FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers

tornado
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FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers Apr 5, 2013 14:26:56 GMT -5

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Post by tornado on Apr 5, 2013 14:26:56 GMT -5

FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers
Published April 05, 2013
FoxNews.com

The Federal Aviation Administration, hitting pause on a high-profile sequester cut, announced Friday that it would delay previously planned closures for 149 air traffic control towers at small airports.

The FAA announced that it would delay the implementation until June 15, while it tries to resolve "multiple legal challenges" to the decision. Trade groups representing companies that operate the towers under contract for FAA filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington.

"This has been a complex process and we need to get this right," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "Safety is our top priority. We will use this additional time to make sure communities and pilots understand the changes at their local airports."

The FAA indicated that, while it still plans to stop funding the towers in June, some could continue to operate under funding from various airport authorities. The agency says about 50 airport operators and communities have indicated they may want to pay for operation of the towers themselves, and more time is needed to work out those details.

The initial decision in March to shutter the 149 towers was met with criticism from lawmakers whose districts include small airports that would be affected. Some questioned whether the closures could be avoided.

The closure process was set to start this Sunday. But the FAA said Friday that instead of automatically shutting the towers down, the agency will instead cut off funding on June 15 -- "and will close the facilities unless the airports decide to continue operations as a nonfederal contract tower."

It turns out that the FAA has been using 30-year-old data on aircraft collisions to justify the cost of operating many of the control towers, even though accident rates have improved significantly over that time.

Had the FAA used more current data, it's probable that some low-traffic airport towers operated by private contractors would no longer have met the agency's criteria for funding, industry officials say. But the FAA has long been under pressure from members of Congress to open new towers at airports in their states, not to close them.

While the FAA indicates it will go through with the funding cuts, the decision marks the latest announcement showing the administration reconsidering a sequester cut. Following threats to furlough workers and cut their hours, some agencies have delayed implementing those cuts.

FAA has previously said the tower closures are necessary to accommodate automatic spending cuts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/05/faa-delays-closure-air-traffic-control-towers/#ixzz2PcQNqEXR

tornado
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FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers Apr 5, 2013 15:17:24 GMT -5

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Post by tornado on Apr 5, 2013 15:17:24 GMT -5

Related article:

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-05/airport-seeks-court-order-blocking-control-tower-closing.html

Airport Seeks Court Order Blocking Control Tower Closing
By Karen Gullo & Laura Litvan - Apr 4, 2013 8:57 PM PT
A town near Daytona Beach, Florida, sought a court order blocking closure of the local airport’s air traffic control tower, which is losing funding April 14 as part of government-wide spending cuts.

Ormond Beach, with about 38,000 residents and a general aviation airport, is among at least seven cities or airport authorities across the U.S. that have sued the Federal Aviation Administration over plans to shut control towers, or ATCTs.

“The presence of an on-site ATCT is the most critical factor in preventing on-airport and mid-air collisions,” the town said in its filing yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. “The elimination of the towers will cause immediate safety hazards that FAA failed to address.”

Nationwide, 149 small and mid-sized airports with fewer than 150,000 annual takeoffs or landings, including those serving Ohio State University, the headquarters of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. in Illinois and visitors to Glacier National Park in Montana, will lose their control towers starting April 7. The shutdowns were ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration as it grappled with the need to trim $637 million from its $16 billion budget. All of the towers slated for closing are operated by contractors while facilities at larger airports are staffed by FAA employees.

April 12 Ruling
Ormond Beach asked the appeals court to rule on its emergency request by April 12.

Planes can continue to use airports without working control towers under FAA procedures. Instead of being guided by controllers, pilots radio one another to manage takeoffs and landings.

Six cases filed as direct challenges to an agency ruling in federal appeals courts in Washington and California today were consolidated by a judicial panel that oversees multi-district litigation and transferred to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco for review.

