Alaska may face aviation crisis

By Dan Joling
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A shortage of Alaska air traffic controllers threatens to jam up aviation in the state, spokesmen for the controllers union said yesterday.

Rick Thompson, regional vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the Federal Aviation Administration has not taken adequate steps to prepare for an expected wave of retirements by controllers who replaced 12,000 strikers fired by President Reagan in 1981.

Nearly half of the country's air traffic controllers — 7,100 out of 15,136 — would be eligible to retire in the next nine years. That's more than three times the number who resigned in the past eight years.

Safety will not be compromised if Alaska towers are not fully staffed, Thompson said. However, he said, flying hours could be curtailed if there are not enough controllers, resulting in delays for passengers and cargo.

"It's going to be safe," Thompson said. "If that means delays, you're going to have delays."

Thompson and other union representatives support an upcoming vote in the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee authorizing money for the FAA and other transportation agencies. He said a bipartisan group of senators has written to the chairman requesting $14 million for the FAA to begin hiring controllers.

Mike Fergus, FAA Northwest Mountain Region spokesman, said the agency and the union agree there's a problem, but not on its severity.

FAA officials are considering raising air traffic controllers' mandatory retirement age from 56. Thompson said that's a stopgap.

"Prolonging the inevitable is simply not a solution," he said.

It takes three to five years to fully train replacements, Thompson said, and some wash out.

FAA chief Marion Blakey said in June that the agency would have a plan to deal with the expected retirements by December. A study of staffing needs and what it will take to fill them is on track to deal with the issue by 2007, Fergus said.

Union officials said solutions are too late. Failure to fill positions will mean delays or rerouting of flights when there are not controllers to handle traffic, Thompson said.

"It's going to cost the airlines millions of dollars," Thompson said.

"It's going to affect every airline that flies in here."