During last week’s House Transportation Committee hearing, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) questioned experts about the aging air traffic control infrastructure and increasing support to the air traffic workforce.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The gentlelady yields back and I recognize Mr. Johnson for five minutes for questions.
00:04I think Mr. Nels and Mr. Calio both said it right. We really do need action not just political
00:09discussion. We have a lot to do. It is worth noting I think last year during FAA reauthorization we
00:16did some good things. Clarity Doge has put a lot of American attention on making sure that taxpayer
00:22dollars are invested in the right things. We did some of that in FAA reauthorization. We said that
00:29we need to prioritize the replacement of federally owned towers that are more than 50 years old.
00:34I've been in one of those towers at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a small hub airport or rather a
00:39small airport where I fly out of every Monday morning and that tower is aged. Clearly the men
00:45and women who work there are doing their best but we're not really giving them the right tools
00:49and so I am glad that we were able together to successfully prioritize the replacement of towers
00:54like in Sioux Falls. Of course the hard the bricks and mortar not the only infrastructure
00:58we care about. We also need truly trained and dedicated individuals and I am told Mr. Daniels
01:04that it takes years to get a fully trained and certified air traffic controller. I'm told the
01:11main constraint to getting them ready to go is the field training and that that's about 85 percent of
01:17their training time. What can Congress do to avoid those constraints and those choke points?
01:25Thank you Congressman. I appreciate the question. I'd say number one is the continuation of the
01:30recruitment and training of those individuals not the stop and go ways that it's been done and
01:35again anything that impedes that such as a government shutdown absolutely sets us backwards
01:39but as far as the training goes itself we have engaged and been working with the agency. It's
01:44mainly going to be around simulators that reduces 27 percent of the training time saving taxpayer
01:51money saving you know our ability to be in the ready to go at any moment when it comes time to
01:59talking to a live aircraft. So our investment in those training simulators will be a key change.
02:04Okay so I want to make sure I'm tracking here and I would tell you the two of the very best
02:07members of Congress are Frank Lewis and Stephanie Bice I'm sorry Frank Lucas and Stephanie Bice
02:13and they've they the Air Traffic Academy is in their area and they've told me that even during
02:19the best of times so not during a government shutdown we still don't we're not doing right by
02:25the field training. Now you're talking about simulators do those simulators count for the
02:29field training as well? They do. Once you once you get out of the Oklahoma City Academy you go
02:34through training evaluation milestones. Number one is you show up and start doing book work. Number
02:38two is you start doing simulator work. The enhancement of those simulators and many of
02:43them are outdated or just a laptop alone those are an impediment to our progress and then the
02:49actual talking to live air traffic is next. Okay so that you're so we should do more investment in
02:55these simulators because that will you're telling me that will reduce the choke point? Congressman
03:00it's been agreed upon by the agency and NACA that it reduces the time by 27 percent. Okay so then
03:06Mr. Rinaldi same general topic to you is it my understanding that some of these new graduates
03:11out of the academy we immediately send them over to have them be teachers or trainers at the academy
03:16is my understanding right about that? Uh said the question again sir I'm sorry. Do we have new
03:21somebody had told me that we've got newly graduated folks out of the academy who then are shifted over
03:28to start being trainers at the academy rather than being out in the field? Not I don't know anything
03:32about that I don't think that's happening. Gotcha so the same question that I posed to Mr. Daniels
03:37what can congress do to move us in the right direction? Well I think that uh congress really
03:42has to hold the FAA accountable to the FAA bill that you put together last year. I mean if you
03:48just look at uh you can go through the 180 day window that they're supposed to provide reports
03:54back to you. I mean Digital Towers is one of them they were supposed to provide a report uh report
03:59back by November 12th. They have not. They were supposed to provide uh three locations of where
04:05you were going to test Digital Towers live traffic. They have not. They're missing all those deadlines
04:10if you go back to your 2018 FAA reauthorization bill they missed over 60 percent of those
04:15deadlines. You got to hold them accountable for these great bills you guys are doing up here.
04:19Yeah boy that is really well said uh Mr. Calio what are we missing here?
04:24Uh not much. I would association myself with the remarks of both Mr. Rinaldi and Mr. Daniels.
04:29I think one thing that I mentioned earlier congressman that you can do um we need to pump
04:34up Oklahoma City. We commend Secretary Duffy for doing that. It's not going to be enough. The
04:39numbers don't add up. There is a program called the College Training Initiative. We start calling
04:44on the Biden administration to re-institute that. It was decimated in 2014 um for not very good
04:50reasons and it was a training pipeline that helped keep the number of controllers current
04:57and could help again. Uh the Biden administration ended up only certifying four schools two of them
05:02in Oklahoma. There are many more out there like Vaughn College in New York. People can be trained
05:07locally and then put into tracons and towers in that area. Well and Mr. Calio I would just say
05:13you're saying it exactly right and as I yield back I would note that Frank Lucas and Stephanie Bice
05:17have uh they would echo your comments that we have not done right by the
05:20Oklahoma City Academy and we need to do better with that I would yield back.