Password
October 3rd 07, 11:03 PM
A mutiny is brewing amongst FAA employees and in the Air
Traffic system. Buckle your seat belts pilots it's going to
get rough
Ex-NATCA President tells all
I was recently asked to write a book to chronicle the six
years of my NATCA Presidency. I am ambivalent about the
project. I have completed a treatment for some publishing
houses to look at, but I am stuck: Do I call it fiction, or
non-fiction? Here...take a look:
"Our evil plan is working to perfection.
When I left office in September of 2006, the National
Executive Board and I implemented NATCA Contingency Plan One
Bravo, and began the National Airspace System’s long, slow
descent into hell. Like a German U-Boat captain about to be
captured, I was ordered to pull the plug and scuttle the
boat rather than have it be captured by the enemy.
We were upset, we were angry, and we weren't going to let
the FAA ruin the system and their employees without a fight.
So in concert with the NATCA Thermo Working Group (and for
those of you who have seen the acronym NTWG, now you know
the rest of the story) we decided to implement the
thermonuclear option, and bring the air traffic control
system to its very knees.
First, we had air traffic controllers nationally add a
little space between aircraft. Not a lot, mind you…just a
little. An imperceptible “oomph.” A quarter of a mile
here, a half a mile there. A thousand feet on takeoff roll.
A “say again” instead of taxi instructions, a “negative,
not at this time” instead of “approved as requested.” It
took ATA and their hand-puppets at the Wall Street Journal
almost nine months to figure it out, nimrods that they are,
but they finally got the flick. Too late. Too bad.
Then we had our pre-positioned controllers take the
conservative route at each and every decision-juncture of
their decision-packed days. Squeeze one out or wait? Wait.
Hit the gap or let it pass? Let it pass. Lock and load a
couple to get them out ahead of the inbound? Nah. Wait and
let aircraft cruise at altitude, or force them down and burn
more fuel? Force them down. Shut down the route for
weather or get a few more through? Shut it down. Take
another handoff or close the door? Close the door.
Prepositioned, you say? Ha! You (and the FAA) probably
thought the thousands of people we were training every year
was “facrep training” or something stupid like that, didn’t
you?
Then NATCA implemented Contingency Plan Two Bravo. This was
planned by the NTWG, but timed to happen after my departure
(so as to remove any suspicion.) All retirement-eligible
air traffic controllers had been issued their retirement
date, computer-selected (thanks, Waldo!) for maximum adverse
effect on their facility. My own retirement was timed to
serve as a signal, and when I retired, the wave began.
Like F. Lee Bailey declaring “it’s going to be a long hot
summer...I'd start walking if I were you” on the June 17,
1969 Tonight Show, the floodgates opened. And it has worked
beyond the project group’s wildest dreams. The snowball is
building as it heads downhill, and the FAA quacks are
dumb-struck, mouths agape as they look up to see the giant
white sphere overtake them.
The National Office staff leveraged the media work we had
done for the previous six years, both paid and earned, to
increase the volume and volatility of the story. Local reps
were given their timing and their talking points, and the
result has been a rolling thunder from Oakland to Miami,
from New York to Cincinnati and all talking-points in
between. Television. Radio. Magazines. Independent news
organizations. Aeronautical publications. The cacophony of
media stories created their own self-fulfilling prophesies,
as bigger and bigger media fish hurried into the net, hoping
not to get scooped. Mmmmm. Media Fish. Yummy.
Operational errors were inched up in select locations to
maximize the potential for attention and mischief. We
counted on Blakey being distracted by her own egotistical
zeal to find future employment, and she played right into
our hands. While she was wining and dining with AIA we were
sneaking activist troops all over the country, some into
management and some out the back door. They didn't notice
the pattern until it was too late.
When we first put the working group together our goal was a
legislative fix to the imposed work rules, with pressure so
great on the President that he was forced by his own
supporters to sign the bill. The results have so far, I
think, exceeded anyone’s expectations. Now we are free to
pursue the secondary goals, because they are not only in
sight...they are within reach.
And now the final flourish. It is incumbent upon the
troops, both pre-positioned and new to the battle, to
complete the mission. The destruction of ATA as a lobbying
force, and the complete collapse of the United States
airline industry is only a few small steps ahead. The end
is in sight, and it is attainable.
The airlines, who have made a mockery of our precious
national resource---the skies above us---must be brought to
heel. Perhaps they will think twice about crossing the air
traffic controllers after another few of them go bankrupt,
and the survivors hemorrhage billions and billions and
billions. Perhaps not. Never matter. The only thing we
know for sure is this: The score is Air Traffic Controller
Unions: HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS, Airlines: One.
