Pilots, you’re on your own.
Automatic federal spending cuts would force the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down 189 federal contract towers, including the one at Kinston’s Global TransPark. The FAA works with contractors to staff air traffic control jobs that would otherwise have to be filled with administration employees.
Pilots flying in to Kinston would have to coordinate with nearby towers until within five miles of the GTP. Wednesday, representatives from affected North Carolina airports were in Raleigh for a meeting on the matter.
“We are in the process of making a justification to the FAA to keep the tower open,” GTP spokeswoman Alanna King said. “So, depending on how that goes, hopefully we’ll be successful at it and they won’t have to quit working.”
There are five towers in the state slated to shut down. Rick Barkes, deputy director for strategic initiatives for the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Aviation Division, is coordinating the airports’ petitions.
“We did ask them to keep the tower open, and they’ll evaluate it and let us know something, they say, by the 18th,” Barkes said.
Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., sent a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta advocating for the continued operation of the Kinston Regional Jetport at Stallings Field, known by the call letters ISO.
“Specifically, ISO is an emergency divert facility for Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and receives military flights from a dozen other bases,” Butterfield wrote.
He continued, “ISO is also the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s staging facility for Eastern North Carolina and home to the North Carolina Global TransPark, where major companies contribute to our national economy and produce critical products such as fuselages for Airbus and Boeing aircraft.”
As of Wednesday, Butterfield’s staff said they had not heard back from the FAA.
Republican members of the House and Senate Transportation committees are also seeking answers from the FAA, which they said they still have yet to receive after sending a formal letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
“That letter went unanswered similar to previous requests,” U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., and U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., wrote on March 7. “In hearings of both the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on February 27, and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Tuesday of this week, we heard a lot of rhetoric on the sequester, but no real answers.”
Because of the sequestration provisions, federal agencies must cut roughly 9 percent of their budgets. For the FAA, that means $627 million has to be eliminated. It’s believed among some members of Congress that the FAA has enough funding to keep the towers operational and not furlough other air traffic controllers.
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sent his plan to the FAA on March 6, outlining other areas in the agency that could be cut. He suggested cancelling upcoming conferences, instituting a hiring freeze and ending low-priority programs.
“While we value the work of everyone at the FAA, not every employee has duties critical to the immediate mission of the agency,” Coburn wrote. “As such, we should give higher priority to those performing essential tasks over others who are not. Air traffic controllers, safety inspectors, and technicians should certainly receive the highest priority.”
The tower closures are expected to go into effect April 7.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.