BravoZulu said:
My question is, is ASE really that complex to be a lvl 6? Or are ppl pencil whipping #s? Genuinely curious.
It has been a while but, having been through a facility upgrade, let me reassure everyone that it is impossible to pencil-whip your way to an upgrade. Stop trying. All this does is embarrass a facility.
The National Validation Team (NVT) - comprised of members of management and the union - does not take a facility's word at face value when it comes to upgrades (or downgrades). The NVT actually reviews months worth of all available data (CountOps, recordings, etc.) before making a decision. Not only do they review the information, they make the facility review the information separately and then compare numbers. My facility was above the line for five months before they even contacted us to start the process. So, just because you hit three months above the TCI does not mean they will contact you to begin the upgrade process. This is because the upgrade will be back-dated to the third month eligible and they want to be sure the traffic level will be sustained into the future. If your facility is close to the number, the upgrade package will require letters from local operators that the traffic will be sustained into the future. Example from about 5 years ago: For 3+ months, TMB was barely above TCI for upgrade to 8 from 7. The NVT made them get a letter from the major local flight school that their numbers would be sustained. They did and they got upgraded. A few months later, the flight school had a fatal accident and went out of business. The loss of traffic saw TMB downgraded from 8 back to 7.
Procedures may have changed but our experience was this. The NVT gave us two different days to review (yes, all 24 hours for each day). Our numbers weren't close to what the NVT had and the result was a wholesale review of our scratchpad entries. IIRC, not all of our scratchpad entries were being caught by CountOps so we had to ensure our scratchpad entries were properly adapted to be counted. That completed, we re-started the process the next month. The NVT gave us two different days to review and our numbers were closer, but not close enough to satisfy the NVT. They told us they would talk amongst themselves but they would review again in a month and that no decision would be made at the current NVT meeting. The NVT recommended another scrub through scratchpad entries and adaptation, better strip-marking and counting/tracking of local pattern ops. And having to hear from Local leadership we didn't get upgraded because of poor strip-marking and counting local ops kind of hurt. For real... because we were well above the TCI for upgrade. Most figured, what is a few ops per hour when the count can be within 1-2% (I forget the exact number) to be considered valid? Anyways, we strip-marked our asses off and did a better job of counting local ops. The next month, we started the review process again and our numbers were almost exactly what the NVT had. And we still didn't get upgraded. The NVT reviewed (and making us review along with it) for another month... and another month. After ten months of being above the number, coupled with five months of thorough review by the NVT and facility, we were upgraded with eligibility for seven months of back pay at the higher level.
On a side note, I believe the CBA and this process is why facilities have not been downgraded because of the reduction in operation since COVID. The FAA understands the traffic is going to come back. Heck, it was coming back this summer and fall before Omicron reared-up. If you are downgraded, you save pay and are appropriately slotted into the lower band per the CBA. If and when the traffic comes back, they will have to give you the 6% raise that comes with the upgrade per CBA. In short, there is no money to be saved in a downgrade with save pay as no one loses pay today (above the band loses in the future); however, the costs to downgrade then upgrade when traffic returns is $70-150 million per year higher than what it costs today. And that expense gets higher in budget out-years. Think compounding interest... a higher base pay after a 6% raise (to work traffic numbers a facility has already worked) on top of a January pay raise and a June pay raise. Over 10 years, you're looking at $2-4 billion more in expenses to NOT save a nickle today by downgrading facilities. Anyways... my two cents.