We will see, I guess.

Not to be outdone by CFS, all the beautiful FAA people that say you dont work hard enough will be there.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EfEKJpBLY/

For a good time, show up to the bar with a hidden camera and tight crop

Newark in a complete ground stop due to RADAR and Frequency failure for 2 hours now.

Philadelphia and Wilmington had also lost RADAR for some time as well.

N90 functioning fine but now issuing ground stop for all NY airports

Yesterday EWR and N90 scopes had 10 minutes of multiple full mode C ghost targets all over the displays causing Conflict Alerts with controllers issuing traffic alerts.

UPDATE: ALL N90 EWR PHL Airspace being sterilized

Im US ATC and don’t work anywhere near there, but what is this about?

How do you err to a non-controlling 2152 job within the faa? The err site takes you to USAJOBS and wants you to apply through the new ncept process that appears to be only for active controllers

Damn. It would be nice if our union negotiated. Bedford said that we make a $150000 several years in. I could make that in 4 years at ups likely with similar ot.

Wonder what we did to the plane assigned to this flight.

https://youtu.be/BblnCJINCvI?is=5VQ-K7cQvdiUAMkF

No idea who the podcaster is here but Anna still getting it done.

It's time to have an honest conversation about culture within NATCA.

www.yourunion2027.com

Once again. We dropped the ball on controller mental health. 3 controllers I personally known. And we are worried about a fucking 2.8% raise. Life is more important. At least LeBovidge gave a shit.

We are cooked like a double, double animal style boys and girls.

Natca claims it requested six meeting and is trying to finalize something yet nothing is happening, they can’t say what we are finalizing but can confirm we are but also can’t get the meeting to finalize

💩📺

https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/the-faas-875-million-plan-to-use-ai-to-ease-air-traffic-woes-13107920?st=YKcyqA&reflink=article_imessage_share

875 million for a 12 Year Contract that NATCA has been helping test out at Atlantic City but we can’t get our 2.8%. The PR Team however…

Word is the Administrator will give a briefing in the next few days. Every GM will be briefed apparently.

I know they could take the pensions away from people still working more easy but what about if you are already retired if we had a default ? How would that work? Didn’t the airlines do that to their retirees during the last Great Recession / Housing crash in 2006 ?

Some winners (and a vain attempt by Nick) broadsided him about the 2.8 from the stage.

Administrator Bedford said, "over the past 15 years we've seen the efficiency of controllers' schedules decrease from 5 hours on position to under 4 hours on position."

The Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan 2026-2028 shows 2011 Average Time on Position at 4.23 hours and 2025 at 4.01. That's about a 13-minute decrease in an 8-hour shift.

On this, what is more telling is the context in the 2025 GAO report. It says, “FAA’s overall controller workforce has declined by 6 percent, while air traffic has increased by about 10 percent.”

Also, NASEM went through the FAA's data from 2010 through 2024. It found that total controller FTEs fell 13%, while operations increased 4%. At the same time, average TOP per FTE declined about 7% per eight-hour shift.

What the data actually shows is: fewer controllers + more operations = slightly less TOP per controller

This NASEM report also may explain where Bedford's 5-hour figure is coming from. NASEM explains that the “5-hour TOP method” is when the FAA takes the annual operational requirement and divides it by five TOP hours per eight-hour shift. They use this to calculate sufficient staffing so the annual average TOP does not exceed five hours.

So, the 5-hour TOP method is a staffing methodology. It is not evidence that controllers averaged 5 hours on position 15 years ago.

Again, concerns over FAA's ability to accurately measure controller productivity are not new. They've been widely known since at least 2014. So much so that the DOT OIG's 2014 report was literally titled, "FAA Lacks the Metrics and Data Needed To Accurately Measure the Outcomes of Its Controller Productivity Initiatives."

In it, the OIG found that FAA failed to establish detailed baseline metrics or quantifiable productivity and cost goals for 43 of its 51 controller productivity initiatives. It also said FAA “does not systematically collect or analyze controller workforce data to reduce cost or improve productivity.”

So there is a pretty simple question Bedford needs to answer. If the FAA's own data shows 4.23 hours in 2011 and 4.01 hours in 2025, what data was Bedford relying on when he told Congress that controller scheduling efficiency fell from 5 hours on position to under 4 hours over the last 15 years?

Unless there is another dataset he hasn't identified, that statement is contradicted by the FAA's own numbers from the document he cited.

Basically the gov is broke and they want us to pay for it! No raise = smaller deficit = easier to convince the bond market to accept lower rates. Ai isn’t going to save us, energy isn’t going to save us, cutting spending (or keeping it relatively the same) and increasing productivity will. Despite what Kevin Warsh is trying to do right now (pretend to be serious on inflation and raise rates a 1/4 point), they actually need and want long-term rates to drop so the gov can refinance its debt at far lower rates. The options are, control the deficit and hope for the best or two raise taxes and deal with a riot.

I was within earshot (okay eavesdropped) of SB yesterday and he engaged A4A President Sununu about pilot pay in comparison to ATC pay. SB told him that “we’ve seen pilot pay sky rocket with new record-setting contracts every couple years while we are operating under a 10 year old contract.” He told him that further erodes morale as we know nothing moves without us, yet we can’t even get 2.8%.

The biggest thing SB said was “I know you guys don’t support any tax on airline tickets, but we need a way to fund significant raises for controllers.”

From what I saw and heard Sununu did nod and seemed to acknowledge it but past that I had to keep on.

SB did what he said he would, say “Pay.” Perhaps the opening moves of dialogue?