You Do The Math
Posted by Blue Eyed Buddhist on September 3rd, 2007
You’d think that of all the federal agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration would be one of the least likely to exhibit outright corruption, wouldn’t you?
You’d be wrong. The FAA, under Bush crony Marion Blakey, has been every bit as corrupt- maybe even more- as any other federal agency.
The very agency trusted to ensure your safety in the skies (and on the ground underneath the skies!) has been run for the last five years by a woman who was about as qualified to do so as Brown was to run FEMA.
From a news item on the FAA’s web site, dated August 30th:
It’s ITT. The company has been chosen as the prime contractor for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), the key to the Next Generation Air Transportation System.
…
Under the $1.8 billion contract, which runs from 2007 to 2025, ITT will build the ADS-B ground stations and own and operate the equipment. The FAA will pay subscription fees for ADS-B broadcasts transmitted to properly equipped aircraft and air traffic control facilities.ITT will be able to use the existing infrastructure of one of its partners, AT&T, to deploy ground stations throughout the country. Initial coverage will be provided for the Gulf of Mexico, Philadelphia, Louisville, and Juneau, Alaska.
The contract award came just two years after Administrator Marion Blakey proclaimed that ADS-B would become the backbone of NextGen.
Outgoing FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has a new job at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). We don’t know for sure what her salary is, but her appointment as President and CEO was announced 9 days prior to ITT getting the ADS-B contract. And we know that the previous CEO of the AIA, John Douglass, made over $600,000 in 2004; it’s reasonable to assume that Blakey will be getting at least that much, if not more.
Here’s an interesting screenshot from the AIA’s web site, showing their membership:
(click for bigger image)
So 9 days after she’s announced as the next CEO of AIA, Blakey’s agency hands out an 18-year contract worth billions of dollars to a company that indirectly employs her at over a half-million dollars a year. (Don’t forget the pathetic history of FAA contracts continually ballooning in cost and scope over time- it’s reasonable to assume that this will wind up representing considerably more than $1.8 billion to ITT.)
You do the math, folks.
Blakey has destroyed the morale of the FAA. She unilaterally slashed the salaries of the air traffic controllers and jammed new work rules down their throats, making a mockery of the so-called “negotiations” with the union, NATCA.
She’s set the FAA onto a course of spending billions of dollars on technology to solve airline delays- you might have read stories in the recent PR push staged by the FAA and the airlines- and is now running for the safety of a job with the same companies that will win the contracts to develop, build, and install that technology.
Yes, you read that right- “develop”. The technology doesn’t yet exist- it’s not yet been designed, let alone tested and proven safe.
Meanwhile, ATC staffing levels are plummeting (which was known to be looming as far back as 2002, which- not coincidentally- was the beginning of Blakey’s term as FAA Administrator), air travel delays are up almost 20% in 2007 from 2006 (which was the worst year ever on record for delays) and there’s even talk of wildcat sickouts beginning to rumble through the internet.
It’s time for you to call, write, fax, telegram, or email your Congressional represntatives and demand that the next FAA Administrator be someone who can fix this mess.
It’s also time to demand that Congress revert the controllers back to the old contract and start new negotiations with a fair, neutral-third-party arbitration method for resolving impasses.
Finally, Congress should begin investigation into Blakey’s cushy job at the AIA, and how she managed to have it announced prior to even leaving the FAA- the very agency handing billions of dollars to AIA member corporations.
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:03 am
Less than 2 weeks to go on her 5 year term and Blakely is still in full court press. She must have alot at stake in the FAA reauthorization outcome. We’ll see where we stand with Congress real soon.
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:18 am
I beleive there will be no provisions for us in the FAA reauthorization bill. After the Senate gets their way with it, controllers will be left holding the bag. I honestly hope I am wrong though. To many eggs have been put in this basket.
Well, I have to go to urgent care and get my doctor’s note for calling in sick today.
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:19 am
It almost looks like a Mafia deal.
Guess we should change her name to “Made Marion”.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:00 am
Accountability is for the little people like you.
