CaptainObvious
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I suggest you pull up a falcon feed of Aspen in the week before and after Christmas
Facility Downgrades / Upgrades
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jdatc
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They could earn 12 pay, and they would still have trouble filling that spot.
HenryTheAce
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Dang you ain’t kidding. According to google the average sale price for a home is $14.88 million. Who here works at Aspen and where do you live? That’s outrageous.
Need has nothing to do with it. The Slate Book Appendix A for Facility Pay Level has a formula that defines your level. ASE is actually under represented by Appendix A. As are most seasonal facilities that don’t have sustained traffic. There is no complexity bump for the type of complexity they actually have because they don’t have crossing runways or converging runways. So single runway ODO gets you nothing. They also have no Air Carrier or Military so the “mix” they actually deal with is under represented.
Some facilities make out very well with the values in that formula. Some get hosed.
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.
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I was there back in 2010-11 so I imagine some stuff has changed. Every op was an ODO, additionally ASE was a secondary only approach control no primary RADAR.
Me and another ASE CPC shared a single wide trailer that was hanging off the side of a mountain about 20 minutes up the road in a town called El Jebel. Use to be a bowing ally there called El Jebowl. I know very original.
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To clarify I know single Runway gets no complexity, I was stating the info what I found on ASE that I believed to not be as complexed, aside from it being a (secondary radar) TRACAB.
JNU, ARB and ACK are other seasonal lvl 5 Facilities. Though JNU gets air carriers and helo traffic (LC2 position for Helo Traffic) I believe they were on the way to lvl 6 pre covid. There’s also STT that got downgraded from a lvl 5 to 4, and ARB got upgraded from a lvl 4 to a 5.
These were all lvl 5 facilities at one point, ALL in high cost of living locations, and all get GA traffic.
JNU and STT both being single Runway Ops just like ASE, and both do ODO.
The Difference is JNU and STT get Air Carriers, JNU has a Sea Lane, STT has runway Crossings, and ARB and ACK have intersecting runways.
Projected 2021 ops from TAF as follows: ARB 65k, ACK 62k, JNU 56k, STT 45k, ASE 43k (ASE TRACON ops 49k).
ASE Tower having a LOWER ops count.
*This is estimated and can be higher/lower
With all that being said, from an outside perspective it just sounds like ASE TRACAB part is pulling the weight for the upgrade. Just like HTS and YNG TRACON are doing for their respective Tower sides to remain a lvl 5, because without the Radar those facilities would easily be a lvl 4 tower.
DADDYSbabyBIRD
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Take 1 runway surrounded by mountains, high ever changing MVAs, for most aircraft only one way in one way out, smaller approach airspace going from 080-210 with center airspace below portions of it for KEGE, no weather radar, you launch a departure when the ODO arrival is approaching a 5 mile final, they pass literally right next to eachother, then the departure turns back across the final cutting off the next arrival 10 miles behind the first one. Mandatory traffic calls with extra phraseology for each aircraft doing the ODO and if an aircraft doesn't do what they are supposed to right away you better fix it now or they are head to head and at best a TCAS-RA happens and you get to figure out how to climb an IFR jet over the mountains on some type of go around missed approach hybrid procedure. Not to mention generally the wind either blows up or down the valley so it's either a tailwind for the arrival or the departure. 32 aircraft an hour there can be tough and continuous talking, where as 120 an hour with 2 runways all going generally the same way can be a cake walk. Aspen also only works from like 7am to 8pm (if memory serves me), but most aircraft won't even attempt night ops so most the traffic is condensed into daylight hours. The facility pay level calculations are incredibly jacked up and do very little to correctly compensate controllers. Aspens tower might not be that hard, but the approach control is very difficult and fast paced.
AB19
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Do you mean to tell me military traffic killing the radar pattern at a satellite airport shouldn’t count for like an 1/8th of an air carrier
32andBelow
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Why are you guys saying aspen gets no air carriers? Do RJs not count?
CaptainObvious
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I think they’re technically air taxis in the formula
32andBelow
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That’s really dumb if true. That’s something NATCA could have fixed in the contract. I know the other side of the faa doesn’t consider 76 seat planes air taxis lol
32andBelow
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Cus the faa considers above 9 seats to be scheduled 121 in the lower 48 ?
DADDYSbabyBIRD
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Also, the best part is ASE tower ops doesn't even count for being a mountain airport for the complexity. It being a less than 5 mile delta keeps it from counting as a mountain airport lol. The radar side gets it for the complexity but not the tower... I mean it's literally a mountain airport surrounded by mountains.
CaptainObvious
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Yet D01 gets mountain complexity
Mike Kilo
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Hey, if they go outside they can see the mountains!!!
Defined by seating capacity. I think it’s 70 like someone said. RJ2s definitely air taxi.
Cost of living irrelevant.
GulfBravoPapa
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They've got MVAs above 17,000....
You should be more appalled that DEN gets mountain complexity.
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