Serious New N90 to EWR June 1, 2024, and June 30, 2024

[inthrewtheoutdor]

There is NOTHING positive in letting them move EWR, disregarding 804 law, Santa ignoring 804 even though its in our constitution, and potentially leading to more break up of N90, eventually ZNY and who knows what else.
They should be throwing everything at this, try every possible approach to stopping this reckless move

 

[SquawkHijack]

Then they can put people on a 2 on 2 off rotation. They already do this for fss

Depends on how many they would absolutely need to staff the area, but I suppose that would be a decent idea unti

There is NOTHING positive in letting them move EWR, disregarding 804 law, Santa ignoring 804 even though its in our constitution, and potentially leading to more break up of N90, eventually ZNY and who knows what else.
They should be throwing everything at this, try every possible approach to stopping this reckless move

Under normal circumstances I would have to agree as I can’t advocate to dissolve a facility that had time and energy to be consolidated, however, with N90’s staffing and cost of living gap I think it’s a breath of fresh air for CPCs there to be in a more affordable area.

 

[Bandit117]

There is NOTHING positive in letting them move EWR, disregarding 804 law, Santa ignoring 804 even though its in our constitution, and potentially leading to more break up of N90, eventually ZNY and who knows what else.
They should be throwing everything at this, try every possible approach to stopping this reckless move

I know that was their end around, to get an 804 exception written into the authorization act just for the n90-phl move. Did they get that into the final bill? Or is there still liability there? I wonder if say the NY AG could sue the FAA if not. Harming New York economically blah blah blah

 

[inthrewtheoutdor]

Depends on how many they would absolutely need to staff the area, but I suppose that would be a decent idea unti

Under normal circumstances I would have to agree as I can’t advocate to dissolve a facility that had time and energy to be consolidated, however, with N90’s staffing and cost of living gap I think it’s a breath of fresh air for CPCs there to be in a more affordable area.

We do fine cost of living or not. The money is a slap in the face. FAA will make working conditions horrible. If they're promising everyone can get out after 3 years the FAA is going to want to see checkouts and training to the max. Very short breaks, long time on position, multiple useless positions open. 3-4 years of comparably terrible working conditions with the promise of priority release and some cash sounds bad.

What happens in 3 years and 20 guys are set to be released but the certification expectation isn't high enough. The FAA going to claim emergency exception and rescind their promise?
Can't possibly allow this move to end up with similar staffing issues after spending all this taxpayer money.
Can we really trust the FAA in 3 years especially with a possible shift in which party is in charge? Quite the gamble for some FU money and a hopeful release.

 

[Deuce]

Oh okay so do you care to answer my question now about how many have certified in the last 5 years or remain mum about numbers after your claim? N90 facility numbers look pretty bad still, about the worst in the entire NAS actually, just saying…

I went and found this data for you

N90 2019 - 2024 57 losses and 61 certifications, 133 currently

EWR area 2019 - 2024 16 losses and 18 certifications, 33 currently

 

[CaptainObvious]

Very short breaks, long time on position, multiple useless positions open. Unknown years of comparably terrible working conditions.

FTFY. Now you know what lots of the rest of us are currently going through with no bonuses, or priority releases, or a validated traffic count to allow us to get paid commensurate with the traffic we’re working, or national leadership all over our case.

 

[echster]

I know that was their end around, to get an 804 exception written into the authorization act just for the n90-phl move. Did they get that into the final bill? Or is there still liability there? I wonder if say the NY AG could sue the FAA if not. Harming New York economically blah blah blah

There is no "final" FAA Reauthorization bill yet. The House passed its bill and the Senate passed its bill... but their bills have some significant differences. They need to go to conference committee to hammer-out their differences and produce a single "final" bill.

It's been a long while but I usually highlight the items in a bill that I think could impact controllers. Because of the significant differences in the House & Senate bills, I didn't do that. So.... I'm waiting for the bill that will be reported out of the conference committee before I write-up those impacts. There are things to like and there are things to dislike. Until two bills are melded into one bill, however, there's no reason to get worked-up over something in the House's bill that doesn't appear in the Senate bill.