Forty years ago the dullards at 800 Independence began to
stir, trying to control traffic into and out of New York,
trying to modernize the system, trying this and that and
hope and hype and Hail Mary, trying everything except the
only thing that could have saved them in the first place:
treating their workforce like well-trained professionals who
are a respected and integral part of the national airspace
system.
The putrefying carcass of the FAA's decade's long deceptions
and double standards are beginning to feed upon themselves,
to generate their own publicity, to intimidate their
opponents not by argument but by repetition. The FAA seems
to have mastered only ONE skill in forty years: teaching the
next generation of air traffic controllers not only HOW to
hate, but WHO to hate.
Read this report.
It is the DOTs and the FAAs own diary: a diary of abject,
disgusting, tax-wasting, cow-making, fool-forsaking,
phlegmatic, contemptuous, self-indulgent, sleazy,
irresponsible, glutenous FAILURE.
Read it and weep, as the United States Government tries
EVERYTHING---except treating it's own employees like human
beings. Read this and weep, as the FAA steals pensions from
hard working employees, breaking hearts and promises with
equal reckless abandon. Morons. Now you get a side-order
of Satan with your morning donut break. Brace for impact.
Puachy, pasty, gelatinous blobs of goo, flattening chairs as
they down cupcake after cupcake in their cubes and offices,
pretending to make air traffic "decisions." Clueless to the
history I have linked here...the history that condemns them
to failure. It is a wonder they get up in the morning. The
VERY FIRST morning that they do not...they will not be missed.
From K Street to the Capitol, from 800 Independence to the
little Internet office of SkyBus…the political hacks,
hillbillies, sycophants and opponents of our cause must
learn the lesson that PATCO began to teach them lo, almost
forty years ago today:
Do Not Mess With Air Traffic Controllers.
You see, we have long known what you will soon discover:
Your technology is too feeble to replace air traffic
controllers. I sneer when I laugh at the prospect. I have
to stop myself from laughing at you too long or too hard or
too loud, because honestly…one can hurt oneself.
AAS. ISSS. FTI. AFSS. STARS. “NexGen.” Idiots. Fools.
Gasbags. Led to slaughter, happily I might add, swilling
mini-bottles of booze stolen from Coach and thinking you are
going somewhere “special,” somewhere “important.” Sorry,
utter failures. The Johnsons and Gibsons and Blakeys and
Sturgells...too busy high-fiving each other to realize that
you have changed NOTHING, and NOTHING will ever
change...unless we allow it to be so.
The New York Twelve. The Chicago Fifteen. The Washington
Center Three. The T-Boys in Dallas. The Kansas City Five.
The Los Angeles Eight. Bruce, you poor, sad, sack...how's
that culture change coming? We're practically pitching a
no-hitter at you. Siddle down to the fourth floor and get
your bus pass, you hoax. Hang your head in shame when you
cash the pay check you stole from the American people. Is
that a map of Cincinnati the veins have carved on your nose,
you ancient, formaldehyde-soaked brick?
And you will do---what, exactly, about the grip air traffic
controllers have now, and have always had, on your agency?
NOTHING, cowards, that’s what. Your economy, your GDP, and
your industrial, financial, agricultural and national
security futures are too intrinsically linked with air
traffic control to ever----EVER---allow you to eliminate air
traffic controllers, or their value, from your calculus.
And once we realized that, we realized this:
We OWN you.
So, welcome to your worst nightmare. World without end,
Amen. Your workforce, conspiring daily against you in a
manner undetectable by you and utterly fatal to your beloved
“systems.” When the moles and worms and spybots and
software mischief and hardware "accidents" come…and they
will, and soon...I will laugh some more. Hurry, quickly,
NextGenerate yourself some commissions and decommission your
ground based navaids. Come into our web. Again. And
again. And again.
When the frequencies don’t work (and Memphis Center was just
a test, ladies, only a test,) you will have a front row seat
like you haven’t had since that September morning so many
years ago. When the fuel is contaminated and the backups
don’t, when your precious work rules are imposed upon the
very few too stupid or poor to get out---then we’ll see how
your on-time delivery looks. Poor FedEx. I think they’re
going to have to change their slogan to, “When It
Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There SomeTime Next Month,
Maybe, Hopefully In One Piece And Not In Flames.”
Then you can put something in the Read And Initial Binder:
"Next month we will try not to hit so many airplanes. And
don't forget to say niner. Love, Ventris." She of the One
Agency. One Heartbeat. One Chocolate Eclair. And a Big
Gulp. To Go.
Speaking of month...isn't it the first of the month? It's
almost noon...I think I'll mosey on out to the mailbox and
get my big, fat, federal government retirement check.
Have a nice flight.
What's that you say?
Delays into New York?
Chicago's a mess?
Too many errors in SoCal?
Don't worry.
