Chuck

Chuck, 43, has been an air traffic controller at the Grand Forks airport since 1992. He is deeply concerned by President Bush’s efforts to privatize the industry, because privatization will compromise passengers’ safety.

My Story
When Bush came into office, he vowed to privatize 850,000 jobs. He’s trying really hard to accomplish this goal, and one of the industries he’s targeting is air traffic control.

Even though there was bipartisan support in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to prohibit air traffic control from being contracted, the White House intervened and pulled off an 11th-hour coup to reverse Congress’s common sense decision.

The Bush administration has put the Grand Forks International Air Traffic Control Tower, along with 68 other FAA facilities across the country, on the auction block.

Lawmakers have claimed that all these towers are located at rural, low-activity airports, but Grand Forks is the 42nd busiest airport in the country, working over 295,500 takeoffs and landings in 2002. Grand Forks is also the 11th busiest tower in the country in general aviation takeoffs and landings. By comparison, New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport was the 40th busiest airport with roughly 301,000 operations.

Privatization of air traffic control would seriously jeopardize the safety of our skies, because the first place that cuts would be made is staffing. Understaffing controllers will lead to an increased incident/accident rate. It would transfer the safety of the millions of passengers who fly each year from the hands of trained federal professionals to staff working for companies more concerned about cutting corners in the name of profit than promoting safety.

Privatization has failed miserably in other countries, from both financial and safety perspectives. I don’t want to see the same happen here in the United States. Frankly, if my tower gets privatized, I’ll retire. I refuse to put passengers in danger all in the name of the dollar.

The worst part about it is that the flying public wouldn’t even know that this is going on until disaster strikes and there is an accident.

President Bush’s administration has been all about supporting big businesses to put more money in his campaign war chest at the expense of the American worker. If he spent half as much time on domestic issues as he has trying to find Osama bin Laden, this country would be great again.