As far as her bosses are concerned, Marion Blakey did what she was hired to do.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Biffy, you may have had one or two or relative points in that “riveting post” (read sarcasm). Unfortunately, coming across as a complete WHACKJOB overshadows those points.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:50 am
Biff,
Please reveal yourself to me so I can personally tell you how big of a CENSORED you really are to your face. I am offended by your comments.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am
Actually, if you can get past the offensive words, what Biffy says contains a lot of interesting points, and if y’all would just read the points, you can see that there is a lot of merit to what he/she says. The destroying HQ with explosives is a bit harsh tho……..
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:02 am
It is impossible to get past the offensive words, and it is STUPID and INEFFECTIVE to add offensive words to what might actually be a message with valid points.
Get rid of the offensive words, and maybe people will actually listen to you. Plus, you are giving ammunition to your opponents, which is also STUPID and INEFFECTIVE.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 am
Two weeks to go, but Blakey still has an agenda. She still has to ensure complete failure of the ATC system to open the door for her new clients to land a fat new contract to conceive of a way to totally replace controllers with automation. She hasn’t yet earned that new salary.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
Nearly 2 BILLION dollars, for what? This whole contract stinks the same stench as the Advanced Automation System, STARS, and a basket full of other projects; a hole into which the Government pours incalculable sums of money and may or may not receive anything useful in return. When the end comes, everybody who awarded the contracts will be working for the companies who stole the money and their Government replacements will be asking what the hell happened? Anyone who thinks we’ll have any worthwhile NEXTGEN anything in the next 10 years, speak up. Anyone? Anyone?
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:15 am
All preorchestrated! This is all coming down as planned. She won’t be prosecuted or even accused of wrong-doing. Her boss has given her the “business plan” and she is executing it flawlessly. “Nice job Blakey…Nice job”. VOTE DEMOCRAT…it is your only hope!
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:40 am
ITT will be able to use the existing infrastructure of one of its partners, AT&T, to deploy ground stations throughout the country. Initial coverage will be provided for the Gulf of Mexico, Philadelphia, Louisville, and Juneau, Alaska.
WTF? Where did this come from a drunken bar napkin sketch?
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
IFRboy Says:
“WTF? Where did this come from a drunken bar napkin sketch?”
Hey that’s how the concept of Southwest Airlines was born. So are you suggesting that NexGen by ITT will be the next “SWA” regarding FAA success?
On the other hand maybe you didn’t know about the background of the “birth” of SWA so then your statement would make sense in a derogatory manner towards the FAA’s and ITT’s collective brain trust in rolling out NexGen.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
“marble mouth talking”
LOLOL,……Oh God !! I needed that. LOLOLOL It guess it does kinda sound like that sometimes. Never heard it said so eloquently.
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:35 pm
The FAA will never be able to run a project as successfully as Southwest Airlines.
Name one project, even projects as simple as business software, that the FAA has been able to field without more problems, work-arounds, and band-aid fixes than you can count. This 1.8 BILLION is headed for another Government contractor black hole, where it will never bee seen, heard from, or accounted-for again. With regard to the FAA, “we’re lost, but we’re making good time.”
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Finally….someone points out the utter corruption and conflict of interest practiced at FAA by Marion Blakey. Now, can we get an official investigation and some charges going? Oh crap, that’s right, bush is still President.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Aluminum shower? Try aluminum monsoon. That is what all this stupid nonsense and bad FAA management is going to produce at some point. Hopefully not on my watch
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
bring back diversity 2000 and sector suite!!! not to mention white water and monica!! we are toast!!!
September 4th, 2007 at 7:04 am
LeaveIt2Beaver, “Not to mention whitewater and Monica!! we are toast!!!.
If you think for one minute our Profession and the FAA is a better place to work under this Administration your smoking crack and need to be drug tested. It’s people like you that are responsible for putting these dictators in office. With the mess this country is in right now. A little BJ in the oval office doesn’t look so bad! “Reality check”.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:12 am
A little BJ in the oval office doesn’t look so bad! “Reality check”.
