Air controllers, FAA at odds over pay, safety

Air traffic controllers warned Monday that congressional acceptance of a Federal Aviation Administration contract freezing wages for three years could hurt passenger safety by prompting a wave of controller retirements, leading to fewer controllers monitoring planes above Spokane and other cities.

“This is a very stressful job, so if you’re not getting as much time off between sessions, safety could be in jeopardy,” said David Bagwell, a Spokane air traffic controller.

One FAA official called such statements scare tactics, adding that air traffic controllers are some of the best-paid employees in Spokane.

“I’m sure they’d like you to believe that we are just hammering them and they aren’t making enough money,” FAA spokesman Geoff Basye said.

The average salary for a Spokane air traffic controller is $100,252 a year, not including benefits, Basye said. First-level pay in Spokane after three to five years of on-the-job training is $82,000 a year. It now tops out at $115,000 a year, Bagwell said.

Talks between the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the FAA disintegrated last week, with the FAA turning down a union plan that would have saved $1.4 billion over five years. FAA’s proposed contract would save taxpayers $1.9 billion over the same time period.

But the FAA contract proposal, which eliminates raises for three years, might make controllers retire because retirement pay is based on their three highest-earning years, Bagwell said. The lack of raises eliminates the possibility of increasing retirement pay by working additional years. Plus, air traffic controllers in retirement would get a cost of living increase that their working counterparts would not. Eight of Spokane’s 28 air traffic controllers are now eligible for retirement. Within five years, 44 percent of them will be eligible, Bagwell said.

A 20-minute radio outage incident at Spokane International Airport two weeks ago illustrated the need to maintain current air traffic controller numbers, he said.

He and other controllers used portable radios and telephones to maintain or hand off control of planes in the nearby skies to controllers at other towers. With fewer controllers, that would have been more difficult.

“They’re trying to tie these negotiations to the fact that we don’t care about the safety of the traveling public,” Basye said.

But for every dollar the FAA spends on raises, it will spend $1 less hiring additional controllers or on upgrading equipment, he said.

Between 1998 and 2005, air traffic controller pay increased by 75 percent, Basye said. “It just takes a special kind of audacity” to say they would not be making enough under the new contract, he added.

The FAA’s plan would maintain the existing wage and benefit structure for existing controllers, but it would lower base pay for air traffic controllers hired in fiscal year 2007 and later.

The air traffic controllers’ union also dislikes an FAA provision to end incentive pay given to controllers at airports that are difficult to staff.

Cutting pay for new controllers would make it more difficult to recruit them, said Bagwell, who said the situation is already bad. “We don’t see the replacement controllers coming in right now,” he said.

The union is now asking Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and other members of Congress to order the FAA return to negotiations. Congress has 60 days to intervene, or the FAA can impose its own contract. “They didn’t want to budge,” Bagwell said. “We’re trying to get them to at least negotiate with us.”