The FAA will fix it.
World without end...
Amen.
Traffic system. Buckle your seat belts pilots it's going to
get rough
Ex-NATCA President tells all
I was recently asked to write a book to chronicle the six
years of my NATCA Presidency. I am ambivalent about the
project. I have completed a treatment for some publishing
houses to look at, but I am stuck: Do I call it fiction, or
non-fiction? Here...take a look:
"Our evil plan is working to perfection.
When I left office in September of 2006, the National
Executive Board and I implemented NATCA Contingency Plan One
Bravo, and began the National Airspace System’s long, slow
descent into hell. Like a German U-Boat captain about to be
captured, I was ordered to pull the plug and scuttle the
boat rather than have it be captured by the enemy.
We were upset, we were angry, and we weren't going to let
the FAA ruin the system and their employees without a fight.
So in concert with the NATCA Thermo Working Group (and for
those of you who have seen the acronym NTWG, now you know
the rest of the story) we decided to implement the
thermonuclear option, and bring the air traffic control
system to its very knees.
First, we had air traffic controllers nationally add a
little space between aircraft. Not a lot, mind you…just a
little. An imperceptible “oomph.” A quarter of a mile
here, a half a mile there. A thousand feet on takeoff roll.
A “say again” instead of taxi instructions, a “negative,
not at this time” instead of “approved as requested.” It
took ATA and their hand-puppets at the Wall Street Journal
almost nine months to figure it out, nimrods that they are,
but they finally got the flick. Too late. Too bad.
Then we had our pre-positioned controllers take the
conservative route at each and every decision-juncture of
their decision-packed days. Squeeze one out or wait? Wait.
Hit the gap or let it pass? Let it pass. Lock and load a
couple to get them out ahead of the inbound? Nah. Wait and
let aircraft cruise at altitude, or force them down and burn
more fuel? Force them down. Shut down the route for
weather or get a few more through? Shut it down. Take
another handoff or close the door? Close the door.
Prepositioned, you say? Ha! You (and the FAA) probably
thought the thousands of people we were training every year
was “facrep training” or something stupid like that, didn’t
you?
Then NATCA implemented Contingency Plan Two Bravo. This was
planned by the NTWG, but timed to happen after my departure
(so as to remove any suspicion.) All retirement-eligible
air traffic controllers had been issued their retirement
date, computer-selected (thanks, Waldo!) for maximum adverse
effect on their facility. My own retirement was timed to
serve as a signal, and when I retired, the wave began.
Like F. Lee Bailey declaring “it’s going to be a long hot
summer...I'd start walking if I were you” on the June 17,
1969 Tonight Show, the floodgates opened. And it has worked
beyond the project group’s wildest dreams. The snowball is
building as it heads downhill, and the FAA quacks are
dumb-struck, mouths agape as they look up to see the giant
white sphere overtake them.
The National Office staff leveraged the media work we had
done for the previous six years, both paid and earned, to
increase the volume and volatility of the story. Local reps
were given their timing and their talking points, and the
result has been a rolling thunder from Oakland to Miami,
from New York to Cincinnati and all talking-points in
between. Television. Radio. Magazines. Independent news
organizations. Aeronautical publications. The cacophony of
media stories created their own self-fulfilling prophesies,
as bigger and bigger media fish hurried into the net, hoping
not to get scooped. Mmmmm. Media Fish. Yummy.
Operational errors were inched up in select locations to
maximize the potential for attention and mischief. We
counted on Blakey being distracted by her own egotistical
zeal to find future employment, and she played right into
our hands. While she was wining and dining with AIA we were
sneaking activist troops all over the country, some into
management and some out the back door. They didn't notice
the pattern until it was too late.
When we first put the working group together our goal was a
legislative fix to the imposed work rules, with pressure so
great on the President that he was forced by his own
supporters to sign the bill. The results have so far, I
think, exceeded anyone’s expectations. Now we are free to
pursue the secondary goals, because they are not only in
sight...they are within reach.
And now the final flourish. It is incumbent upon the
troops, both pre-positioned and new to the battle, to
complete the mission. The destruction of ATA as a lobbying
force, and the complete collapse of the United States
airline industry is only a few small steps ahead. The end
is in sight, and it is attainable.
The airlines, who have made a mockery of our precious
national resource---the skies above us---must be brought to
heel. Perhaps they will think twice about crossing the air
traffic controllers after another few of them go bankrupt,
and the survivors hemorrhage billions and billions and
billions. Perhaps not. Never matter. The only thing we
know for sure is this: The score is Air Traffic Controller
Unions: HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS, Airlines: One.
