Proposal to Fix Tower Closures

[Parker_Woodruff]

My understanding is many corporate jets operate on corporate policies or insurance policies that prohibit them from flying to an untowered field.

 

I sure haven't seen an insurance policy that says that...and any corporate policy that says that is taking a huge part of the utility of a private jet away

[RJBrown]

Union contracts!

Speaking of union contracts. Today I saw an ad on TV asking people to support Saturday delivery for the post office. The ad was paid for by the postal union.

[gregwatts]

Speaking of union contracts. Today I saw an ad on TV asking people to support Saturday delivery for the post office. The ad was paid for by the postal union.

 

That is because the union's revenue will go down as they shed workers and not replave them. I work for USPS.......a non-union member.........the union never has the best interest of the company or it's survival. Remember the Air Traffic Controllers, Eastern Airlines, Hostess?

I have the upmost respect for ATC and what they do....and I don't want to lose any towers.....but if you get the whole story and look at their union contract, you will see why they are choosing to close contract towers rather than change operations around to keep these towers open.

[RJBrown]

I am sure that the choice of cutting towers is influenced by union concerns. Tower need from a safety perspective will always be less important than $$$ to a union.

  Public unions like teachers, post office, ATC, police, fire, etc always create conflict of interest issues. These unions have the ability to influence the government entities they contract with through elections. Often the union ends up negotiating as if it were with themselves.

 Unions help elect people that then can give those unions whatever they want. This phenomenon is reflected in the protections, pensions and pay that is often disproportionate to the public sector. In a real union in a real business situation the line between management and labor is not so blurred.

  It is also reflected in the greeting given. Business often greets its customers with a  "Good morning welcome to our business. How may I help you" While the DMV and the post office just Yell "next"

[alex]

I am sure that the choice of cutting towers is influenced by union concerns. Tower need from a safety perspective will always be less important than $$$ to a union.

  Public unions like teachers, post office, ATC, police, fire, etc always create conflict of interest issues. These unions have the ability to influence the government entities they contract with through elections. Often the union ends up negotiating as if it were with themselves.

 Unions help elect people that then can give those unions whatever they want. This phenomenon is reflected in the protections, pensions and pay that is often disproportionate to the public sector. In a real union in a real business situation the line between management and labor is not so blurred.

  It is also reflected in the greeting given. Business often greets its customers with a  "Good morning welcome to our business. How may I help you" While the DMV and the post office just Yell "next"

A friend of mine is married to a controller in the chicagoland area. He started working there back when Bush was still around his pay was in the mid 50k's. After Obama came in most salaries were re-negotiated by the union and all those were brought up to 140k. Take a wild guess who most of these controllers voted for!

[flyby201]

I find it interesting that Frederick, MD and Oshkosh, WI are on the closure list. These are, of course, home to AOPA, EAA (and Airventure) respectively. Also on the list is Lakeland, FL, home of Sun N Fun. I understand that these cuts are going to close towers at airports used almost exclusively used by GA aircraft, but it seems to me that the "guvment" is intentionally trying to stab GA in the back and twisting the knife by closing these particular airports. I know that there are airports which are not on the list with MUCH less daily traffic than these. I know that the Sun N Fun people have publicly stated they will hire private tower controllers for Sun N Fun, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks the FAA will come up with some obscure interpretation of a regulation which prevents this from happening, ditto for Airventure this summer.

[aviatoreb]

Hmmmm...does sound like a conspiracy theory....but still plausible.  Could the FAA be using the sequester as an opportunity to do what someone in that leadership wanted to do anyway which is to rid themselves of union workers and or stick a fork in GA?

[harrispa]

I didn't think we needed all those towers that were put up in the recent past. Virtually all of those are now on the chopping block, at least in my area. I do most of my flying out of two 4000 ft runway non-tower airports. These airports have jet traffic all the time, doesn't seem to make any difference, they will fly to the place that meets their needs. I don't avoid towers, but given a choice I will fly to the non tower every time.

Also, the number of active pilots has been declining for decades (ref wiki). Fuel, plane, and maintence costs are way up. Seems to me that translates to less flying, at least in GA, and less need for those towers.

