"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CTS_a.146659$uu5.22344@sccrnsc04...

So what's the solution here? Obviously something is wacky with current
costs if privatizing a SINGLE control tower (Vandenberg AFB, in
California)
can save over $500,000.00 in a 3-year period! If this is true, why can't
the current controllers sit down with management and find ways to save
that
kind of money, thus defusing the issue?

It seems to me the numbers here are just too huge. Somebody is not
telling
the whole truth...

In this case I expect it's a case of Air Force unique issues and Air Force
accounting.

Having spent 5 years at VAFB, I can say that tower duty there would be
pretty boring for an AF controller. There were about a half dozen helos and
an aero club for based a/c. Most of the traffic I saw out there was
transient training a/c (BUFFs, P-3s, tankers, etc.) that came in, did a few
low approaches and split. The field (and tower) were only open 7 am to 5
pm.

The problem is that an AF controller is critically manned (always) and
controllers have to be proficient at all aspects of their job. They can be
mobilized and deployed anywhere on short notice and have to fill in at
approach control, tac air control or any number of jobs. All that requires
constant training. If he can't get the training locally, it means routine
TDY for training. That means extra expense and extra staff to handle the
work while everyone rotates thru training. Just being a tower controller at
a field is not an option.

The part about being critically manned means that the controllers are going
to be moving a lot. It's a domino effect of filling vacancies and adjusting
experience mixes at bases world wide.

The accounting is that the AF will include all those costs of training,
retraining, personnel moves, etc., as part of the costs.

So contracting out the work where there will be 4 or 5 controllers who can
be nothing more than tower controllers with presumably much less turnover is
likely to save a bundle.

On top of that, $500K over 3 years equates to approximately the cost of 1
full time professional (as in highly skilled) employee with all benefits and
overhead thrown in.

Gerry