Remember the Controller that had the hookers going to the Tower??? He got fired…..Thats the reality check!!!
September 4th, 2007 at 9:30 am
LeaveIt2Beaver,
“That was tongue and Cheek” That’s exactly what The Maid said when one of the Puzzleplace cube dwellers called us “Hamsters”. You must be of the same mismanagement ilk. Just STFU!
September 4th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Lets throw rocks at each other, you [DELETED BY WEBMASTER]. I have been only a controller for over 25 years. bite me
September 4th, 2007 at 11:02 am
25 yrs…. You must be stupidest guy on planet…..hows that 50% pay cut?
But…but…but..I have a ex-wife….a kid in school….a new car…..ect..ect…ect…
You are a sorry excuse for a controller. Nice planning DORK.
Hope that rock hit you in the face.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:50 am
ITT will also “maintain” the “designed & developed” equipment for the futuristic NEXGEN’. That’s a big fat privatization foot to kick in any door.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:59 am
LeaveIt2Beaver,
Your right. No more stones from here. (25 years) I’ll respect that. I’ll man-up and say “Peace”.
September 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
25 yrs…. You must be stupidest guy on planet…..hows that 50% pay cut?
What pay cut?? It hasnt happened to me..yet. Top of the payband. No x-wife. No kid in school. Wife works. Had an IRA since 1987. House paid off. Max TSP from day one. Who’s the fuck head now. Go play with yourself.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
LeaveIt2Beaver says,
“Who’s the fux head now”
Sounds like no debt, lots of savings and still working in this piece of crap agency….working for pennies on the dollar. I think you answered your own question. You are NOT the financial “Genius” you think you are, not even close. Sit down with a financial advisor, a real good one. You will find that you are really working for a couple dollars an hour and losing every year a pay raise passes you by. The only place you are gaining is in your TSP and IRAs. Albiet a LOT every single year it is deferred. That aside with everything paid off you are losing on average 2 years off your life for every year you WASTE working in this POS agency. PURE GENIUS.
September 4th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
FAA Management training film
http://www.gozino.net/display_post.php?p=2665
September 4th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
FAAFollies.com is a site that is independent- from the FAA, from NATCA, and with (FREEDOM OF SPEECH)?? Our authors range from current controllers, to retired ones, to interested third parties.
REALLY? Just as long as you don’t say the “N” word or offend some PC group right? My post was removed. So, FREE SPEECH with conditions comrade. The goon squads are on the prowl. Looks like the FAA accountability board([DELETED BY WEBMASTER]) are prowling this site looking for buzz words. Sigh………….
September 4th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Yes Biffy it is free speech with conditions. The conditions are if I don’t like it then it gets deleted. It is not about offending a PC group, it is whether or not it offends ME. I am a white guy. It offended me. Deleted.
If you do not like it then go start your own web site and we can see how many readers you get.
The FAA accountability board is a pathetic joke. I don’t have anything to do with them. I don’t mind if you state unpopular opinions but there is a big difference between “unpopular” and “hateful, ignorant racist slime”, and your comments go over the line with me so they get deleted.
September 4th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
All this reminds me of the story titled, “The Cold Within.” You got it right Leaveit. Some, no most, won’t get it. They can go elsewhere but won’t because they’re pimping themselves for what they think is chump change. But they’re still here. They must like it. The grieving process should be way over by now, but it’s not and it would worry me if I were a ‘practicing’ psychologist.
I am not complaining, just counting down. This isn’t forced labor here.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Hey, congrats to BEB for their reference on another blog.
Check out http://www.jetwhine.com/
Some very good and worthwhile comments.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Leaveit2Beaver never said 25 years FAA. Maybe he/she cant retire. Maybe some bad time or god forbid military atc experience!!
November 7th, 2007 at 3:06 am
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May 15th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
This is clearly a conflict of interest. I am disapointed in Marion. The fleacing of America.
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