FAA streamlines hiring of air traffic controllers

WASHINGTON -- The government says it can trim a month or more off the hiring process for air-traffic controllers.

The union representing those workers says the move is nothing more than a "smoke screen" to mask a system plagued by safety and efficiency problems.

The nation's traveling public says: Just do something to get my plane in the air on time.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday said it has created a system to streamline security clearances, medical screenings and other steps new controllers must go through. Those tests and screenings can now be completed in about two weeks, down from about two months, an FAA spokeswoman said.

The FAA has been locked in a contract dispute with the union representing air traffic controllers since 2006. While the agency insists staffing has no impact on flight delays, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association says congestion problems will worsen unless the government hires more controllers and pays them more.

More than 26 percent of commercial flights in the U.S. arrived late or were canceled last year, the second worst showing since comparable data began being collected in 1995, trailing only the results from 2000, the Transportation Department said last week.

The Air Transport Association of America, which represents the nation's largest carriers, said it relies on the FAA to determine controller staffing levels.

More than 90 candidates were interviewed last month at the new processing center at the FAA's regional office in New York. The first hires to participate in the process received job offers within two weeks and will start at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City this month. Other centers will be established this spring in the busy hubs of Atlanta, Chicago and elsewhere, according to the agency.

The FAA plans to hire more than 1,800 new controllers this year and increase total controller staffing to more than 15,000. But the union says more than six veteran controllers per day retired between Oct. 1 and Jan. 5, which was twice the rate the FAA expected and faster than new hires are being trained and certified.

Lawmakers, congressional investigators, the Transportation Department's inspector general and others this week expressed concerns about controller staffing and its effect on runway safety.

The air-traffic controllers union "will not allow the FAA to put up these smoke screens and try and distract attention from the real issue … (the) treatment of its current work force that has now needlessly risked the safety and efficiency of the system," union spokesman Doug Church wrote in an e-mail. "If the FAA truly wants to do something to address the controller shortage, it will resume contract negotiations."