Operation Air Safety and the Founding of PATCO

On June 10, 1968, television viewers received warning of an impending traffic jam from an unusual source: a guest on The Tonight Show. Speaking in his capacity as general counsel for the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), noted trial attorney F. Lee Bailey told host Johnny Carson that overwork and understaffing had brought the nation's air traffic controllers to a breaking point. Though Bailey insisted controllers would not call a strike, he warned that this overstretched workforce nevertheless had the power to dramatically impact air travel: "If they just followed regulations, instead of cutting corners to get more airplanes in…Kennedy, O’Hare, and L.A. would drop traffic by 50 percent."

Bailey's Tonight Show appearance was likely the first time most Americans had heard of PATCO, but it wouldn't be the last. Dubbed by historian Joseph A. McCartin as "an independent voice…unafraid to challenge the [Federal Aviation Administration]," PATCO represented the pent-up frustrations and middle-class hopes of thousands of civilian air traffic controllers. This essential but often overlooked group of federal employees had struggled for years to keep up with an unprecedented surge in commercial air travel. Between 1950 and 1960, the number of American airline passengers quadrupled, and by the mid-1960s controllers at the busiest airports handled upwards of 500,000 takeoffs and landings annually. In the New York metropolitan area alone, air traffic rose 17-percent from 1965 to 1966, while the number of controllers remained stagnant. Although controllers prided themselves on their ability to manage stressful workloads, many argued that their employer, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had failed to provide the personnel and equipment needed to continue doing so safely. Despite the controllers' best efforts, accident statistics seemed to reflect their concerns—according to reports in the New York Times, the nation witnessed a total of 10 deadly air accidents in the first eight months of 1967 and there was an annual average of 12 fatal crashes between 1962 and 1966.

Hoping to address these issues, veteran controllers Jack Maher and Mike Rock began hosting weekly meetings for their colleagues in the busy New York City area during the fall of 1967. These gatherings quickly revealed that air traffic centers were facing the same problems—too many planes, not enough staff, and outdated equipment. Equally important, the well-attended meetings also demonstrated that there was an appetite for a larger organization of controllers that could effectively pressure the FAA for reform. Recognizing the challenge this posed, Rock, Maher, and their allies began grappling with the question of how to create such a group. The answer they came up with? Enlist some star power to help make the controllers' case and then find a way to flex their collective muscles.

Best known at the time for handling several high-profile criminal cases, attorney F. Lee Bailey represented the first part of this organizing strategy. Rock knew that Bailey, a  former Marine Corps flyer, frequently piloted his personal aircraft in the crowded skies of the Northeast and reasoned that he might be sympathetic to the controllers' safety concerns. This assumption proved correct: after Rock and others regaled him with tales of staffing issues and close calls in the air traffic centers, Bailey agreed to help them form a national controllers' organization. Following a week of frenzied phone calls and planning, on January 11, 1968, roughly seven hundred controllers from across the nation gathered in a hotel ballroom near John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, to hear the celebrity lawyer speak. Drawing on his talent for courtroom oratory, Bailey argued that only an organization with a nationwide membership could command the respect, salaries, and benefits the controllers deserved. "You should be a professional," Bailey preached. "You should be like a pilot, you should be treated like a pilot, you should get a salary like a pilot." By the end of the evening, the repeated cheers and applause such words produced helped inspire the attendees to formally found PATCO.

In the weeks following the New York meeting, its attendees spread the news about PATCO far and wide. Recordings of Bailey's speech circulated as Rock, Maher, and other volunteers crisscrossed the country hosting smaller gatherings. Bailey organized as well, using his charisma and status as an outsider to help overcome the suspicions that frequently divided controllers from different parts of the country. Within a month, these meetings secured some 4,000 new PATCO members and local unions emerged from Florida to Alaska. Despite this explosive growth, the FAA viewed PATCO warily and refused to engage on the issues that most concerned its members. In particular, controllers expressed anger at the amount of mandatory unpaid overtime expected of them, which they argued was a product of understaffing that undermined safety. Faced with an unresponsive FAA and an energized army of newly organized controllers, PATCO's leaders began considering their next step—direct action.

During his conversation with Johnny Carson, Bailey had hinted at a developing plan that PATCO called "Operation Air Safety." FAA regulations required a minimum separation of three miles between aircraft on their final approach to an airport and five miles between departing aircraft. However, during busy periods in high volume cities, FAA supervisors often expedited air traffic by decreasing separation, a corner-cutting measure that put even more stress on overworked controllers. Operation Air Safety sought to expose this practice through a "work-to-rule" action. By strictly following the FAA’s own regulations in a handful of strategically placed airports, controllers could effectively slow air traffic throughout the entire nation. Though it risked angering millions of travelers, PATCO believed the operation would dramatically demonstrate the need for more staff and resources. "The controllers feel, without exception," Rock declared, "that their obligation to protect the public against unnecessary air hazards completely outweighs consideration of inconvenience which might arise if minimum separation is observed."

Operation Air Safety began in the busy control centers of New York City and Chicago on Monday, July 8, 1968, and quickly snarled air traffic above the cities. Controllers in Denver, Kansas City, and Washington soon joined the operation, causing flight delays to spread further. The impact was even felt overseas, leading one Illinois congressman to complain directly to the FAA's deputy administrator about a five-hour delay he experienced returning from Europe. Such complaints quickly multiplied, and the FAA began receiving angry messages from travelers wanting to know why the agency refused to discuss the controllers' concerns. While some decried the inconvenience caused by the delays, many complainants—especially those who identified themselves as pilots—found it difficult to argue with PATCO's focus on safety. One airline captain went so far as to explain the controllers' concerns midflight and encouraged his passengers to contact their representatives.

The FAA's initial response to Operation Air Safety was to deny that anything was happening. Instead, the agency's leaders argued that the wave of flight delays was simply the result of a sudden upsurge in air traffic. By the third week of the action, however, public calls for a resolution had become too loud and the FAA quietly agreed to meet with PATCO representatives. As both the slowdown and negotiations carried on into August and September, the controllers insisted they would work harder than ever to prevent delays so long as the FAA agreed to recognize PATCO and push for improvements in staffing, pay, and working conditions. For its part, the FAA insisted that the controllers disavow the future use of work-to-rule tactics. Eager to end the conflict, the two sides formalized these terms just after Labor Day on September 4, 1968, and the nation's air traffic soon returned to normal.

Lasting nearly two months, Operation Air Safety was the first time that a group of federal employees used a nationally coordinated job action to obtain an agreement on working conditions. PATCO's actions also helped secure additional air traffic control funding—Congress added emergency money to the FAA's hiring budget shortly after the slow-down started—and contributed to the passage of legislation providing overtime pay for controllers. In the years after the successful operation, PATCO's activism would make it a familiar name to travelers, FAA officials, and airline executives. The safety-minded actions of PATCO members in the summer of 1968 demonstrated just how essential air traffic controllers are to aviation.  

For the definitive history of PATCO, see Joseph A. McCartin, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2011).