The Federal Aviation Administration’s Approach for Determining Future Air Traffic Controller Staffing Needs (2014) / Chapter Skim
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4 Development and Implementation of Staffing Plan
4 Development and Implementation of Staffing Plan
Pages 80-107
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From page 80... ...
The chapter describes how FAA assesses current facility staffing status and explores how FAA develops its hiring and staffing plans. It describes the committee's understanding of the execution process and illustrates how the number and location of controllers in the workforce compare with the goals of the staffing plan.
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From page 81... ...
to assess each facility's staffing status relative to the staffing range described in Chapter 3. Status is assessed as follows: • Above range: CPC + CPC-IT is more than 10 percent above the staff ing range midpoint.
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From page 82... ...
Facilities CPC + CPC-IT Head Count Facility Staffing Level Number Percent Number Percent Above range 135 43 6,855 53 Within range 102 32 4,319 34 Below range 78 25 1,722 13 Total 315 100 12,896 100
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From page 83... ...
For example, according to the FY 2013 controller workforce plan, the staffing range for the Oakland, California, en route center is 185 to 226, whereas it has only 154 CPCs. The staffing range of the New York TRACON (serving JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and Teterboro airports)
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From page 84... ...
Each facility's workforce may contain "homesteader" controllers who do not wish to move once they settle into a facility, establish households, and build ties to their communities. Inducing staff to move away from facilities that are within or above the staffing range to those that are below the range can be difficult.
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From page 85... ...
• As the staffing level relative to the staffing range midpoint increases, CPCs perform a greater portion of the total time on position. This implies that in facilities categorized as below range, CPC-ITs and devel opmental controllers contribute a larger share of productive work because the facilities lack an adequate number of fully qualified CPCs.
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From page 86... ...
Are There Other Methods for Comparing Current Staffing Levels with Staffing Ranges? The staffing standards process described in Chapter 3 estimates the number of controller positions that need to be staffed during every 15-minute interval and develops nominal schedules, daily staffing, and overall facility staffing strengths to meet these demands.
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From page 87... ...
metric could emerge as a measure of a facility's current status given the qualification levels of its controllers. Such a metric would allow for withinyear comparisons of staffing levels with the staffing ranges and provide a perspective with regard to planning for hires.
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From page 88... ...
There is a recurring need to reevaluate the staffing status at each facility and identify the strength adjustments required for maintaining or achieving optimal staffing levels. Figure 4-2 provides an overview of the process.
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From page 89... ...
Historically, the staffing target was the staffing Transfers standard; however the staffing target could also be the staffing range midpoint beginning in FY 2014. FIGURE 4-2 Controller workforce planning process from staff planning through achievement of staffing level.
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From page 90... ...
Before the FY 2014 controller workforce plan, the staffing target was the staffing standard. For the FY 2014 controller workforce plan, both the staffing standard and the staffing range midpoint will be evaluated as the staffing target.
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From page 91... ...
. For FY 2014, the committee was informed that the target could be either the staffing standard or the midpoint of the staffing range.
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From page 92... ...
Table 4-4 provides a systemwide comparison of the ALA hiring plan with the ALA–ATO agreed-on plan with the above-, within-, and belowrange facility staffing level classifications.5 The committee was surprised by the sizable increase in new hires (59 or 6.5 percent) in the staffing plan over the 902 proposed in ALA's plan.
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From page 93... ...
The gains are divided between terminal (tower and TRACON) facilities and en route centers and between facilities that were below, within, and above the staffing ranges (the ALA metric of CPC + CPC-IT was used as the determinant of facility staffing)
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From page 94... ...
Examining staffing plans for any single year in terms of whether a facility is below, within, or above the staffing range could be misleading. As noted above, facility staffing is constantly changing because of retirements, other losses (deaths and attrition)
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From page 95... ...
