PASS Welcomes Senator Boxer to LAX Today

LOS ANGELES, CA – Today, Ray Baggett, regional vice president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS, AFL-CIO), the union that represents FAA technicians, issued the following statement welcoming Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to Los Angeles Airport and in reaction to the persistent outages that have occurred there over the course of the last month:

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PASS Official Denied Acess to FAA Facility

ATLANTA, GA — The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO today called the actions of an FAA supervisor “deplorable and unprofessional.” The supervisor, Daniel Vallish, denied PASS Representative and Regional Assistant Michael Riso access to the Atlantic Operation Control Center (AOCC) Operations Floor where bargaining unit employees work.  Riso’s visit to the facility on August 15 was coordinated several weeks prior with the acting facility manager.

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PASS Members Elect National Leaders

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO is pleased to announce the reelection of Tom Brantley as national president and Mike Perrone as national vice president of the organization. The second three-year terms of both Brantley and Perrone, who were first elected to the positions in 2003, will begin on October 1.

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FAA Aware of Critical Safety Gaps, Does Nothing

Buffalo, NY - The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, the union representing FAA systems specialists, today said that the FAA is consciously ignoring safety requirements and allowing open (un-staffed) watches on the essential radar equipment that covers air traffic for Buffalo Niagara International Airport. The systems specialists are responsible for responding to any problems in the systems used to provide real-time air traffic control capabilities for the Buffalo airport. The unit is normally supposed to have a systems specialist on duty 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

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Employees at Hartford Airport Working Without Proper Training

HARTFORD, CT - The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, the union that represents FAA technicians, reported today that there are no properly trained and certified technicians to oversee a major piece of air traffic control equipment at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn. New distance measuring equipment (DME), which provides distance information between the ground and approaching aircraft for two Bradley runways, was recently installed at the airport, but no technicians at the facility are trained to work on the equipment. By not providing this important training to the employees responsible for maintaining and certifying the equipment, the FAA is not only gambling with the reliability of the aviation system but also risking the safety of the Hartford-area flying public.

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Contractor Errors Continue to Threaten Aviation Safety

DALLAS, TX - The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, the union representing FAA systems specialists, is calling attention to yet another example where contractor carelessness has placed the safety of the American flying public at risk. On Tuesday, contractors working for Harris Corporation, the company now providing Federal Communications Infrastructure (FTI) circuitry and communications for the FAA, were testing circuits at the Dallas/Fort Worth Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility and inadvertently shut down a system separate from the one on which they were working. The contractor error resulted in three out of four radars switching to backup lines.

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