 

[abc1234]

There is NOTHING positive in letting them move EWR, disregarding 804 law, Santa ignoring 804 even though its in our constitution, and potentially leading to more break up of N90, eventually ZNY and who knows what else.
They should be throwing everything at this, try every possible approach to stopping this reckless move

I've been saying this since 2020 or 21 when they first started talking about this. There's no way it ends with EWR. This whole thing is a test run for the future breakup of the two facilities that are #1 and #2 most understaffed and highest cost of OT for the agency. Some dumbass in DC who knows nothing about it other than numbers on a spreadsheet thought it was a grand idea to save X$

 

[Phillytroll69]

Some dumbass in DC who knows nothing about it other than numbers on a spreadsheet thought it was a grand idea to save X$

You are wrong here. It's not some idiot. Every time controllers are working ot and below the numbers your manager and his manager gets a raise. The peak efficiency model would be 2 hrs on 45 minute break. Every time people don't split out positions for 'muh break' while running two below it's an agency win. Back on point you are wrong about it being an idiot-this is an intentional way to start breaking up underperforming facilities. The funny thing is n90 has made leaps and bounds in terms of staffing and culture so this plan they started behind closed doors is late. Unless it's just a punishment for costing checkout bonuses and stuff.

You assume ineptitude and that it's someone who doesn't know what they are doing...but it's not ineptitude, this is setting the precedence for pieces of zny to go to Boston, Clevland, and Washington Center.

By the numbers
N90 has the lowest success rate (I mostly blame the complexity) and the 3rd longest time out of all tracons

ZNY has both the longest time and lowest success rate of all centers with over 4 years to reach a 33% success rate

There was already money and incentives thrown at both facilities (pit position, checkout bonuses, etc)

It's now time to address the deep cultural problems in the training environment. For instance do you see trainees getting their chairs shaken vigorously while getting called a bitch and having a rubber chicken squeezed on their other ear at any facility other than zny?

 

[GulfCharlie]

I've been saying this since 2020 or 21 when they first started talking about this. There's no way it ends with EWR. This whole thing is a test run for the future breakup of the two facilities that are #1 and #2 most understaffed and highest cost of OT for the agency. Some dumbass in DC who knows nothing about it other than numbers on a spreadsheet thought it was a grand idea to save X$

It is indeed a "test run" so to speak, seems like they are dusting off some plans from the 90's...

 

[abc1234]

You are wrong here. It's not some idiot. Every time controllers are working ot and below the numbers your manager and his manager gets a raise. The peak efficiency model would be 2 hrs on 45 minute break. Every time people don't split out positions for 'muh break' while running two below it's an agency win. Back on point you are wrong about it being an idiot-this is an intentional way to start breaking up underperforming facilities. The funny thing is n90 has made leaps and bounds in terms of staffing and culture so this plan they started behind closed doors is late. Unless it's just a punishment for costing checkout bonuses and stuff.

You assume ineptitude and that it's someone who doesn't know what they are doing...but it's not ineptitude, this is setting the precedence for pieces of zny to go to Boston, Clevland, and Washington Center.

By the numbers
N90 has the lowest success rate (I mostly blame the complexity) and the 3rd longest time out of all tracons

ZNY has both the longest time and lowest success rate of all centers with over 4 years to reach a 33% success rate

There was already money and incentives thrown at both facilities (pit position, checkout bonuses, etc)

It's now time to address the deep cultural problems in the training environment. For instance do you see trainees getting their chairs shaken vigorously while getting called a bitch and having a rubber chicken squeezed on their other ear at any facility other than zny?

I can get behind most of this but just to address your point about ZNY. ZNY has never received the special treatment that N90 received. No enhanced CIP, checkout bonuses for the whole area, etc. nothing has been done by management in the last decade to improve staffing and morale at ZNY other than handing out bags of Fritos and melting ice cream sandwiches.

The whole pit thing was a disaster. It was started originally because new academy grads were sitting on A side making $45k for 2 years while they waited for a D side class paying $2,000 a month for a studio apt. So it got AG's a quick raise to D2 (over $100k) to work in the pit while they waited for a class.

Good idea in theory to help them with the cost of living, but in reality it did nothing else to improve the situation. Now you have dozens of trainees qualified in the overstaffed pit making over six figures to work 30 minutes on, 2 hours+ off and they have no idea what area they'll be assigned to when they eventually get a class in 2 years. So they learn nothing about the operation, LOA's, and have no desire to learn or pride in the job. Management (who is primarily losers from outside of the building thinking they can come in and make a change) have constantly fucked ZNY up and continue to drive the place into the ground.

