What a Waste

I really don’t know which is worse -- that the FAA let their building go for so long, or the fact we have to pay for the Inspector General to visit 16 of them just to tell us the obvious.

Report Finds FAA Facilities Deteriorating

”"While the average facility has an expected useful life of approximately 25 to 30 years, 59 percent of FAA facilities are over 30 years old," according to the report from the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General. The auditors visited 16 facilities around the country and found "obvious structural deficiencies and maintenance-related issues." Several of the facilities showed damage due to water leaks, mold, outdated heating and air conditioning systems, poor facility design, and general deterioration and disrepair.“

In case they didn’t visit Atlanta Center, left me save us some money. It’s 48 years old. They haven’t all been good years. There’s so much paint on the wallpaper that the weight pulls it down off the walls. There’s water damage throughout and replacing the ceiling tiles to hide the damage doesn’t really help. I wonder if the air intake is still next to the loading dock -- where it sucks the diesel fumes into the control room ? I wonder if the IG looked at the “trailer park” that holds so many of the staff ? I’m thinking trailers don’t have the life expectancy of a regular building. They must be 15-20 years old by now.

I never could figure that out. Atlanta Center’s job is to move airplanes through the system. The controllers were moved into a smaller control room (the old one had asbestos in it) but the rest of the place kept getting larger and larger the whole time I was there. Less controllers. More staff. They’ll probably hire some more staff to tell us how we can get by with less controllers. They’ll probably put them in trailers too.

Don Brown
December 26, 2008