Date: 2008-03-20
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Original Article: http://media-newswire.com/release_1062626.html
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Published by: Quiet Rockland
Quiet Rockland and others concerned with protecting air safety and our biosphere are compelled to reply. You are incorrect about virtually all your conclusions. Virtually all your rationales you use to reach them, are in error. Why would a Congressman like yourself purposefully disseminate misinformation? The answer is clear. You continue to reside in the pocket of the airline industry, John Mica.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Quiet Rockland and others concerned with protecting air safety and our biosphere are compelled to reply. You are incorrect about virtually all your conclusions. Virtually all your rationales you use to reach them, are in error. Why would a Congressman like yourself purposefully disseminate misinformation? The answer is clear. You continue to reside in the pocket of the airline industry, John Mica.
Your letter’s introduction seems to suggest that if “Bobby” Sturgell is not confirmed as FAA Administrator, that will lead to a meltdown in aviation safety. Yet we all know that the REAL meltdown has already occurred over the past five years, and you helped. The meltdown was Marion Blakey’s and “Bobby” Sturgell’s mismanagement of the FAA. Right in your area, Orlando International Airport is experiencing a dangerous shortage of air traffic controllers (ATCs). The shortage is caused by FAA’s seemingly-perpetual hostile treatment of its ATCs. But all you can say is “the shortage didn’t pose an immediate threat”, even though Orlando International has 45% fewer controllers than it had 5 years ago. You deceive the public.
Your responses to the Senator’s concerns are flawed and incomplete. Let me respond to some of the further points in your letter:
NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign
Your letter suggests that this Redesign, for which you have in the recent past taken to the road and shamelessly pandered as far north as Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, will solve delay problems. You indicate it is in the national interest that Redesign work proceeds. But what we well know, is that the FAA’s supporting “promises” are specious. This proposed Airspace Redesign was a US$50,000,000 boondoggle whose only purpose was to make a few people, mostly contractors, very rich. “Bobby” Sturgell has pushed the Redesign along, attempting to rush its implementation ahead of the findings of a GAO audit and investigation which will indubitably bring the Redesign crashing down faster than a Southwest Airlines publicity balloon. According to FAA’s own Chief Operating Officer Henry “Hank” Krakowski, the FAA’s Redesign is but a “Band-Aid” solution at best. And the real sin here, is that after wasting all this United States currency, the Redesign can, according to ATC union NATCA, actually make the delays worse. The Redesign would put more planes in the air than the airports can handle. Sturgell’s FAA in recent years deliberately screened ATCs off of the planning of the Redesign, instead preferring to pay profiteers for US$50mm worth of useless PowerPoint presentations. You see, Mr. Mica, the capacity limitation is on the ground, which is where the Airspace Redesign falls flat on its face. Your letter says that “no redesign will satisfy everyone”. However, the NY/NJ/PHL Redesign will satisfy no one, except maybe the airline-company profit-takers that will be able to pump even more airplanes into the sky per unit time, further increasing delays – and except those like you, that feed downstream from their trough. What caused the nation’s flight delays was greed expressed in the form of over-scheduling of flights and over-saturation of our skies. It is the bad behavior of the airlines that is really the human cause of these flight delays – that, and the shortage of controllers at the airlines’ and FAA’s hand. Keep the airlines from over-booking and over-saturating the prime timeslots, and then maybe your will see a measurable decrease in delays (not the exaggerated, if even actual, 3 minutes that the FAA has “promised” with this Redesign). And now NATCA has raised serious safety concerns regarding the Airspace Redesign. As one whose house will be flown-over by the Redesign if it occurs, I am not going to sit and listen while you misrepresent the facts about the Redesign to the American people.
Read the entire letter by using the link below:
http://media-newswire.com/files/mica-letter.pdf
Read the original letter by Mica here:
http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/File/110th/Aviation/03-03-08-FAAAdministratorLetter.pdf
Quiet Rockland - No New Flights Over Rockland
Thomas Sullivan
c/o 217 East 86th Street, PMB 221
New York, NY 10028 USA
(845) 480-1088 (phone)
e-mail: quietrockland@gmail.com