Close facilities and consolidate. No one cares about flint, Moses lake, Erie, El Paso, etc.
A huge issue with some of the mid-level facilities is that the full staffing numbers are so high and yet the number of controllers needed to actually run the place is low. This means that as soon as the staffing starts to tick up and people start getting certified, the numbers (time on position, etc) start looking much better and even though they are nowhere near their release point the agency can use the numbers to justify supervisor deviations, Bc the metrics pass muster.
The solution is to lower the full staffing number, but what ATM is going to sign off on being in charge of a smaller organization with less people and less responsibility? It doesn’t look good on the resume.
Closing low level facilities is short sighted and selfish. Just because you don't want to be there doesn't mean nobody wants to have that job. Any union member advocating to take work away from their union is a fool
You Don’t have to close them, but consolidating radars would make it a lot easier to get people done, instead of 3 year training times.
There is a self reenforcing cycle to facility staffing. Assign, train, certify, release
Places that can execute this cycle fast, are pumping people out. Low level VFR towers are a great example, where you can walk in the building in Jan and be out the door by December (less time, if you’re an RPO ?). When a low level tower with 11 people releases someone, they shoot right back to the top of the places that need people. So they get assigned a new academy grad and the cycle starts over. 1 in, 1 out, quickly.
Meanwhile, at a place like Moses lake it takes 3 or more years to certify. No one can leave until this trainee certifies, so that’s 3 years in limbo. But it’s more because they don’t need one person to get certified they need like seven to get to the point where they can release someone. In that time, a place like ARR or TOA can receive and release 6-10 people, or more, because they execute the loop faster. it’s a self reinforcing cycle, as you’re releasing you’re getting put right back on the block to get more people, people know it and waiting a year isn’t that big a deal.
At a place like Moses Lake, maybe four of the seven trainees that they need to certify to release someone get certified and then the numbers start looking really good and then people are desperate so everyone is trying to put in supervisor bids. They don’t want to be supervisors but they also don’t want to spend a decade at Moses Lake. So the deviation gets approved and now even if you certify everyone you won’t be at a place to release and yet your staffing % will be high enough that you won’t be high enough on the priority list to get someone from the Academy or a prior experience person for a while.
You’re just kind of stalled out in the middle of the cycle, you don’t have enough people to leave but you have too many people to get new trainees so you can have the numbers leave and it’s a really awful position to be in. The process is neither fair nor equitable.
