Retirements could tangle air traffic.

Byline: Joe Harwood The Register-Guard

An increase in air traffic controller retirements at the Eugene Airport and across the nation could snarl future air travel if the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't soon begin hiring and training replacements.

At the Eugene Airport, 12 of the 23 controllers now on staff will be eligible to retire in the next five years. The local situation is repeated in control towers across the nation.

"The crux of the problem is it takes between two and five years to fully train an air traffic controller," said Daniel Potts, a Eugene-based controller who is also the local legislative representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing controllers. "If we wait until people are having retirement parties and walking out the doors, we're going to be in trouble."

About half of the FAA's 15,000 controllers will be eligible to retire between 2007 and 2013, said Mike Fergus, a regional FAA spokesman based in the Seattle area.

"Our research shows the retirements will simulate a bell curve that peaks in 2007 and 2008," said Doug Church, a Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for the controllers union. "That's the kind of thing we are worried about."

Fergus said many controllers won't retire as soon as they're eligible. He pointed to an FAA study showing that about 75 percent of those able to retire do not do so in their first year of eligibility. But Fergus said most controllers leave within two or three years of becoming eligible.

"We're not quite in the same position as the union in that we don't believe the sky is falling today," Fergus said. "We're not looking for a mass exodus in 2007 and 2008."

Concern is coming not only from the union, but from Congress as well. Perceived foot-dragging on the part of the FAA in addressing the upcoming surge of retirements led lawmakers earlier this year to order the agency to come up with a plan by next month spelling out how vacancies will be filled.

Fergus said the plan probably will include an inventory of total labor needs, a look at the impact of new technologies on staffing, proposals to streamline training requirements, and a proposal to raise the mandatory retirement age for controllers.

The government requires controllers, whose average pay is about $90,000, to retire by age 56. They may retire after 20 years if they are 50 or older, and can retire at any age after 25 years of service, Potts said.

Ruthann Couch, air traffic manager at the Eugene Airport, said she has one controller eligible to retire now, and another will be eligible next year. Between July 2006 and August 2009, 10 of her controllers will be eligible for retirement.

"Not everybody goes when they are eligible," she said. "Still, I'm concerned because I want to make sure we have enough staffing."

The Eugene operation is now three workers short of its full complement of controllers, Couch said, adding that she is awaiting budget authorization to fill those vacancies. "We are constantly putting forward to our bosses that we need to get some more people in here," she said.

Church said the median controller age is now just past 45, so getting a younger generation in the training pipeline is paramount. "If you hire someone tomorrow, that person won't be ready until 2007 or 2008," he said.

Yet the FAA in fiscal 2004 did not seek additional money from Congress to begin hiring and training new controllers, Church said.

The union would like to see the FAA bring on 1,000 new controllers a year for the next five years, but acknowledges that an extra $50 million request is a long shot given the enormous federal deficit.

Instead, the union sought $14 million to get 350 new controllers into the training regimen, and then it settled for $10 million that is now treading water in a transportation bill pending before Congress. That would allow training for 200 new controllers.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, said he sees something more troublesome in the FAA's reticence to bring on the next generation of controllers.

"The hidden agenda is privatization," said DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the House Aviation Subcommittee. "This administration tried to insert privatization into a bill a little over a year ago and it was rejected by Congress."

Privatization would involve the federal government getting out of the job of air traffic control, and hiring private firms for the work.

DeFazio noted that President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget request did not provide for any replacement controllers.

"They've been dragging their feet, and the only thing I can figure is they'll run us up to a wall and say, `Hey, we have a problem here,' " DeFazio said. "Then they'll use that as an excuse to contract out air traffic controller jobs."

Fergus said the FAA already contracts with private companies to provide air traffic control services at more than 200 small airports. Those airports operate under visual flight rules, and are not the busier facilities that also rely on instruments.

Fergus, the FAA spokesman, said he's not aware of any plans to contract out services on a larger scale.

DeFazio predicted the FAA would have a hard time selling Congress on a reduced training period and on extending the mandatory retirement age past 56.

Church said the FAA has known thousands of controllers would begin retiring at about this time because nearly two-thirds were hired between 1982 and 1986. "If you add 20 years to 1982, that was two years ago," Church said. "They knew this was coming."

The genesis of the controller retirement boom dates to 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired and then prohibited the rehiring of more than 11,000 striking federal air traffic controllers.

That action wiped out three generations of experienced controllers and replaced them with a new generation of workers hired between 1981 and 1986, Church said.

CAPTION(S):

About half of the FAA's 15,000 controllers will be eligible to retire between 2007 and 2013, FAA officials say. Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard