FSS “modernization”

[Diana]

Now that Lockheed Martin has won the contract, change is in the air. How do you think it will change? Do you think consolidation of the FSS facilities will have a negative or a positive effect? Do you think we will really get an improvement in services?

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Its going to get just like it is now, calling any other huge impersonal business whose only concern is the bottom line. You will get at least 2 minutes of automated telephone prompts, and if you are not cutoff, and if you are able to find a selection out of the 24 available that gets you to a living human, the $3.00 per hour person answering from the India will spend the next 5 minutes verifying your personal information and seeing if you truly have the right to be calling, and then they will take a few minutes to give you a sales pitch to upgrade your present access and finallly when you get to ask your questions, they will have no ability to help you whatsoever IF you can understand their dialect.
There, how's that for a sunshiney Sunday morning lift-you-up?

Sorry I have been dealing with a bunch of said companies lately... But I am not really optimistic about the change with AFFS... I think we have it so good now but we have no idea that we do.

 

[wsuffa]

Gotta agree with Dave here. The push will be to try and force us to use DUATS, although in some areas (DC, for example), you MUST file with FSS. It's cheaper with DUATS.

Sorta like calling one of the credit card companies. Ever notice that the list of options DOES NOT list an option to talk to someone. But you can press "0" and get a human.....

 

[Brian Austin]

I thought the contract had some sort of performance guarantees built into it?

 

[wsuffa]

I thought the contract had some sort of performance guarantees built into it?

Ever dealt with a Government contractor?

 

[Brian Austin]

Ever dealt with a Government contractor?

No, but I've BEEN a government contractor. We took those performance requirements seriously. I guess that's not the norm, huh?

 

[wsuffa]

No, but I've BEEN a government contractor. We took those performance requirements seriously. I guess that's not the norm, huh?

Not IMNSHE. (Lessee, that'll get me dinged for acronyms). OK, try again. Not in my not so humble experience. When I did some gov't contracting, we took 'em seriously, too. But I also saw the big guys (and the folks that won this one are big) get away with a lot. There's probably some financial penalty built in, with the ultimate death penalty of revokation, but that only comes after a long, lengthy appeal process. If they made extra money by cutting corners, then the penalty may work out to be a wash.

I'm very cynical after seeing how the game is really played....

 

[cherokeeflyboy]

dont think much is going to change at first, The afss specialists are being offered jobs
so the same people will be briefing you. Some good some bad most jjust doing the best they can with OLD equipment

 

[lsimonds]

I think comparing the service offered by low-density FAA towers before and after contracting should give an idea. The biggest challenges (IMO) AFSS briefers have had were outdated equipment and the morale-buster of wondering what their fate was for some years now. I'll be surprised if the service isn't better with Lockheed Martin.