Cape airport faces shortage of tower staff because of low wages

A constant shortage of air traffic controllers at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport has city officials scrambling to find more money to boost pay and keep the tower from closing.

The tower reduced operating hours a week ago to cope with the problem. Meanwhile, airport manager Bruce Loy has lobbied state and federal lawmakers for added funding in an effort to keep the tower open.

The city likely will have to get out of the tower business if it wants to keep the tower open, Loy said. That's because the city would have to hire a private contractor to operate the tower in order to get a federal subsidy from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Cape Girardeau's tower is the only municipally operated control tower in Missouri. Jefferson City shifted from a city-operated tower to a contract tower in May 2001 in a move that garnered FAA funding and boosted tower pay.

Like Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City used to be burdened with high turnover at its control tower.

"The staffing problem with us was the same thing. It was money," said airport division director Ron Craft.

Controllers need rest

Cape Girardeau's tower is designed to operate with a staff of four, including the tower chief. But it's been short one controller for the past five months and the city's low pay has made it impossible to hire another controller, Loy said.

The situation has been even worse in recent weeks because one of the remaining controllers has been ill, forcing tower chief Larry Davis and another controller to work longer hours.

"Our controllers haven't had much time off," Loy said. "We have got to give these guys some rest."

The staffing shortage has prompted the city to reduce tower operations from 14 hours a day to 10 hours a day. Until recently the tower operated daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Now it's manned from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

That's not a problem for aviation in winter, but it's an inconvenience for pilots during the summer, when the extended daylight means more small planes are in the air in the early evening hours, Davis said.

The manpower shortage also leaves no scheduling flexibility for controllers. "Any absence is a crisis," he said. "It gets tough coming to work 48 hours a week."

The FAA prohibits controllers from working more than 10 hours a day and more than six days in a row.

'Added safety factor'

Bill Beard, a local pilot and owner of Cape Air Charter, said he hopes the city can keep the tower open.

"It's an added safety factor to have a tower here," he said. It also makes an area more attractive to businesses looking to locate in the Cape Girardeau area, Beard said.

Pilots can still fly in and out of the airport without a working tower. But Loy said it would be difficult to attract more airline service. The city currently is served by one commuter airline but would like to expand flights and attract a second carrier.

The FAA used to fund the city-run tower operation but stopped doing so in 1995 as part of a cost-cutting move.

Loy said the city spends $200,000 a year to operate the tower. The Missouri Department of Transportation has kicked in $125,000 annually to help pay the bill, leaving the city to pick up the remaining $75,000 in expenses.

But it's not enough, Loy said.

Starting pay for Cape Girardeau's controllers, who are city employees, is $13.50 an hour. That's $8 an hour less than the starting pay for controllers who work at a contract tower.

"We are a training ground for everybody," said Davis, explaining that controllers here routinely leave for higher-paying jobs at other towers.

Some re-enlisting

Davis said the tower used to attract ex-military controllers. But these days, the military is providing salaries and benefits that have military controllers re-enlisting. Those that leave the military are being hired immediately by the FAA to work in the agency's towers at major airports, he said.

The FAA instituted a new cost-sharing program within the past few years to help smaller airports, but funding depends on a cost-benefit ratio that takes into account the number of take-offs and landings at an airport.

Last year, Cape Girardeau's airport had 30,324 take-offs and landings or about 12,000 less than the Jefferson City airport.

But its cost-benefit ratio remains low at .26, according to the FAA. A ratio of 1.0 means that $1 in benefit for air traffic safety is yielded from every dollar spent.

The ratio for the Cape Girardeau airport means the FAA would only pay 26 percent of the cost of operating the tower. In contrast, the federal agency is paying 94 percent of that cost in Jefferson City because that airport has a .94 benefit-cost ratio. Loy said that's partly because National Guard helicopters are based there. Military operations receive higher weight in the FAA's calculations.

Loy believes the FAA's cost-benefit ratio for Cape Girardeau is too low and hopes to convince the federal agency to boost that number.

A tower run by a private contractor approved by the FAA would cost about $300,000 a year to operate or about $100,000 more than the current cost, Loy said. The FAA would pay only $78,000.

But if the city accepts federal dollars for the tower operation, it would lose state funding of $125,000 a year unless state lawmakers pass legislation that would keep the money flowing, Loy said.

If the city can secure FAA dollars and keep state funding, the actual cost to the city for operating the tower would be $97,000 a year, or $22,000 more than what the city currently spends.

State Rep. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, said he and other local lawmakers are working to make that happen. "We know what an economic engine that airport is not only for Cape Girardeau, but for the region," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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