffic backs up all day, and the airlines are taking delays. (travelers still bought tickets, and they want to get where they are going). There ends up being higher volumes of traffic at some airports until well into the midnight shift. The midnight shift that is short staffed with overlapping sectors. All the FAA can do is ask some of the night shift controllers to stay late (and pay them overtime) since the sectors will be impossibly full until even later. So everyone is taking a 10% paycut, but to make that work, the FAA has to pay overtime to some of the staff. 

Since the first week required one third to half the staff to take a day off, how is it that the other folks are going to balance that out? Again, with vacation and sick days, to make it fair, it'll probably take a month for everyone to have the same hours. I know it says that they will "fix" it by Monday, but how can that be? There were controllers who decided the whole government employment situation is silly, and took their retirement, or just quit once they got threatened with the furlough.


It kind of begs the question, who is in charge? Congress tells the FAA to cut spending, and the FAA says we can cut this or that expense, and congress says no, not that one. Why have any administrators if congress is just going to override their decisions. Tower closures were overridden. For many years the FAA has been trying to consolidate TRACONs and such to save money, but it seems someone in congress forces the FAA to not do it. Congress talks the big talk, cut, cut, cut, but when they do, they say "not that way".