Article in today's NY Times on high error rates at TRACON in New York. Also on the backbiting and long-simmering dislike between the controllers and the FAA.
On at least 13 occasions since July 11, air-traffic controllers have mistakenly ordered airplanes to fly too close to one another in the skies above New York. Those incidents, about six times the average error rate, are prompting more intense finger-pointing between two longtime opponents - the controllers' union and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The F.A.A. and the controllers have a long history of animosity, but the rift between the two widened early this year when the federal agency began to reduce staffing levels, an effort to gain greater control over the New York Tracon.
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During low-traffic hours, the F.A.A. has sometimes put one controller in charge of an area that is normally split into two sectors, or has assigned one controller to a sector that is often managed by two. But under the new schedules, union officials say, it is doing both far more often.
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In June, the F.A.A. said that abuse of sick leave and overtime was common at the Tracon. That volley followed complaints by the Tracon's controllers earlier in the year of dozens of "operational errors," cases in which controllers directed planes so that they flew closer to each other than regulations allow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/13/ny...gewanted=print