Congressman criticizes FAA over air traffic control staffing shortages at Austin airport
UPDATE: FAA administrator Michael Whitaker said he would resign on Inauguration Day, allowing President-Elect Trump to pick his replacement. In a statement on X, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett said the resignation came just 13 months into Whitaker's five-year term, and that "additional FAA delays" could be expected due to Whitaker's resignation and the search for a new administrator.
As a variety of issues continue to plague Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, chief among them an air traffic control staffing shortage, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) renewed calls for the FAA to hire more employees and take air passengers’ safety more seriously.
Just four days after the FAA instituted a sweeping ground delay at the Austin airport, Dogget told the American-Statesman he was “troubled” by the FAA’s “dishonest” release of information to the media, which portrayed most ground delays as weather-related, and not, as was the case Sunday, caused by an ongoing air traffic control staffing shortage at the airport. The ground delay caused delays of over two hours for some flights.
“It is true that ground stops are sometimes related to weather, but that is not the fact in Austin, we do not have a weather problem that has caused these repeated delays," Doggett said. "We have an FAA problem: the failure to give us the staffing that we need.”
The air traffic control staffing shortage has been an ongoing issue at airports nationwide; however, it’s particularly severe in Austin, where there have been multiple close calls between airplanes, with the most recent incident in October. The FAA said earlier this year it would fast track the installation of an airfield surveillance system that would help avoid collisions.
Doggett said the FAA has struggled to maintain a steady influx of new air traffic controllers, with many older employees retiring during the COVID pandemic. The fact that training was previously only hosted at a facility in Oklahoma City further complicated matters. He also mentioned that the cost of living in Austin as a contributing factor.
At a meeting on Monday with FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, Doggett said he was told the FAA would not be prioritizing the Austin airport, and they “didn't have any very good reason to explain why.”
Doggett said that during a previous meeting with Whitaker more than a year ago, he was told Austin was among the top five worst airports for air traffic controller shortages, and that the issue would be resolved. However, since that conversation, Doggett said the Austin airport has lost more air traffic control employees, and that there is a discrepancy between the amount of air traffic controllers the FAA says are employed in Austin and reality.
In a statement to the Statesman, FAA spokesperson Crystal Essiaw said the airport currently has 33 certified controllers with six more in training, and that they expect additional trainees to start over the next few months. However, Doggett said there are actually 29 certified controllers, and that two trainees had been medically disqualified. The FAA had previously set a goal to employ a total of 60 air traffic controllers in the Austin tower by 2024, according to last year's Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan.
“I see people leaving our tower. I don't see many people coming, and I don't have great confidence with the FAA,” Doggett said. “When they tell me that they're going to have so many people by a certain time, as I told them, when I see the personnel in the tower that we need, I will believe it, but not the promises of the FAA, which have so often gone unfulfilled.”
Attempts to add safety features have also fallen short, Doggett said. He mentioned that the FAA has failed to expand the air traffic controllers' airspace, which would allow them to detect private planes heading to Austin sooner and potentially avoid several near-collisions over the past two years. According to Doggett, air traffic controllers have reported more than 50 incidents involving private planes that were diverted and could have ended up on a collision course with a commercial airplane.
The FAA did not comment on the status of the expanded airspace Wednesday, saying they would issue a comment at a later date.
“I just see a level of inattention, dilatory delays that is just not consistent with maintaining an adequate level of safety," Doggett said. “I don't want them to delay on this issue until we find lives lost unnecessarily.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Doggett rebukes FAA, citing safety and staffing issues at AUS airport
