'Hugely important' airport narrowly avoids mass resignation of all air traffic controllers

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the air traffic controllers at San Carlos Airport will now remain in their positions after obtaining a new contract. The headline has also been updated.

One California airport is now keeping its air traffic controllers after back-and-forth late-night negotiations led to a mutually acceptable employment contract.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that beginning this weekend, the San Carlos Airport, which lies along the final approach to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), would have no longer had anyone manning its control tower if the controllers followed through on their plans to resign. The threat of resignations came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reassigned controllers' contracts to the Oklahoma City-based firm Robinson Aviation, which initially offered subpar compensation packages. However, a subsequent Chronicle article reported that Robinson and the San Carlos air traffic controllers agreed on a new contract and that the tower will remain staffed.

Previously, airport manager Gretchen Kelly said "understandably, all current controllers have declined [the firm's new] offers." The initially proposed compensation for air traffic controllers reportedly did not account for the Bay Area having the highest cost of living in the nation, which is roughly 18% higher than the national average. The region has had the highest cost of living in the U.S. for six consecutive years, with the San Jose and Napa areas close behind. The Chronicle reported that while the previous contract included an $18,000 housing stipend for each controller, Robinson's contract did not. Details of the new agreement were not immediately made available, and it's unknown if the housing stipends were added back into the new contracts.

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San Carlos Flight Center owner Alessandro Franco said air traffic control at the airport is "hugely important" due to its proximity to SFO and its typically busy airspace. Aircraft approaching the San Carlos Airport alternates between communicating with air traffic controllers at San Carlos and those at SFO. Prior to the new contracts being finalized, he worried that not having controllers in the tower would mean there is "another layer of safety that’s not going to be present."

"We’re a mile or two off the final approaches to SFO — it’s a complex space," Franco told the Chronicle on Thursday. "This is a situation that puts us in limbo next to these busy airports."

While the contract dispute was still ongoing, Kelly had asked the FAA for additional staffing help for the San Carlos control tower, but her request was refused. Other airports in California are also dealing with chronic shortages of air traffic controllers, which has become a worsening problem over the years. The Chico Airport, which the Chronicle noted was a "hub" for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, has just one controller.

The contract dispute at the San Carlos airport came on the heels of a deadly crash at the Washington D.C. National Airport involving an American Airlines regional jet and a Black Hawk U.S. Army helicopter, with 67 presumed dead from the incident. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who used to pilot Black Hawk helicopters as a combat veteran in Iraq, said that letters President Donald Trump's administration sent to federal workers this week asking them to quit their jobs could be partially to blame for the crash.

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