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers are trying to keep up the pressure to keep the towers open. Next week, senators led by Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut will introduce legislation that will prohibit the Department of Transportation from closing any air traffic control towers, said Garrette Silverman, a spokeswoman for Moran. The measure also would require the DOT to resume operations at the 24 towers slated to close on April 7.

Last month, 27 senators led by Moran failed to attach language to a stopgap spending measure that would have blocked funding cuts to 179 towers operated by FAA contractors that will be affected by the across-the-board cuts. Senate leaders in both parties didn’t allow a vote on Moran’s amendment before the Senate approved the measure, which ended the 2013 budget fight while locking in $85 billion in automatic cuts throughout the government.

The Florida case is City of Ormond Beach v. Huerta, 13-71178, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

To contact the reporters on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net; Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

Last Edit: Apr 5, 2013 15:23:37 GMT -5 by tornado

tornado
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FAA delays closure of air traffic control towers Apr 5, 2013 15:21:45 GMT -5

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Post by tornado on Apr 5, 2013 15:21:45 GMT -5

And another. Guess this makes too much sense.

www.aviationtoday.com/av/air-traffic-management/FAA-Could-Save-$1-7-Billion-With-ATC-Consolidation-Study-Says_78915.html

Thursday, April 4, 2013

FAA Could Save $1.7 Billion With ATC Consolidation, Study Says
By Woodrow Bellamy III

According to a new study from the Reason Foundation, FAA could save $1.7 billion initially and up to $1 billion annually by building consolidated air traffic control centers and closing 187 air traffic radar rooms.
The study comes as the agency prepares to close 149 air traffic control towers as part of $637 million in spending cuts required by the sequester. The foundation’s study reports that existing air traffic control operations could be merged into large hubs to guide air traffic across large regions of the U.S.
"Without consolidating airspace and air traffic facilities, NextGen is at risk of becoming merely a very costly upgrade of hardware and software, without the large productivity gains that should constitute a major portion of the business case for this transition," said Michael Harrison, a co-author of the Reason study.
The three key components of FAA’s shift to the Next Generation air transportation system are performance-based navigation, more precise surveillance of aircraft positions and digital communications over the current voice-based radar communication system.
Reason’s study presents a plan that would consolidate the 20 current en-route centers and 167 Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facilities into five high-altitude centers, eight integrated control facilities (ICFs) and 38 consolidated TRACONS to manage air traffic for the entire national airspace system (NAS).
The concept of the ICFs is to combine large and small TRACONs and pull airspace away from air traffic towers near the nation’s busiest airports to redefine how that airspace is used by aircraft. Total operating cost savings under this plan would be nearly $1 billion annually, according to the study.
The researchers report that FAA and the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) have begun to move in the direction of ICFs in the northeast, where FAA’s Joint Resource Committee is developing a business case for building the Liberty ICF, which covers the greater New York/New Jersey and Philadelphia airspace resulting from the consolidation of nine existing TRACONs.
The initial cost of building just the Liberty ICF is estimated to be $2.3 billion, and the overall northeast plan would span the airspace from New York to Chicago, at a cost of $5 billion and scheduled completion date of 2023. Reason concludes that if ATO proceeds with a focus on the northeast, combining 45 TRACONs and altering airspace controlled by four centers, it will miss the opportunity to pursue a national consolidation strategy.
The National Air Traffic Controller’s Association is supportive of a consolidation strategy and the implementation of NextGen as a way to modernize the system over the long term, however the group says the recent sequestration budget cuts are impacting the ability to fully implement the satellite-based system.
“Unfortunately, sequestration is hampering these critical efforts. The indiscriminate nature of the cuts means that both current and future operations will be impacted. We continue to urge policy makers to replace these cuts so that efforts to improve, enhance and modernize our national airspace can continue,” NATCA said in an emailed statement.
FAA projects a completion date of 2020 for its completion of its NextGen implementation, saving airlines $24 billion in fuel, delays and other expenses.

Last Edit: Apr 5, 2013 15:24:02 GMT -5 by tornado