[PMcClure]

I think some of the closures make perfect sense. All of the ones in Alabama aren't needed anyway. But some others I fly to like Orlando Executive are dumbfounding. Look at the airspace in Orlando and it is insane to have flights coming into ORL with out a control tower. It is right under the approach path to MCO. I think the impact will be on air carriers as there will certainly be issues in and around this air space. I see the same thing around Miami. These are congested air spaces and the coordination of the towers can save lives. I also wonder how much support will be cut from center and approach  controllers. These are valuable services for everyone flying cross country flights. 

[aviatoreb]

I think some of the closures make perfect sense. All of the ones in Alabama aren't needed anyway. But some others I fly to like Orlando Executive are dumbfounding. Look at the airspace in Orlando and it is insane to have flights coming into ORL with out a control tower. It is right under the approach path to MCO. I think the impact will be on air carriers as there will certainly be issues in and around this air space. I see the same thing around Miami. These are congested air spaces and the coordination of the towers can save lives. I also wonder how much support will be cut from center and approach  controllers. These are valuable services for everyone flying cross country flights. 

 

Yeah - we haven't talked much about that here - will flight following and IFR services for small GA be more limited from the service centers? We will here unable more often from center when trying to get vfr flight following?

 

Does anyone know if the centers are having cut backs on controllers too?

[DrBill]

Concord NC (close to the Charlotte Motor Speedway) is one of the towered fields to lose the tower.  Last month the FBO instituted a $20 landing fee.  The Traffic like ME.. stopped going there.  The Airport is owned by the town of Concord and is trying to allocate the money to keep the tower open.  It is home to several NASCAR teams and on Thursdays, there is very little ramp space due to the Gulfstreams, etc, that are waiting for the teams and drivers.  I really think that after the effect of the fee is calculated, they will determine that the Tower is no longer needed except duing races at Charlotte and perhaps on Thursdays!!

BILL

[harrispa]

ORL is not on the final closure list.

[Alan Fox]

Everybody keeps talking about landing fees , most of the towered fields I go to already have a landing fee, and that goes to the county , not the feds , So by alot of your logic , there would be two landing fees .... No thanks...... I go to millville NJ alot and it is controlled remotely , and it is seamless.....Controllers work off of a computer screen , they dont actually see the aircraft until they are on very short final , Put them in alaska for all I care......  The larger airports are going to be handling the IFR work , so if you are that worried about controllers than file...

[Alan Fox]

And I just want to qualify , when you fly into a field in a King Air or a Gulfstream , the ramp fee is a few hundred dollars.....

[201er]

I go to millville NJ alot and it is controlled remotely , and it is seamless.....Controllers work off of a computer screen , they dont actually see the aircraft until they are on very short final , Put them in alaska for all I care......

Millville??? It's an uncontrolled field. They just have a weather briefer. I don't see your point?

[PMcClure]

There are so many towers which are not needed. But some that are. ORL is just an example. It has been on and off the list and at last check, it was undetermined. I am not advocating for ORL, but just saying that closing a tower like ORL is not the same as closing a tower at Tuscaloosa, AL. And closing some towers like ORL will not only affect GA but the busy airports around. a few near misses with GA and what happens to ORL and traffic at MCO???  I am all for government spending cuts, but some towers are useful.

 

Landing fee's are a terrible idea. 

[201er]

Sometimes towers are pretty useless. Common example at the less busy towered airports:

 

Tower: "Mooney 123 report on downwind"

Mooney: "Mooney 123 on downwind"

Tower: "Cessna 345 you have a mooney on downwind report in sight"

Cessna: "Cessna 345 has the mooney"

Tower: "Mooney you have a cessna on final"

Mooney: "Cessna in sight"

Tower: "Mooney follow the cessna cleared to land #2"

 

And at an uncontrolled field goes like this:

 

Cessna: "Cessna turning final 36"

Mooney: "Mooney left downwind 36, got the cessna on final will be landing #2"

 

End of story. I have to laugh sometimes at the insane and unnecessary level of repetitiveness and frequency congestion that gets created at tower airports. And as for safety, I've had as many close calls with traffic in towered airspace (mainly class D) as at uncontrolled fields! So while I hate to see the govt meddle in aviation, I have yet to be convinced that towers are beneficial or make things safer at small GA fields that aren't that busy.

