FAA Says LAX Tower Is Severely Understaffed

FAA Says LAX Tower Is Severely Understaffed

Posted: December 13th, 2005 05:12 PM EDT

U.S. Newswire

The Federal Aviation Administration has admitted that the control tower at Los Angeles International Airport is "severely understaffed," but continues to ignore dwindling staffing numbers at its busy Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Fremont, Calif., while making sure its own supervisor ranks are completely full.

Both issues raise serious safety concerns at a time when the National Transportation Safety Board has identified runway incursions -- especially at LAX -- as its top concern. Despite Oakland Center's staffing shortage, the FAA is attempting to implement a new oceanic traffic tracking system and keep up with rising traffic counts.

The FAA's admission of a staffing problem at LAX came in a letter written by Western Pacific Regional Counsel Monroe P. Balton, dated Sept. 15, 2005, who denied a lawyer's request to take depositions of two controllers simultaneously in a private legal matter. "The Airport Traffic Control Tower at Los Angeles is severely understaffed," Balton wrote. "It would unduly disrupt the operation of the tower," if the controllers were absent. Currently, LAX is four controllers short of the 47 positions the FAA has authorized it to employ. Two more controllers are scheduled to leave by March. FAA managers have also allowed shifts to run short of controllers instead of scheduling overtime when needed. Under this new policy, the facility has gone from zero operational errors in two and a half years to six in the past 18 months. Runway incursions are spiking as well.

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Contact: Jeff Tilley (Oakland), 510-673-1398; Mike Foote (LAX), 562-619-7107