ALPA and NATCA Team Up for Aviation Collaboration and Safety Several
ALPA representatives, including ALPA president Capt. Lee Moak, presented at
NATCA’s 2013 Communicating for Safety (CFS) Conference this week. The
Association’s perspective was universally praised as a positive step toward
maintaining lines of communication with the controllers who guide you to your
destination every day.
Moak participated on an aviation leadership panel that addressed how
collaborative relationships between labor and management throughout the industry
contribute to improved aviation safety. “When it comes to safety, we generally
agree on 99 percent of everything, and perhaps disagree on 1 percent,” Moak
said. “We can’t let that one percent define our relationship. What your members
are most interested in is results. This is the time to come together in the
aviation industry, labor, and regulatory environment.”
Other ALPA pilots who presented included Capt. Greg Downs
(UAL) on the Confidential Information Sharing Program, a program to allow
collaborative use of ATSAP (a program similar to ASAP for controllers) and ASAP
data to enhance safety, as well as on an interactive panel on pilot–controllers
communication; F/Os Blake Koehn and Matt Preysz, both of ASA, who detailed
performance characteristics of the CRJ to help illustrate the connection between
aircraft performance and ATC services pilots might request or be unable to
accept; and F/O Marc Henegar (ALA), chair of ALPA's Air Traffic Services group,
on performance-based navigation.
CFS hot topics included ways to improve pilot–controller communications,
NextGen projects and their role in increasing NAS efficiency, and encouraging
both pilots and controllers to see their workspace and workload from each
other’s point of view.
To that end, Capt. Moak also introduced a
collaborative video project to the controllers, showcasing the role ALPA is
playing in educating airline pilots about the ATC system and facilities,
including asking ALPA pilots to tour their ATC facilities and meet the
controllers they interact with daily.
ALPA also played an instrumental role in helping NATCA establish a
Professional Standards program, heavily modeled after ALPA's own. NATCA National
Professional Standards representatives Garth Koleszar and Jeff Richards said the
hidden success of the program is the realization that the peer-to-peer process
really works. "It's worked for ALPA for 50 years; it's working for us now,"
Richards said.
During the awards luncheon, Koleszar and Richards presented ALPA's
Professional Standards Committee vice chair, Capt. Charlie Schenk (FDX), with an
award for helping to get the program up and running. “There's no way we'd be
here today without the leadership of ALPA,” Koleszar said. They also thanked
Capt. John Rosenberg (DAL), ALPA's Professional Standards Committee chair, who
was unable to attend.
More than 1,000 air traffic controllers, the largest-ever group on record,
attended the conference, many on their own dime, using personal vacation time.
Their dedication to safety is infectious. For more CFS coverage, look for the
March issue of Air Line Pilot, coming soon. |