August (Q4) 2023

[ATC123]

Huh wondered why an outbound and someone who was already a supe wasn't shown on the books at my last facility 🤔

And you ran this through your NCEPT rep and what'd they say?

 

[GulfBravoPapa]

I don’t think we can ever get to a solution in the current system, but I think the FAA should start looking at all of the people who are medically DQ’d for more than a few months and start sending them to OKC to teach some classes. They can do a month, then rotate through the next batch of DQs. Need to find something for them to do other than mooch, cause I’m sure there are plenty who just sit around and aren’t doing things for the facility.

They can keep getting paid whatever amount they’re getting to sit around at their current facility, and throw in some per diem, and then overload the academy with as many classes as possible. That place should be packed non-stop. We need classes doing evals every week or every two weeks.

I doubt this is realistic in many ways (so feel free to blow the whole concept to shreds), but I’m sure there’s plenty of bored DQ people who would love to make money and not be bored out of their minds.

There's only so many labs available. I mean they could add a midnight shift but that's about all besides filling the classes.

 

[CoffeeIV]

I don’t think we can ever get to a solution in the current system, but I think the FAA should start looking at all of the people who are medically DQ’d for more than a few months and start sending them to OKC to teach some classes. They can do a month, then rotate through the next batch of DQs. Need to find something for them to do other than mooch, cause I’m sure there are plenty who just sit around and aren’t doing things for the facility.

They can keep getting paid whatever amount they’re getting to sit around at their current facility, and throw in some per diem, and then overload the academy with as many classes as possible. That place should be packed non-stop. We need classes doing evals every week or every two weeks.

I doubt this is realistic in many ways (so feel free to blow the whole concept to shreds), but I’m sure there’s plenty of bored DQ people who would love to make money and not be bored out of their minds.

Interesting idea. Not sure the legalities of it. You can't force people to move somewhere (I don't think) but technically you should be able to do some virtual training at the facility to spin them up to the academy way then have them do a month or two TDY since that seems fine considering we do RTF and such. I also think the academy is limited on space plus you need RPOs. I like the idea of an east coast academy but the FAA isn't big on spending money.

 

[Ui1988]

If I quit for a year could I only go back to my last facility or could I go to any of my pervious facilities?

 

[ajmezz]

If I quit for a year could I only go back to my last facility or could I go to any of my pervious facilities?

Prior exp bid: roll the dice and see what you get.

CPC reinstatement: whatever level you left and below.

 

[MJ]

Your first guess was right

He makes his own luck

 

[Flo]

Does anyone have the Manager’s Ranking List for this NCEPT?

 

[Sassyquatch]

I agree, but for FWIW, only your signature is required now.

How do you know this? The instructions still show that a rating officials signature is needed and if it isn't anymore that would be awesome. I'm tired of having my supe talk me out of putting paperwork out to specific facilities lmao

 

[pedaNTIc]

I don’t think we can ever get to a solution in the current system, but I think the FAA should start looking at all of the people who are medically DQ’d for more than a few months and start sending them to OKC to teach some classes. They can do a month, then rotate through the next batch of DQs. Need to find something for them to do other than mooch, cause I’m sure there are plenty who just sit around and aren’t doing things for the facility.

They can keep getting paid whatever amount they’re getting to sit around at their current facility, and throw in some per diem, and then overload the academy with as many classes as possible. That place should be packed non-stop. We need classes doing evals every week or every two weeks.

I doubt this is realistic in many ways (so feel free to blow the whole concept to shreds), but I’m sure there’s plenty of bored DQ people who would love to make money and not be bored out of their minds.

I see the merit of this

 

[ajmezz]

How do you know this? The instructions still show that a rating officials signature is needed and if it isn't anymore that would be awesome. I'm tired of having my supe talk me out of putting paperwork out to specific facilities lmao

When I put in paperwork last year, HR confirmed it was no longer required.

 

[Mike Kilo]

When I put in paperwork last year, HR confirmed it was no longer required.

Also most bids now state to include the first page of the 3330-43(-1) which doesn’t have the signatures on it.

 

[Acquired Taste]

Does anyone have the Manager’s Ranking List for this NCEPT?

Yes, it's earlier in this thread. You might have to scroll through a few pages before you find it.

 

[radarserviceterminated]

Interesting idea. Not sure the legalities of it. You can't force people to move somewhere (I don't think) but technically you should be able to do some virtual training at the facility to spin them up to the academy way then have them do a month or two TDY since that seems fine considering we do RTF and such. I also think the academy is limited on space plus you need RPOs. I like the idea of an east coast academy but the FAA isn't big on spending money.

Just another idea piggybacking on that is they’ve started soliciting bigger TRACON’s if they’re interested in hosting TSEW. (With SCT already hosting classes) I think having that be more regional and then only having tower and RTF at OKC would free up more space and speed up the training timeline significantly. For example, NCT/SCT west coast C90/D10 central and PCT/A80 east coast. Might be easier to attract TDY for DQ’ed people if it’s nearby or it’s already happening in their building. And would dramatically cut down on the TSEW backlog they have after making it mandatory for everyone.

