No, I’m not playing the Terrorist Card on you with my title. That’s George Bush and Skeletor’s job. I’m referring to something far more insidious. The failure of the Republican Party to govern effectively has led to any number of consumer safety issues, from increased e coli incidents in food (e.g., spinach and meat) to the increase in the importation of toxic toys and poisoned pet food from China. Well add one more to a long list of mismanagement of the Federal Government by the Bush administration: the skies are definitely no longer passenger friendly, and I mean that in the most deadly way possible:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Experienced air traffic controllers are retiring faster this year than the government projected and their union said Wednesday the remaining veterans can no longer safely handle peak volumes in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Southern California.
“We have come to a crossroads in these four locations,” said Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. The four locations, among the most congested in the nation, now have a staffing emergency, Forrey said.
Forrey has said before that the Federal Aviation Administration is eroding the safety margin for air travelers, but he went further: “We have so few veteran controllers left that we cannot safely handle the volume of aircraft into these major areas during the busiest periods of the day.
“They are being asked to handle so much volume with so little rest and with fewer eyes and ears that they are fatigued, and when you are fatigued you make mistakes.”
So at four of the biggest airport hubs in the country we have too few air traffic controllers. The job has always been a high stress, burn out profession, but asking these people to work longer hours and juggle more and more airplanes in the crowded skies is not my idea of good government. It’s your basic slash and burn style of business management, and while it may work in the short term in the private sector in businesses whose workers aren’t required to maintain their constant attention and complete focus on detail every second while they are at work, we shouldn’t expect our government to compromise our lives and the lives of those we love to the gods of “increased productivity.”
Government is not run best using “business school” models that cut corners and threaten lives. We should expect our government to do all that is necessary to make air travel as safe as possible. Under Bush and the Republicans we have seen the exact opposite. Monies cut from essential services provided by federal agencies which directly protect the health and safety of every American (from the EPA to FEMA to the FDA to now the FAA) in order to wage wars of choice in the Middle East that primarily benefit a few well connected multinational corporations and their executives. The safety of the American people compromised on the altar of conservative ideology and greed.
Some Democratic candidate should be shouting about this story at his or her campaign appearances and rallies today, tomorrow and every day thereafter. This is too important not to highlight. Republicans are bad for your health and general welfare. Pass it on.
Ps. Who knew that making the no-fly list could become a life saver?
Wow, thanks for bringing such an important story to our attention.
I think the air controllers have one of of the toughest, yet most important jobs in the nation. If I make a mistake at work, it’s not the end of someone’s life. If they do, it’s the end of several hundred people’s lives, and thousands when you multiply that by the loved ones.
We should pay them better, treat them better, give them shorter shifts, and whatever else they need to do the job safely.
I love to fly, but my next trip may well be by train. I’ve wanted to try that anyway, but this is added incentive.
You know, even Republicans fly on commercial jets (at least some of them do) so you;d think they’d care about this issue. But they don’t.
Republicans know that some other Republican is making a lot of money off the inefficiencies, and won’t break the Reagan rule of never speaking badly of another Republican. NOTHING can interfere with profit-taking.
Lisa-
Trains in this country absolutely suck. Don’t do it. You will forever hate your trip.
If you want to fall in love with the idea of trains, do it in Europe. You will love it and you will realize where our cheap-ass private-industry train system in this country REALLY missed the boat.
Or Japan. My daughter who made a trip there last year still raves about their trains.
Are there trains available in your metro area?
And have you ever taken an Amtrak in coach? It’s filthy, smelly, and slow.
The Reagan revolution went about trying to destroy government by cutting into services, saying “see? government can’t work!” Amtrak is a perfect example of that.
For instance, I trave between Rochester NY and NYC a few times a year. It takes, from door-to-door by flying, 4 hours. By train, it’s 9 hours. You choose. If train service was fast, I mean greater that 40 mph, it might be worth giving away a day on the train, but it’s not.
Trains are great, if they move and if they are not smelly dumps.
And another Reagan legacy: Firing 11,345 striking air traffic controllers back in the day, and breaking the Patco union.
The strike is here.
Train? Needless to say, last time my wife and I traveled by air, this Xmas, we wondered if we were going to be on the first American airplane to crash in, how many years?
Well we made it. Still, we are thinking now about the relative safety of driving for our next trip.
Living in New York City, and listening to the local AAR affiliate part of the day, we are constantly told that there are delays at LaGuardia/JFK due to “weather” even though it’s perfectly clear outside!
It’s the congestion. The flight delays here are notorious. Again, the lack of civic planning over the last 25 years for infrastructure is a direct sign of the “business school” (neé cheap-assed, corporatist, stingy, profit/bottom line/”market forces”) model of government/economic management. Completely un-based in reality.
Coming and going in NYC metro is becoming a nightmare.
I’m a big fan of Patrick Murphy’s “Ask the Pilot” column over at Salon.com and he explains the problem in such a smart way. The problem really is that the airlines have been running too many small planes at more frequent intervals because that’s what they think the market wants. And the market may well want that. But the way to fix the traffic congestion – give priority to planes with the most passengers, rather than waiting in line – just doesn’t even get considered. If this were put in place, airlines would run fewer flights to the same places, using larger planes. That would solve the problem. Easy. But good luck explaining that to the FAA, a wholly owned subsidiary of the commercial aviation industry.
And par for this administration, NASA has data alluding to hunderds of incidents in which flying safety was compromised, but refuses to compile the data in any meaningful way:
http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/roadwarrior/2008/01/nasas_impenetrable_airsafety_s_1.html
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/12954192.html
I have a friend who is a traffic controller. She says the starting salaries have actually gone down from when she started in the 1980s. So not only are they having trouble filling these jobs, but probably filling them with unqualified people.
She, of course, is counting down to retirement in a few years.
As Boran 2 pointed out upstream, Regan’s legacy of breaking the air traffic controllers union back in the early 80’s appears to have come home to roost. A whole generation of controllers has come and is now going and it seems as though wages hours and working conditions in this profession has diminished over the years. Public safety has also diminished. Heaven forbid an air disaster as a result, but it looks as though we are playing with fire here.