. Similarly, transfers were categorized as representing good strength management when controllers moved out of facilities categorized as being above or within the staffing range into facilities categorized as 6 As indicated in Chapter 2, FAA air traffic facilities have several classification levels, which are based on numerous factors, including traffic volume, complexity, and sustainability of traffic.
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From page 96... ...
However, the overall pattern suggests the lack of a systematic process within ATO to solicit and approve voluntary transfer requests in a way that moves toward FAA's target staffing ranges. Several difficulties and disincentives limit FAA's ability to solicit and approve voluntary transfers.
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From page 97... ...
For example, a staffing plan of 5 executed at 4, 5, or 6 would be considered "proper"; it would be considered "under" if execution < 4 or "over" if execution > 6. • For a planning value ≥ 10, the "proper" range was set at plan ± 10%, analogous to how ALA defines the staffing range.
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From page 98... ...
STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE FACILITY STAFFING FAA faces many challenges in steering staffing levels toward its goals. In the intensely competitive airline industry, carriers can pull out of major facilities on short notice, as in Columbus, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; St.
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From page 99... ...
Staffing plans would need to allocate more developmentals and CPC-ITs from even lower-level facilities to these "training grounds" than are required by the staff-to-traffic philosophy underlying the staffing standard and staffing range described in Chapter 3. The staffing plan could involve the CPCs at the training ground facilities in helping the higherlevel facilities select and train suitable candidates for advancement.
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From page 100... ...
However, the extent to which facility assignment takes facility staffing into account relative to the staffing standard is unclear. Furthermore, the committee could find no consistent or formal policy for career advancement or for designation of training ground facilities within the staff planning processes, although an informal process appears to be in place under which certain facilities serve as training grounds for higher-level facilities.
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From page 101... ...
The training within the facility must be conducted by CPCs who are certified as trainers. Staff planning must consider the impact of placing a large number of developmentals and CPC-ITs into a facility in terms of the training burden imposed on the CPCs and the risks of high rates of attrition (Barr et al.
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From page 102... ...
The operational benefits of providing a tool to facilities to assist in maximizing the efficiency of shift coverage and to clarify to the workforce at the facility how schedules are developed are described here. The benefits with regard to fatigue mitigation and staff planning will only be realized if the facility applies the tool to generate the schedules that are actually used.
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From page 103... ...
the staffing range established in the FY 2013 controller workforce plan. A reason
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From page 104... ...
It is certainly appropriate for facilities to provide input into the staffing plan, but a transparent process is needed by which facilities can understand what the various staffing standards, targets, and ranges represent and then provide their input in an informed manner. The staff hiring determined in the ALA hiring plan and the staff planning methods themselves may be erroneous because FAA's assessment of facility staffing does not appropriately account for non-CPC controllers.
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From page 105... ...
FAA should make more effective use of voluntary transfers to rebalance the workforce among facilities considered to have high staffing levels and those considered to have low levels, particularly where it can leverage controllers' desire to transfer on the basis of hardship, career advancement, or personal circumstances. Such a strategic process would need to include the following: • Suitable incentives for transfers, developed and agreed on by FAA and NATCA, that would help rectify staffing imbalances, including estab lishment of a policy for resolving situations in which controllers who are willing to risk transferring to a higher-level facility fail to qualify into that facility; and • Systemwide processes and management of transfer requests to con sider their impact on facility staffing, so that facilities with low staffing levels do not miss voluntary transfers claimed first by facilities with acceptable or high staffing levels.
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From page 106... ...
They should be mentored and should understand the expectations on which their advancement will depend, and those expectations should be understood in staff planning and at the training ground facilities. Recommendation 4-6.
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From page 107... ...
More than one standard schedule should be available to each facility, and a "request for further consideration of unique circumstances" process should be available to facilities who believe that local circumstances require adjustment to their schedule templates. The scheduling tool and associated procedures should allow each facility to design, revise, and publish schedules that take best practices in efficient shift scheduling and fatigue mitigation into consideration.
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