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GOP Rep. Mica slams FAA decision to add air-traffic controllers
The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said Wednesday the Federal Aviation Administration was wrong to add air-traffic controllers to overnight shifts at 27 airports after reports of sleeping flight-tower employees.
“Only in the federal government would you double up on workers, averaging $161,000 per year in salary and benefits, that aren’t doing their job,” Mica said in a statement released by his office.
“This increase in staffing, when there is little to no traffic, also misdirects our resources and focus away from congested air traffic control facilities.”
Mica has said recently that sleeping air-traffic controllers should be fired or disciplined, not given more colleagues.
He and other members of the committee will meet Thursday with officials from the FAA to discuss the recent incidents.
The FAA originally added a second person to the tower at Washington's Reagan National Airport in March after two planes were forced to land without assistance when a controller working a fourth consecutive overnight shift was sleeping.
Two other controllers were later reported to be sleeping at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada and at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tenn.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday he was "outraged" by the incidents.
