Sequestration for better or worse...

Sequestration will soon be a plan if not done so already for numerous of agencies and departments within the U.S. for budget and debt issues through Congress.  With United States fiscal cliff, sequestration is a good place to start in cutting federal budget.  However, it will cause many furloughs in certain industries.  With that being said, the aviation industry will most likely be the 1st to get severely sequestered. 

According to a USA Governemnt article, sequestration, sometimes called the sequester, is a process that automatically cuts the federal budget across most departments and agencies.  Congress included the threat of sequestration in the Budget Control Act of 2011 as a way to encourage compromise on deficit reduction efforts.  "The President and Congress have had a year and a half to come up with a smarter way to reduce spending, and they have failed" (Widom, 2013).  With no solution in sight after March 1st 2013, the U.S. is now stuck with sequestration, which is likely to result in $85 billion in cuts over the next year alone, with reductions being split equally between defense and domestic spending (USA.gov, 2013).  In my opinion, I think that sequestration should have taken place years ago so that we would not be in so much debt crisis in today’s society.  As Charles Spence stated in his article, “FAA spending over the past few years has shown several areas where belts could be tightened to prevent any cuts in more important places. These include $179 million for FAA employee travel and $143 million a year to maintain a fleet of 46 aircraft. Thune and Shuster say the FAA has $2.7 billion in non-personnel operations costs that should have been examined before furloughs were even considered.”

While cuts are being made progressively in certain industries, sequestration has definitely become a plan for the the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take advantage of for the aviation world. The FAA is planning for over $600 million in spending cuts for the 2013 fiscal year. The government agency will not only be furloughing workers, but will also be reducing funding and closing over 100 air traffic control facilities, eliminate the overnight shift for at least 60 facilities, and reduce preventive maintenance and support for all air traffic control equipment. The high standards of safety in the aviation industry will also be affected (Matteson, 2013). This will not only affect the efficiency of the aviation industry, but also the safety, aircraft operations and maintenance.  This will also include aviation managers as well in which I am a bit concerned about due to being a avaiation management graduate:

"The furloughs will include all management and non-management employees working within the Air Traffic Organization" (Matterson, 2013).

 

Sequestration will also cause more delays and higher airfare. The reduced number of ATC facilities limits the amount of aircraft that can be safely followed by the controllers. This will create more delays during peak times. These delays could regularly reach 90 minutes during peak times. The FAA expects that airlines will estimate these delays and will change their schedules and cancel flights so they do not go bankrupt. The consequence of these changes will be a rise in airline tickets to compensate for lost revenues.

From what I've gathered, I think the sequestration will not benefit the industries including aviation.   If the government  stop wasting billions of dollars on unnecessary needs, maybe the U.S. wouldn't be facing budgeting and furloughs in the U.S.  It’s obvious that aviation will take a big hit and that there will be a lot of disappointed employees losing their jobs and that I now will have to be cautious on what organization, department, and facility I choose to work in.

 

Sources:

Matteson, C.  (2013, March 9).  How sequestration affects aviation industry.  Retrieved from: http://voices.yahoo.com/how-sequestration-affects-aviation-industry-12040508.html

Spence, C.  (2013, March 2013).  Some question faa’s selection of sequestion cuts.  Retrieved from:  http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2013/03/some-question-faas-selection-of-sequestration-cuts/

Widom, W.  (2013, February 28). What is Sequestration & Why Politicians Are a Bunch of Windbags.  Retrieved from: http://www.chicagonow.com/families-in-the-loop/2013/02/what-is-sequestration-and-why-partisan-politics-is-wrong/

USA.gov.  (2013, February 26).  What is Sequestration?  Retrieved from:  http://blog.usa.gov/post/44071444149/what-is-sequestration