FAA OKs 20% Pay Hike for Air Controllers at L.A., N.Y., Chicago

The Federal Aviation Administration agreed today to provide a 20% pay differential for air traffic controllers at international airports in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, according to Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.).

Simon, who has been working with FAA officials to ease the crisis at O’Hare field in Chicago, said the FAA and the Office of Personnel Management worked out an agreement to launch a demonstration project at the three major airports.

A spokesman for Simon said that working out such a program with OPM would normally take 180 days but that the demonstration project will take effect “very shortly.”

He said the increased pay is designed to keep air traffic controllers now working at the three airports and to bring back qualified controllers who have left.

At the same time, the Senate approved a non-binding resolution offered by Simon that calls on the FAA to provide by Oct. 25 a timetable for action it will take, immediate and long-term, to beef up controllers at O’Hare and to “resolve the present emergency and to ensure adequacy of air traffic control operations in the Chicago airspace in the future.”

Simon said there have been 30 near-collisions over Chicago this year, compared to 12 in 1987 and a then-record of 22 in 1986. The FAA, in response, has cut the number of flights in and out of the busy airport.

“This has meant more than 100 flight delays, day after day, not only for passengers at O’Hare, but for passengers en route to O’Hare and for passengers involved with connecting flights to or from O’Hare,” Simon said. “Clearly, this is an unacceptable situation.”