Undress4Success - Work From Home

Now here’s a work from home opportunity that’s unique! Check out this news release about a new FAA and National Air Traffic Controllers Association telecommuting program. Our comments and observations follow.

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For Immediate Release
April 1, 2008
Contact: FAA: Lynn Tierney (202) 267-3883; NATCA: Doug Church (202) 220-9802

FAA, NATCA Announce Agreement on Air Traffic Work At Home Program (ATWAHP)

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association today signed an agreement to create an Air Traffic Work At Home Program (ATWAHP), designed to foster a better work/life balance, reduce pollution, and improve working conditions for employees of the FAA.

Under the ATWAHP, controllers will have access equipment and technical support that will allow them to work in the comfort of their den, basement, or even their bedroom. This program is designed to foster job satisfaction and help solve safety issues.

FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell said, “I am gratified that the Air Traffic Controller segment of our workforce will now be able to work from home in conditions that could lead to safety improvements. This telecommuting program, which is similar to those in place throughout government and industry, will let us reduce our carbon footprint and improve family relations while increasing air safety.”

“Creating an atmosphere where controllers and their families can work in more comfortable conditions while they identify, report and correct safety issues will go a long way in helping us further improve our safety record,” Sturgell said.

The program is for 18 months and will begin at several targeted facilities. If the program is determined to be successful after a comprehensive review and evaluation, both sides intend for it to be a continuing program.

“NATCA is committed to improving air traffic control system safety and this program is a step forward in that goal,” NATCA President Patrick Forrey said. “We believe safety would be enhanced if all employees responsible for the safety of the traveling public were able to begin working from home. For the people NATCA represents, the benefits are clear: this provides us with a way to reduce the stress and expense of the daily commute and improve performance-related issues affecting system safety.

“This type of program, which is widely used by industry, is essential to encourage employees to relax and enjoy working for the FAA while together with FAA management we develop solutions to enhance safety,” Forrey said.

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Back in the ’30s, before radar, a lonely air traffic controller wearing a fedora and puffing a stogie would lethargically push little pieces of cardboard around a map. That was the way they tracked, if not controlled aircraft back then. After all, on any given week, there was only one westbound flight out of Albuquerque headed for Phoenix and Sacramento.

Then, as technology advanced, dozens of controllers, sleeves rolled up in the unairconditoned facilities and with cigarettes dangling from their lips, sat in front of rows of radar screens in huge darkened rooms. As aviation technology advanced from lumbering DC-3 to intercontinental 707 to supersonic Concorde, computers and communications kept pace to ensure the highest possible level of safety for the traveling public.

But increasingly-stressed controllers remained trapped in dank caves now chilled to inhuman temperatures in deference to the needs of cranky electronics.

Today, with ever smaller computers and lightning fast communications enabling change, and backed by a Congressional mandate encouraging Federal Agencies to allow their employees to work from home, the FAA and NATCO have taken a bold step. And in so doing, the agency has responded to critics demand for modernization by initiating a program that will allow controllers to work from the comfort of their homes.

“The idea first occurred to me while playing with a flight simulator on a home computer,” one FAA executive admitted on the condition of anonymity. “There were people flying airplanes around the sky from bedrooms and dens all over the world, everything from Piper Cubs to giant airliners and Navy F/A-18 fighters, while I provide separation and flight following service from my sunroom on the back porch. It was just like the real thing, and the screen I was looking at wasn’t all that different from the one I sat in front of at work. But I was sure a lot happier with a beer in one hand, music on the stereo, and my dog at my feet.”

Today over 14,000 controllers endure the daily commute risking far greater harm than their counterparts in the sky, while choking on increasingly expensive fuel and polluted air.

Our research shows that if 40% of the FAA controllers worked from home–a proportion comparable to other government agencies–they individually would save 26 work-days of time a year (the equivalent of a very nice vacation), and $807 dollars in gas bills. Cumulatively, the controllers would save 67,000 barrels of crude oil, and eliminate 12,000 metric tons of CO2–that’s more than the work at home population of Baltimore MD saves, according to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey numbers applied to Undress4Success.com’s computational model.

We applaud this visionary FAA program, especially one they had the guts to start on April Fool’s Day .