 

[DankVectorz]

I can get behind most of this but just to address your point about ZNY. ZNY has never received the special treatment that N90 received. No enhanced CIP, checkout bonuses for the whole area, etc. nothing has been done by management in the last decade to improve staffing and morale at ZNY other than handing out bags of Fritos and melting ice cream sandwiches.

The whole pit thing was a disaster. It was started originally because new academy grads were sitting on A side making $45k for 2 years while they waited for a D side class paying $2,000 a month for a studio apt. So it got AG's a quick raise to D2 (over $100k) to work in the pit while they waited for a class.

Good idea in theory to help them with the cost of living, but in reality it did nothing else to improve the situation. Now you have dozens of trainees qualified in the overstaffed pit making over six figures to work 30 minutes on, 2 hours+ off and they have no idea what area they'll be assigned to when they eventually get a class in 2 years. So they learn nothing about the operation, LOA's, and have no desire to learn or pride in the job. Management (who is primarily losers from outside of the building thinking they can come in and make a change) have constantly fucked ZNY up and continue to drive the place into the ground.

Part of that is probably because until I believe sometime last year, HQ was counting ZNY delays as N90 delays. Things like us closing gates because ZNY needed 20 miles in trail over a fix and we have 5 planes for that fix airborne at the moment were being counted against N90 so to someone just looking at data graphs it looked like N90 and our staffing issue was the cause of all the problems here. Since they revamped how they’ve attributing delays N90’s dropped like 98% or something like that.

 

[Phillytroll69]

I can get behind most of this but just to address your point about ZNY. ZNY has never received the special treatment that N90 received. No enhanced CIP, checkout bonuses for the whole area, etc. nothing has been done by management in the last decade to improve staffing and morale at ZNY other than handing out bags of Fritos and melting ice cream sandwiches.

The whole pit thing was a disaster. It was started originally because new academy grads were sitting on A side making $45k for 2 years while they waited for a D side class paying $2,000 a month for a studio apt. So it got AG's a quick raise to D2 (over $100k) to work in the pit while they waited for a class.

Good idea in theory to help them with the cost of living, but in reality it did nothing else to improve the situation. Now you have dozens of trainees qualified in the overstaffed pit making over six figures to work 30 minutes on, 2 hours+ off and they have no idea what area they'll be assigned to when they eventually get a class in 2 years. So they learn nothing about the operation, LOA's, and have no desire to learn or pride in the job. Management (who is primarily losers from outside of the building thinking they can come in and make a change) have constantly fucked ZNY up and continue to drive the place into the ground.

Thanks for the clarifications I've only heard a few rumors. But yes spending 2 years with the expectation of leaving is probably not helping. I thought there were some bonuses for zny but apparently not.

Isn't your newest manager a center guy?

 

[SquawkHijack]

I went and found this data for you

N90 2019 - 2024 57 losses and 61 certifications, 133 currently

EWR area 2019 - 2024 16 losses and 18 certifications, 33 currently

First off, thanks for posting these numbers. I have to say, a lot of shit floating around about N90 is either old news that’s changed or not true. There’s an uphill trend and that cannot hurt in the state of our current NAS!

 

[DankVectorz]

I have to say, a lot of shit floating around about N90 is either old news that’s changed or not true.

Me and other N90 folks have been saying that for years on here and other places and have generally been disregarded as lying. All the shit about N90 is from the 90’s and early 2000’s and 99% of the people involved in it have retired.

 

[SquawkHijack]

Me and other N90 folks have been saying that for years on here and other places and have generally been disregarded as lying. All the shit about N90 is from the 90’s and early 2000’s and 99% of the people involved in it have retired.

That’s good to hear honestly man, and sorry we got off on the wrong foot in talking about it.

 

[abc1234]

Me and other N90 folks have been saying that for years on here and other places and have generally been disregarded as lying. All the shit about N90 is from the 90’s and early 2000’s and 99% of the people involved in it have retired.

I'm still gonna downvote that MT-N90 guy on Reddit though

 

[MT_N90]

I'm still gonna downvote that MT-N90 guy on Reddit though

Wtf

 

[inthrewtheoutdor]

Didn't get enough volunteers.
Upped it to 100k.
Rumor is they'll get a force move letter by end of week without enough volunteers.

FAA tryna force this down our throats too before the summer. They have no skin in the game if N90 goes yet another record busy summer without N90 staffing blamed delays

 

[MN]

More important, what's the new callsign for the approach once it's consolidated? Nerk Nerk Approach? Brick Cities Approach? Tri-State Approach? Pennjersey Approach?