FAA urged to boost its tech staffing
Just one person remains responsible for maintaining four radar sites in the region
A tech staffing shortage in the Federal Aviation Administration’s San Antonio air traffic operations could be putting airline passengers at risk, three Texas congressmen said Wednesday in a letter to the agency.
U.S. Reps. Greg Casar, Daustin, Joaquin Castro, D-san Antonio, and Henry Cuellar, Dlaredo, are calling on the FAA to reinforce the office that’s responsible for maintaining radar systems scattered across several hundred miles around the city.
“We’ve gone from four technicians down to just one technician servicing the radar equipment that keeps San Antonio safe, and it’s a real example of how staffing shortages at the federal government are causing a real problem,” Casar said. “Nowhere to me is that more evident than in San Antonio, where you have just one technician who’s responsible for traveling around hundreds of miles to keep our safety systems running.”
The FAA’S San Antonio System Support Center at San Antonio International Airport is responsible for maintaining long-range radar sites in Hallettsville, Rocksprings and Oilton. The sites, which are from 120 to about 200 miles from the airport, serve as backups to the airport’s primary radar system.
Problems with the systems during severe weather, system outages or other unpredictable circumstances can compound flight delays and cancellations for those traveling through the San Antonio airport, the congressmen said.
“Given that air travel has resumed to pre-pandemic levels, it is important that this vital equipment is maintained and fully operational,” they wrote.
Last year, about 10.7 million passengers traveled through San Antonio International, topping the record set the year before the pandemic flattened the travel industry.
Representatives of the FAA and San Antonio International Airport didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The San Antonio center’s situation mirrors staffing problems for similar skilled positions in the air travel system across the country.
Casar said he learned about the issues a few months ago when the National Airspace System Safety Review Team, a group of outside experts ap
pointed by the FAA, filed a report assessing risk in air travel. It called for “urgent action” to address safety risks, highlighting issues like staffing shortages among air traffic controllers and outdated technology.
It said that a “welltrained and sufficiently staffed technical workforce could, in many cases, conduct more efficient, flexible, and less expensive system support.”
The group also recommended changes in how the agency is funded, such as more broadly shielding it from government shutdowns.
“The current erosion in the margin of safety in the N.A.S. (National Airspace System) caused by the confluence of these challenges is rendering the current level of safety unsustainable,” the report said.
Casar said the FAA is aware of its staffing problems locally and that he hopes the agency will prioritize getting the San Antonio center back to full strength because its lone tech has been handling all the maintenance work for the past six months.
Dave Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union that represents the FAA’S radar techs in San Antonio, said his organization has been in discussions with the FAA “about the critical understaffing in Texas and elsewhere for years.”
In their letter, the lawmakers said “the situation in San Antonio is a prime example of where the FAA should mitigate staffing shortages by hiring, training, and certifying technical staff to be ready to assume those critical radar maintenance duties as technicians retire.”