NAATS HEADQUARTERS EMAIL UPDATE

Volume 2, #10

November 29, 2001

S.1447
Aviation and Transportation Security Act (Became P.L. 107-71)

SEC. 134. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CERTAIN AVIATION MATTERS.
(a) FLIGHT SERVICE STATION EMPLOYEES- It is the sense of Congress that the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration should continue negotiating in good faith with flight service station employees of the Administration with a goal of reaching agreement on a contract as soon as possible.

S. 1447 became Public Law 107-71, including the above, when President Bush signed it on November 19.

I saw Chairman Young and two of his special assistants this afternoon and expressed our gratitude for the above language. I also indicated our concern that, given their track record, the FAA would not negotiate in good faith. Their response was that Chairman Young was personally interested in this matter and that he will be highly irritated if this language doesn�t change the FAA�s posture. I told them of my scheduled meeting with Administrator Garvey and they asked that I keep them informed of our progress or lack thereof. The Chairman had to leave for a vote but I stayed and talked with his assistants about possible future scenarios. They indicated that we could count on them for support.

Administrator Garvey had to reschedule our meeting for tomorrow with a new date of December 17. When I meet with her I will ask her how she proposes to proceed with the pay impasse and how she intends to comply with the language in P.L. 107-71.

NAATS Chief Negotiator Bill Dolan is working out the specifics of the FSOSC. Latest indications are that it will probably start around the middle of January. If FAA management determines they must start prior to that time we�ll provide what operational support we can from here until we can finish coordination.

We continue to hear buyout rumors from the field. No current buyout legislation includes DOT and the FAA has proposed nothing.

A reminder that the [email protected] account is being closed out. If you want to email me please use [email protected] or [email protected].

Wally Pike

The following is and update from Jeff Barnes, NAATS OASIS National Representative.

11/29/01 - This week the OASIS Human Factors Team is meeting at RNO AFSS. We are giving demos to the management and controllers at RNO for a couple hours each day and conducting our business during the rest of our time. Our business this time consists of going over every identified problem in the Independent Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) report and all the change requests that have been submitted to this point. Our purpose is to establish a traceability for each of these problems, to ensure that all of them have been addressed. This has been of benefit as we have found several of the issues had fallen through the cracks and needed the attention of the team. This has not surprised anyone on the team as we are talking about over 500 problems here. The vast majority of them have already been fixed, or are being worked on now but a few did get overlooked. This gives the Team the self-check it needs to make sure it is covering all identified issues.

Next week the FAA will get its first look at the Phase 1 ISD (In Service Decision) Software that will go into AND AFSS. Several of us will be at Harris Corporation to take a quick (two days) look at the software to see if we can find any problems that can be resolved before the software is sent to the Tech Center for primary testing. This software will be very thoroughly tested before going operational. Besides the initial assessment next week, the Human Factors Team will test the software, a NOTE (NAS Operational Test and Evaluation) test will take place at the Tech Center (The NOTE Team is made up of controllers and supervisors from the original NOTE Test Team that tested the original SEA software and supervisors and controllers from AND AFSS), and a NOTE test will take place at AND AFSS where we will simulate operational use as much as possible. After all that is done, as long as it is satisfactory AND will go operational, at which time an IOT&E evaluation will take place on the operational system.

In a couple weeks an assessment of OASIS will be done by information gathered from this assessment will be given to the Human Factors Team for use in making OASIS more suitable for Alaskan operations. The Human Factors Team will be on hand at SEA at the assessment outbrief to get first hand feedback from the Alaskan team. This will kick off our next meeting at SEA AFSS that week.

After that meeting our activities will slow for the Holidays, getting back up to speed after the first week of January.