The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ THE CLEARING - NOW PLAYING IN SELECT CITIES THE CLEARING stars ROBERT REDFORD and HELEN MIRREN as Wayne and Eileen Hayes - a husband and wife living the American Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to build a successful business from the ground up. When Wayne is kidnapped by Arnold Mack (WILLEM DAFOE), and held for ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned inside out. Buy tickets now at: http://movies.channel.aol.com/movie/main.adp?mid=17891 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Retirement Wave Creates Shortage of Air Traffic Controllers July 20, 2004 By MATTHEW L. WALD Nearly half of the nation's air traffic controllers will reach the mandatory retirement age in the next decade, according to government estimates, forcing the Federal Aviation Administration to triple its current rate of hiring and training at a time when air traffic is expected to grow significantly. Of the 15,100 controllers who do the vital work of managing the skies from control towers and in vast, dim rooms with rows of radar scopes, about 7,100 will turn the mandatory retirement age of 56 by the 2012 fiscal year, and most will have the option of retiring years earlier. The F.A.A. says that means it will have to hire about 790 a year, a vast increase from current hiring levels. The F.A.A. acknowledges the challenge, but says it can cope. "The retirement wave is real," said Greg Martin, an agency spokesman in Washington. "We're going to have to be ready for it. We will be ready." The bulk of retirements are coming in the next few years because most of the current controllers were hired in 1982 as replacements for the 11,350 fired by President Ronald Reagan for going on strike the previous year, and they are approaching retirement age. So far, though, the agency does not even know how many controllers it will need at each tower and radar center. According to a June report by the federal Department of Transportation's inspector general, which audits F.A.A. operations, the hundreds of air traffic offices across the nation use different methods to calculate how many new workers they will need, leaving the F.A.A. with no clear picture of what is coming. In New York, for example, one radar center said it would need 29 new people for the two-year period ending on Sept. 30, 2005, counting all categories of attrition, including resignations and removals. The other radar center counted only mandatory retirements and projected transfers. The La Guardia Airport tower said it would lose eight people, basing its estimate on attrition in earlier years. A controller shortage could become particularly acute in New York, where government statistics show that it takes longer to train apprentices than anywhere else, and where more trainees drop out than elsewhere. The F.A.A. has said that jobs in the New York area are hard to fill because controllers can earn nearly as much in other locations, where the cost of living is lower and the work is less hectic. The retirement crunch is coming at a time of sharp growth in air traffic as the economy rebounds, and as commercial airlines are using smaller planes to add more flights and expand schedules. This saves the airlines money but makes the skies more crowded. This year the secretary of transportation, Norman Y. Mineta, called for tripling the air traffic capacity of the United States over the next 15 to 20 years to make room for more private and commercial flights, but budget cuts forced the F.A.A. to cancel some programs to let each controller handle more traffic. At a news conference yesterday at a hotel near La Guardia, officials with the controllers' union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, complained that it takes a long time to train new hires because, with inadequate staffing, there is no one available to train them. And, they said, new equipment designed to speed air traffic will sit idle because there is no time for controllers to learn how to use it. For example, the Air Route Traffic Control Center for New York, in Ronkonkoma on Long Island, was supposed to send 10 veteran controllers to a seven-week training course in September to learn to use a new system that, for the first time, provides a graphic, radarlike display of airplanes over the Atlantic Ocean. But sending the controllers required taking in new trainees in early July, so they could take over some of the day-to-day work done by the veterans. The trainees did not arrive, so a fewer number will go for training, meaning the implementation of the system will be delayed. A spokeswoman for the F.A.A.'s Eastern Region, Arlene Salac, blamed the absence of the trainees on "funding constraints." Julio A. Henriques, president of the union chapter at the New York center, said the new system would be delayed for so long that the controllers who were trained this year would need refresher courses before they could start. Ms. Salac said there would be "some delay." Union officials also said that because of staffing shortages, excessive overtime is required, more than volunteers will take, so that some of it is assigned involuntarily. Mr. Martin, the F.A.A. spokesman, said the contract allows involuntary assignment of overtime and that this has been limited to asking a controller to work an extra two hours. Union officials said controllers were sometimes ordered to come to work on a sixth day a week. "The rubber band keeps getting stretched tighter and tighter," said Dean Iacopelli, president of the controllers' union at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control in Westbury, on Long Island. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/nyregion/20controllers.html?ex=1091328113&ei=1&en=815db4eecf4b933c --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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