 

[HurryUpandWait]

I don’t think we can ever get to a solution in the current system, but I think the FAA should start looking at all of the people who are medically DQ’d for more than a few months and start sending them to OKC to teach some classes. They can do a month, then rotate through the next batch of DQs. Need to find something for them to do other than mooch, cause I’m sure there are plenty who just sit around and aren’t doing things for the facility.

They can keep getting paid whatever amount they’re getting to sit around at their current facility, and throw in some per diem, and then overload the academy with as many classes as possible. That place should be packed non-stop. We need classes doing evals every week or every two weeks.

I doubt this is realistic in many ways (so feel free to blow the whole concept to shreds), but I’m sure there’s plenty of bored DQ people who would love to make money and not be bored out of their minds.

Yeah...the issue is the FAA is at a point where they are required to have creative problem solving skills and we all know they don't. Their decisions from the national down to the local levels usually are short-sighted and come back to fuck them in the future. There is solutions to help alleviate some minor issues for the overall staffing crisis but they are stubborn and refuse to truly admit their current plan isn't fixing the issue

 

[ChuckNovember]

It's obvious some people have done nothing but ATC in their life or lack critical thinking... literally someone on the NCEPT panel agrees with me on this. If there is no data for your argument, then you're simply wrong.

So anyway despite my lack of critical thinking skills I wrote a program to give us some better data on ERR demand. Everyone's complaint is that the ERR demand doesn't accurately represent the situation because there is no incentive to fill out paperwork (much of the workforce still believes you need it signed by a rating individual which we can all admit is a PITA) other than some critical thinkers like Soul and Coffee told them to on the internet.

I'll post the code here later but essentially what the program does is merge relevant columns of the PPT and the ERR demand .xlsx files and filters out facilities whose workforce has no reasonable expectation of releasing on any nearby panel. It does so by considering the size of the facility and how close they are to releasing. Small (under 40) CPC facilities within 1 controller of releasing (and up) are considered, the assumption being that in small facilities it's very easy to keep track of who is checking out and when you are eligible to release. Centers are considered when they are within 6 CPCs of releasing, since it's harder to know when you'll cross the threshold and what's happening in other areas. Two other parameter sets exist for facilities thats target CPC #s are in between but those are pretty much edge cases since they are so rare.

Attached is the first spreadsheet it spit out.

Total CPCs at these facilities is 5,234. Total employees with ERRs in these facilities is 644, which means that, at facilities which are eligible or close to being eligible, roughly 12.3% of the workforce wants to move. It also means that, using the last number of approved movements ( 88 ), the total percentage of movements from facilities where the demand is more accurately represented is 7.3% of those eligible/with any hope of releasing.

The numbers would be even more accurate if we could eliminate "highly sought after" facilities from the dataset but I didn't want to introduce my own bias so I didn't account for that.

If this is what four hours of breaks gets me imagine what I could do with a full time article 114 position! 😘

 

[ChuckNovember]

python script

 

[ChuckNovember]

This is the first time I've really looked at the ERR demand and some of it is really intriguing. How is ISP, a level 7 in an extremely HCOL area, 94% staffed with zero ERRs on file? Or better yet, how is PSP, level 5 in a place where its probably impossible to find a 2BR apt for under 2k/month, fairly well-staffed with zero ERRs on file?

Kind of bucks the "everyone wants to be in the same top five level 12s" narrative. The answer to our staffing issue might be looking to see what is working for these facilities. Soul_Controller CoffeeIV would love your thoughts on this.

 

[kombucha23]

PSP is kind of a well-known washout facility, is it not? A chunk of those people know they can’t make it elsewhere already.

 

[ChuckNovember]

PSP is kind of a well-known washout facility, is it not? A chunk of those people know they can’t make it elsewhere already.

Didn't know that but it makes sense

 

[Acquired Taste]

This is the first time I've really looked at the ERR demand and some of it is really intriguing. How is ISP, a level 7 in an extremely HCOL area, 94% staffed with zero ERRs on file? Or better yet, how is PSP, level 5 in a place where its probably impossible to find a 2BR apt for under 2k/month, fairly well-staffed with zero ERRs on file?

Kind of bucks the "everyone wants to be in the same top five level 12s" narrative. The answer to our staffing issue might be looking to see what is working for these facilities. Soul_Controller CoffeeIV would love your thoughts on this.

I did the research so you don't have to:

At PSP, looks like out of the 10 people I analyzed that have been there long enough to be CPC, only 3 were likely washouts. The other 7 have been at PSP their entire career.

At ISP, I looked at 19 people. 6 have only been at ISP. 1 more was at a lower 7 up/down for 8 months so I think they likely hardshipped to ISP because that doesn't seem like enough time to get through the tower and wash on radar and I think if they washed at a 7 tower on LC or something, they wouldn't offer them a 6 tower like ISP was at the time. ....Then we get to the interesting part. The other 12 presumed CPCs are all washouts it appears. ISP is basically where you go when you're from Long Island but can't make it at ZNY. I'd say about half of the 12 washed from ZNY. A lot of the others have taken their shot at JFK/LGA and ended up right back at ISP. One dude has washed at ZNY, EWR, and LGA. I wonder if he is going to try and finish the NYC Metro Pentafecta and go to JFK and N90 next.