Washington (CNN) -- In one of the most immediate
consequences of the pending spending cuts, the Federal Aviation
Administration has informed contractors that -- lacking any last-minute
agreement -- the agency will move Monday to close some 168
contractor-staffed air traffic control towers nationwide on April 1, and
another 21 towers by Sept. 30, industry officials tell CNN.
All of the control towers
are at small- and medium-size airports, but together they handle about
5.8% of all commercial airline traffic, and considerably more business
and private airplane traffic.
The cuts will not force
the closure of the airports, because aircraft can land without air
traffic control help, and some operations can be switched to other FAA
facilities.
But airport authorities
say the move will eliminate one level of safety at affected airports and
will reduce the efficiency of the entire airspace system.
The FAA's first concrete
action to address the $85 billion in spending cuts -- known in
Washington as the sequestration -- is aimed at three contractors. While
the FAA uses its own workforce of some 14,700 controllers to staff about
280 control towers at major airports, it contracts with three companies
to staff roughly another 250 towers, generally at smaller airports.
Representatives of those
companies told CNN the FAA has notified them verbally that they will be
receiving written notice by Monday about the pending tower closures.
"To us and our people,
it's extremely significant," said Shane Cordes, CEO of Midwest Air
Traffic Control Service, which provides controllers to towers in about
23 states in the East, Northeast, Great Lakes and central regions of the
United States.
"We're talking not only
about a loss of jobs but, from my perspective, a negative impact to the
safety and efficiency of the national airspace system," he said.
Cordes said the FAA's
contract tower program "has been repeatedly lauded by the (DOT's) office
of inspector general as a cost effective and safe program." The program
"enhanced the FAA's attempts to be fiscally responsible while remaining
operationally safe and efficient," he said.
In addition to the
contract towers, the FAA has said it is contemplating closing 49
FAA-staffed towers. And it has notified most of its 47,000 employees of
the possibility of furloughs, expected to be one or two days every
two-week pay period.
Spencer Dickerson of the
U.S. Contract Tower Association, an airport industry group, said
contract towers are taking a disproportionate brunt of the closures. In
addition to the 168 towers to be closed April 1, some 16 towers that are
operated on a cost-sharing basis with other governments, and five
operated with the Air National Guard, will be closed Sept. 30.
"We're very discouraged
and we still think that the Department of Transportation and FAA ought
to scrub the budget harder to find savings that don't affect the control
towers," Dickerson said.
"Will it be unsafe? No.
They'll figure it out, but are there concerns about safety? Absolutely.
Are there concerns about efficiency? Absolutely. Is this a job killer?
Absolutely," Dickerson said.
"It's unprecedented that
we're going to turn the lights off on 168 towers on April 1, and we
don't have any information from the FAA on how that's going to work," he
said.
The FAA targeted
airfields with fewer than 150,000 operations -- an operation is a
takeoff or landing -- or 10,000 commercial operations in a year. The
agency said it is open to reconsidering closures on a "case by case"
basis, but would have to offset any changes with other spending cuts.
Congressional
Republicans have criticized the planned tower closures, saying the
administration is "creating alarm" as a negotiating gambit.
In a statement, three
Republicans said, "The agency is well positioned to absorb spending
reductions without compromising the safety or efficiency of the National
Airspace System." The statement was released by House Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pennsylvania,
Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Thune, R-South Dakoka,
and House Subcommittee on Aviation Chairman Frank LoBiondo, R-New
Jersey.
Wes Cozart, head of
Robinson Aviation (RVA) Inc., which staffs control towers in the FAA's
Southern and Southwest regions, said he is "saddened" by the pending
closures. Cozart said an FAA contracting official gave him notice that
it intends to close 77 of his towers, jeopardizing the jobs of more than
400 of his employees.
"We're not sure how the
process worked to get to this point, so I really can't comment on that.
We really don't know. If they had cut 20%, maybe that would be
understandable. But it looks like they cut almost the entire program
out," Cozart said.
"We're hopeful that
somebody will come to a conclusion that changes this," Cozart said.
"Personally, I'm not hopeful that they'll make it."
"I'm hopeful," he said, correcting himself. "But I'm not confident."
