New scheduling rules for air traffic controllers aimed at reducing fatigue on the job will be rolled out Monday, beginning in Atlanta.
Randy Babbitt, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, will visit control tower staff at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and FAA control facilities in Fayette and Henry counties, to kick off a nationwide tour of briefings that will unveil the new guidelines for overnight staffing.
Extending hours between shifts and and restricting night-time schedule swapping are among the changes.
The move comes as a fifth air traffic controller in a month was reported asleep on duty: this time early Saturday morning, during a midnight shift at a regional radar facility in Miami that monitors high-altitude flights.
The Miami controller didn't miss any flight calls because there were more controllers on duty, but has been suspended, FAA officials said.
“We expect controllers to come to work rested and ready to work and take personal responsibility for safety in the control towers; we have zero tolerance for sleeping on the job,” Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Sunday in a statement. “Safety is our top priority and we will continue to make whatever changes are necessary.”
Already, FAA administrator Randy Babbitt and LaHood had ordered additional air traffic controllers assigned to overnight shifts at 27 airports that operated around the clock with only one controller working late. This came after a controller fell asleep early Wednesday morning at the Ren0-Tahoe International Airport and missed guiding in a medical flight.
"We are taking important steps today that will make a real difference in fighting air traffic controller fatigue," Babbitt said. “Research shows us that giving people the chance for even an additional one hour of rest during critical periods in a schedule can improve work performance and reduce the potential for fatigue."
The new scheduling rules have already been put in place and will be fully in effect by the end of the week:
- Controllers will now have a minimum of nine hours off between shifts as opposed to as few as eight previously.
- Controllers won't be allowed to swap shifts without at least nine hours off between shifts, and can't switch to an unscheduled midnight shift following a day off.
- FAA managers will schedule their own shifts in a way to ensure greater coverage in the early morning and late-night hours.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association had been working with the FAA to review recommendations that would improve working conditions before the Reno incident exacerbated concerns.
"The guideposts here for further action are the recommendations of the FAA-NATCA joint workforce on fatigue, which were the result of a year and a half of efforts," union president Paul Rinaldi said on Saturday. "They provide science-based, healthy solutions to reducing controller fatigue."
Hartsfield-Jackson, the world's busiest airport and linked to the FAA's busiest air traffic control center, has recorded no sleep episodes and already staffs multiple controllers overnight, FAA officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday.
The Hartsfield-Jackson tower, which controls a five-mile radius for approaching and departing flights up to 12,000 feet, has two air traffic controllers on duty overnight.
None of the other 24-hour FAA facilities have records of sleeping incidents in the past six months, officials said. The Atlanta Terminal Radar Approach Control center in Peachtree City is staffed at midnight by two controllers and a supervisor. That facility covers flights in a radius that stretches from Kennesaw to Columbus.
The air-traffic control center in Hampton, responsible for high-altitude flights traveling between cities throughout the Southeast region, has 21 controllers on duty overnight, with one supervisor working between 1 and 5 a.m. and two supervisors at other late-night and early morning hours.
Union spokesman Doug Church said up to now, 25 percent of the the nation's air traffic controllers work what he called a "2-2-1″ schedule, working afternoon to night the first two days, followed by a mandatory minimum of eight hours for rest before starting two morning-to-afternoon shifts, another eight or more hours for sleep, then a final shift starting between 10 p.m. to midnight.
"Maybe we need to work in more time for rest," Church said. "You’re forcing yourself to work at a time when the body is used to sleeping."
In 2007, the National Transportation and Safety Board recommended an increase in the time between air traffic controller shifts, which the FAA ignored in favor of a collaborative effort with NATCA to address fatigue.
Rinaldi will join Babbitt and other FAA and union leaders in the nationwide "Call to Action" briefings that will reinforce the need for all personnel to adhere to high professional standards. This is of particular importance because roughly 40 percent of air traffic staff have been working only four to five years following an exodus of controllers who in the mid-2000s reached the mandatory retirement age of 56, Church said.
The campaign will also include the development of a fatigue-education program and an independent review of the air traffic control training curriculum and qualifications.
Other recent asleep-on-the-job incidents included an April 11 report of a Seattle controller who'd already been cited for two January sleeping infractions, and a pair of controllers in Lubbock, Texas, who got into trouble on March 29.
And on March 24, an air traffic control supervisor at Reagan National Airport in Washington allowed two flights to land without guidance as he slept, the FAA said.
"That's proof it isn't a controller issue," Church said. "It's an FAA employee issue."
About the Author
