The Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Transportation Department has released three reports that are critical of how the FAA has managed pilot records and the costs and technology for air traffic control, and said it also plans to examine the FAA’s procedures with regard to drones. The OIG found the FAA has made “limited” progress in developing a pilot-records database that was mandated by a 2010 law, and the database probably won’t be fully implemented until 2020. Meanwhile, the OIG said, airlines don’t have access to the records they need when hiring new pilots. The other audits looked at the uneven cost of air traffic control towers and the slow deployment of better tools for use by air traffic controllers.
The control-tower report found that although total air-traffic operations handled by the FAA declined by 19 percent from 2004 to 2013, the agency’s operations budget increased slightly. The audit found that costs vary significantly from one tower to another, and concluded the FAA needs to do a better job of analyzing performance data and develop a plan to bring inefficient operations up to speed. A third report found the FAA hasn’t provided air traffic controllers with the automated tools and training they need to make effective use of performance-based navigation strategies that could enhance efficiency and capacity at busy airports. Those audits all were initiated by requests from Congress, but the OIG said it is now initiating a new audit on its own. The OIG says it will scrutinize the FAA’s procedures for exempting civilian drones from certification requirements, and also will examine its safety oversight process for allowing drone operations in the national airspace.
