The Federal Aviation Administration issued new staffing targets for air traffic controllers at U.S. airports and control facilities yesterday that, in many cases, open the door to significant reductions even as flights increase.

Under the guidelines, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport could operate with as few as 22 air traffic controllers - down from a staffing target of 29 adopted in a 1998 labor agreement. The airport currently has 26 controllers, one of them a recent hire.

The potential work force reduction at BWI is part of a national “Plan for the Future: 2007-2016″ released by FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey yesterday.

The plan was immediately denounced by the air traffic controllers union as a threat to passengers’ safety.

FAA administrators said they would update the staffing ranges annually to accommodate fluctuations in air travel.

The new targets are being implemented at a time when airline traffic has rebounded strongly from a drop after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. FAA projections indicate the number of flights the U.S. system will handle will grow by about a third over the next decade - from 46 million last year to 61 million in 2017, far outstripping a modest anticipated growth in the number of controllers.

The plan calls for gradually increasing the ranks of controllers over the next 10 years by about 10 percent from last year’s roughly 14,600 to about 16,000. Much of the future hiring will be to replace a large number of controllers who are nearing retirement.

Read more at the BaltimoreSun

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