 

Those kinds of tower convos make me think of this:

 

I do admit that it terrifies me to fly in/out of an uncontrolled field with crossing runways on a calm weekend day!

[Marauder]

Millville??? It's an uncontrolled field. They just have a weather briefer. I don't see your point?

See section 4-1-3 http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/AIM/aim0401.html and the communication block below it. FSS plays the role for AAS. Sounds like they are still doing it but remotely. I used to fly into Bradford, PA a bit years ago and the FSS there basically acted as a controller.

[Marauder]

Little more detail here: http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/FSS/fss0404.html

[flyboy0681]

Should be easy enough to track and bill through each aircraft's registration or you could just have a credit card on file and the tower just sends along the charge per airport use by the aircraft. 

 

You make administration of this sound so easy, just look-up the owner of the plane and send out a bill. What do you do with those that refuse to pay, retain a bill collection agency to go after them? How about transient aircraft, do you insert a message on the ATIS broadcast "Attention all aircraft, this airport levies a five dollar facilities processing fee"?

 

I, for one, don't have a viable answer to this problem.

[Dale]

I agree, not as easy as it sounds and collection would just add another layer of bureaucracy. Additionally, as previous posters pointed out, this could lead down the slippery slope of user fees. Another problem for general aviation. However, there have been some interesting thoughts on this thread about the tower closures. I agree that some of the towered airports can get by without a tower, on the other hand the airports in more crowded airspace may ultimately be a safety problem. I don't know that one good solution exists that doesn't stick it to general aviation in one way or another.

[Marauder]

You make administration of this sound so easy, just look-up the owner of the plane and send out a bill. What do you do with those that refuse to pay, retain a bill collection agency to go after them? How about transient aircraft, do you insert a message on the ATIS broadcast "Attention all aircraft, this airport levies a five dollar facilities processing fee"?

 

I, for one, don't have a viable answer to this problem.

 

The history of usage fees has always been dotted with stories of how the administrative cost of collecting them was more than the revenue they generated. It then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of increasing usage fees to offset the administrative costs.  

[Dale]

The city of Pembroke Pines held a town hall meeting last night about the closure of KHWO. Interesting meeting. Apparently KHWO averages about 158,000 operations per year but because KHWO had to close 2 of its runways for repair and resurfacing ( at a cost of over 1 million dollars) this past year operations dropped to just over 130,000. Other airports in the area picked up our lost operations. This year KHWO is on schedule for over 165,000 operations. Tower staff was there and indicated that between the hotspots on the airport, proximity to joe Robbie stadium, banner towing operations, high number of training flights, high volume of high speed air traffic between Fort Lauderdale international and Miami international through that air corridor, there have been a number of close calls they have prevented each year. In fact they brought up a near miss that had just occurred yesterday, that they were able to prevent.

The meeting was packed with pilots and airport businesses. From the tone of it all, including the input from the tower crew, it isn't a matter of if, but when, the first serious incident will occur when the tower closes. As this is a county airport, the city cannot expend funds to keep the tower running, even though they seemed willing to fund the tower (as they don't own it, there is no legal public purpose to expend money on tower operations). However, the county takes in considerable money from the airport, in rents etc., and the economic impact of the airport on the local economy is estimated to be over 130 million dollars. The funds the county takes in from KHWO alone would easily fund the tower staff. In fact, some people at the meeting commented that if the president cancelled his trip to Miami today, that would have been enough to fund all the closed towers. The Broward aviation authority stated that closing all the current contract towers on the FAA list will save the FAA 32 million. Someone said the presidents miami visit will cost over 25 million.

In any event, we had some of our legislators aides there, and there does appear to be a concerted effort to keep the tower open, especially due to the concerns for safety given the high number of airport operations. Broward aviation authorities indicated that KHWO was the 9th busiest airport in the state. We will see what happens.

[fantom]

Thanks for the report, Dale. Very informative. Not a pretty picture.

[aaronk25]

If they don't have approach radar I'd say close them. I think its a pain in the ass to fly into towered airports that don't have radar. I don't need someone giving me ground or air separation in the traffic pattern but do desire to know if they are painting traffic between me and the destination.