The San Carlos Airport, a hub for Silicon Valley business travel that lies along the approach to San Francisco International Airport, will no longer have air traffic controllers guiding planes in and out of the airport starting on Saturday.
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Some small airports are considered "uncontrolled" and pilots coordinate their movements with other aircraft using visual flight rules. There is one of these in my town.
That's wild, but I guess it makes sense at small airports. I suspect there's one near me as well. I expect it would depend on proximity to a busier airspace. There must be a specific distance/density rule?
So they gave the contract to a consulting firm out of Oklahoma who asked the air traffic controllers to take a pay cut. Privatizing is government is going swell.
Serco provides air traffic services internationally, and its contract is ending Friday. "Understandably, all current controllers have declined RVA's offers.
As a contingency, RVA is preparing to bring in controllers from other towers across the country to prevent an ATC-Zero (unstaffed tower) situation on Saturday," she said.
Kelly said the airport requested temporary FAA staffing for the tower -- a solution currently being implemented at Eagle County Regional Airport in Colorado during its transition from Serco to RVA. She said the San Carlos airport is also exploring options to return its tower to Serco.
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What is happening?
Totally not safe. Just had two plane tragedies and this is announced?
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/peninsula/san-carlos-airport-unstaffed-tower/3777262/
"As a result, RVA's employment offers to current SQL controllers were significantly lower than their current compensation under Serco," she said.