Forty years ago the dullards at 800 Independence began to
stir, trying to control traffic into and out of New York,
trying to modernize the system, trying this and that and
hope and hype and Hail Mary, trying everything except the
only thing that could have saved them in the first place:
treating their workforce like well-trained professionals who
are a respected and integral part of the national airspace
system.
The putrefying carcass of the FAA's decade's long deceptions
and double standards are beginning to feed upon themselves,
to generate their own publicity, to intimidate their
opponents not by argument but by repetition. The FAA seems
to have mastered only ONE skill in forty years: teaching the
next generation of air traffic controllers not only HOW to
hate, but WHO to hate.
Read this report.
It is the DOTs and the FAAs own diary: a diary of abject,
disgusting, tax-wasting, cow-making, fool-forsaking,
phlegmatic, contemptuous, self-indulgent, sleazy,
irresponsible, glutenous FAILURE.
Read it and weep, as the United States Government tries
EVERYTHING---except treating it's own employees like human
beings. Read this and weep, as the FAA steals pensions from
hard working employees, breaking hearts and promises with
equal reckless abandon. Morons. Now you get a side-order
of Satan with your morning donut break. Brace for impact.
Puachy, pasty, gelatinous blobs of goo, flattening chairs as
they down cupcake after cupcake in their cubes and offices,
pretending to make air traffic "decisions." Clueless to the
history I have linked here...the history that condemns them
to failure. It is a wonder they get up in the morning. The
VERY FIRST morning that they do not...they will not be missed.
From K Street to the Capitol, from 800 Independence to the
little Internet office of SkyBus…the political hacks,
hillbillies, sycophants and opponents of our cause must
learn the lesson that PATCO began to teach them lo, almost
forty years ago today:
Do Not Mess With Air Traffic Controllers.
You see, we have long known what you will soon discover:
Your technology is too feeble to replace air traffic
controllers. I sneer when I laugh at the prospect. I have
to stop myself from laughing at you too long or too hard or
too loud, because honestly…one can hurt oneself.
AAS. ISSS. FTI. AFSS. STARS. “NexGen.” Idiots. Fools.
Gasbags. Led to slaughter, happily I might add, swilling
mini-bottles of booze stolen from Coach and thinking you are
going somewhere “special,” somewhere “important.” Sorry,
utter failures. The Johnsons and Gibsons and Blakeys and
Sturgells...too busy high-fiving each other to realize that
you have changed NOTHING, and NOTHING will ever
change...unless we allow it to be so.
The New York Twelve. The Chicago Fifteen. The Washington
Center Three. The T-Boys in Dallas. The Kansas City Five.
The Los Angeles Eight. Bruce, you poor, sad, sack...how's
that culture change coming? We're practically pitching a
no-hitter at you. Siddle down to the fourth floor and get
your bus pass, you hoax. Hang your head in shame when you
cash the pay check you stole from the American people. Is
that a map of Cincinnati the veins have carved on your nose,
you ancient, formaldehyde-soaked brick?
And you will do---what, exactly, about the grip air traffic
controllers have now, and have always had, on your agency?
NOTHING, cowards, that’s what. Your economy, your GDP, and
your industrial, financial, agricultural and national
security futures are too intrinsically linked with air
traffic control to ever----EVER---allow you to eliminate air
traffic controllers, or their value, from your calculus.
And once we realized that, we realized this:
We OWN you.
So, welcome to your worst nightmare. World without end,
Amen. Your workforce, conspiring daily against you in a
manner undetectable by you and utterly fatal to your beloved
“systems.” When the moles and worms and spybots and
software mischief and hardware "accidents" come…and they
will, and soon...I will laugh some more. Hurry, quickly,
NextGenerate yourself some commissions and decommission your
ground based navaids. Come into our web. Again. And
again. And again.
When the frequencies don’t work (and Memphis Center was just
a test, ladies, only a test,) you will have a front row seat
like you haven’t had since that September morning so many
years ago. When the fuel is contaminated and the backups
don’t, when your precious work rules are imposed upon the
very few too stupid or poor to get out---then we’ll see how
your on-time delivery looks. Poor FedEx. I think they’re
going to have to change their slogan to, “When It
Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There SomeTime Next Month,
Maybe, Hopefully In One Piece And Not In Flames.”
Then you can put something in the Read And Initial Binder:
"Next month we will try not to hit so many airplanes. And
don't forget to say niner. Love, Ventris." She of the One
Agency. One Heartbeat. One Chocolate Eclair. And a Big
Gulp. To Go.
Speaking of month...isn't it the first of the month? It's
almost noon...I think I'll mosey on out to the mailbox and
get my big, fat, federal government retirement check.
Have a nice flight.
What's that you say?
Delays into New York?
Chicago's a mess?
Too many errors in SoCal?
Don't worry.
The FAA will fix it.
World without end...
Amen.