That's what I was afraid of.
AZO was a 6. They got upgraded to a 7 initially but they are now an 8.
So AZO might possibly, probably, eventually gain 2 levels while all the facilities they absorbed lost 7. And CLE might gain 1 level while CAK lost 2. And ERI lost 1 and BUF gained 0. And on, and on, and on.
Now there's a bunch of people at AZO making level 8 pay (they did in fact gain 2 levels, not just maybe), while anyone who wanted to stay at their shitty middle of nowhere Michigan tower had the opportunity to do so while saving pay and for the most part, anyone who wanted to go to AZO was able to. Now instead of having 6 facilities that take 1.5+ years to check out, you have only 1 place that still probably has a 1.5 year checkout and 5 low level towers where less people have to be stuck making low pay and can get certified in 6 months and have the chance to bid out to
This convo actually made me curious enough to crunch the numbers myself. Using base pay with no diffs and assuming that all the facilities in the AZO consolidation are staffed at 90% before and after the consolidations, I calculated the total payrolls the controllers would get based on the current pay bands. The controllers as a whole actually came out ahead over the agency. Before consolidation, payrolls for all the facilities totaled $7,766,698 while after the consolidation they came out to $8,123,779 for a difference of $357,081. That number obviously increases with diffs and such and is even more in favor of the controllers when you factor in the ones who saved pay. However, I do recognize it doesn't always work out as well in other instances of consolidation.
*NCEPT has entered the chat*
As a whole I am glad the base numbers worked out in favor of the controllers; I wonder if that would increase or decrease with diffs and OT of many smaller facilities vs one larger one (larger one might need 6 hours of OT per day but all the smaller ones might need 2 or 4 hours and that might be more in the aggregate; purely spit-balling on that one).
My friend had a few tower classmates at MBS and MKG I think and apparently they had all those releases and couldn't get selected but IMO, they are being way too picky if they aren't getting selected. Just because you're staffed at 120% and can release in round 2, doesn't mean IAH is going to pick you over the other 75 applicants on their ranking list. We just got our first release in 3+ years while we wait for 804 to eventually get here and between 8 of us that I know for sure put in ERRs this panel, we collectively submitted over 150 of them.... and that's before people get too desperate because there's 2 more releases on the horizon for each of the next 2 panels after August. I'd be shocked if the max amount doesn't get selected at least on this panel and in November.
I suppose it depends on what your idea of "picky" is. I had paperwork in for 9 different places ranging from level 6s up to 11s and the other person at my facility (both CPCs) had similar paperwork out, but for a completely different region of the US, and we just sat there for 2+ years pre-COVID with CAT 1 and CAT 2 release ability (with no one else leaving the facility either).
That’s impossible because DTW still does the same amount of operations as JFK and JFK is still a 12.
Fake news.
JFK is 11 and I think it's because of Newark. There's some sort of thing that keeps EWR/LGA/JFK all the same level because they're the same class B or something, regardless of traffic levels
JFK is 11 because it is. When you dive into the TCI, JFK EWR and LGA have a stipulation in it that makes them what they are (NATCA mafia) I forgot the name of it but I'll get it one day. It has something to do with JFK counting all of LGA's traffic and EWR traffic as their own. and vice versa.
You could ask your facility President, I hear he knows everything ???
It’s in the contract like you said. It’s not hard to understand.
Probably zero, there is a greater chance it absorbs surrounding radars as part of a 804 if they ever have the balls to do those again.
They tried to fuck ABI out of their radar when they built the new tower, but that went sideways.
