Just my opinion along similar lines to Capt Claret, but AsA has been jousting at big costly windmills for at least 10 years. The focus of the board and the executive has been on the core business...air traffic control. Ancillary and administrative support: secretarial, HR, book-keeping, R&D, industry consultation, training,
PR, documents, mapping and anything else that didn't require an ATC licence or firefighter's certificate, was dumped with great joy and aplomb at the impending climb in the year-end bonus. Some of those requirements diminished as a result, but many of those jobs and responsibilities didn't go away. They just morphed from a secretary doing the work on $40,000 a year and typing at 80 wpm to become the responsibility of a controller on $120,000 a year, taken away from his/her core duties, typing at 35 wpm, wrestling with a computer graphics program, stuffing about with MS PowerPoint, reading self-help books with "for Dummies" in the title and believing written communication and public presentation was so simple that a controller couldn't help but fall into the role of the next Leo Tolstoy.
It's no wonder line controllers had to be promoted. The administrative work wasn't getting done and the wonderful, best-in-their-own-world executive in their insightful collective wisdom couldn't see the forest for the trees and decided simply that more ATC managers would fix the problem. The controllers getting promoted weren't necessarily good managers, but the most adept at sussing out the administrative needs of the new position's supervisor and catering to that need.
And the ironic part is that air traffic controllers not only supported this strategy, but actively embraced it. Afterall, the personality and training of an air traffic controller won't let him/her admit that he/she isn't the best person for a "simple" job like typing, or computer graphics, spreadsheet manipulation, document production, making a presentation or managing a division.
So a myopic executive devoted to an idealistic view of Nirvana where only ATC's make up the entire public face of AsA, because that equates to their distorted view of maximum efficiency, can't understand why their precious model is not looking so hot.
D'uh!
