You Call This Progress?

For years, Flight Service Stations have been the "Rodney Dangerfields" of general aviation: they got no respect, no respect at all. Some of that began to change in 2005, when Lockheed Martin took over operation of 58 Automated Flight Service Stations from the FAA. Slowly, things began to get better: Wait times shortened, briefers tried harder, fewer flight plans got lost. In recent months, I noticed what I consider substantial improvement at the Leesburg (Va.) facility and others.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Flight Service Stations (FSS) initially improved under Lockheed Martin's 2005 management but have recently seen a significant decline in service, marked by long wait times, harried briefers, and lost calls.
This deterioration is primarily caused by Lockheed Martin's delayed consolidation of 58 FSS facilities down to 20 regional hubs.
The consolidation efforts are creating bottlenecks due to employee training on new automation and inefficient call routing, leading to widespread pilot frustration and concerns over service quality and safety.

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For years, Flight Service Stations have been the “Rodney Dangerfields” of general aviation: they got no respect, no respect at all. Some of that began to change in 2005, when Lockheed Martin took over operation of 58 Automated Flight Service Stations from the FAA. Slowly, things began to get better: Wait times shortened, briefers tried harder, fewer flight plans got lost. In recent months, I noticed what I consider substantial improvement at the Leesburg (Va.) facility and others.

All that began to decline again earlier this year, however, as hold times lengthened and briefers were clearly more harried and under greater pressure than before. But in April, the bottom fell out. Suddenly, wait times got longer. Briefers clearly wanted me off the phone as soon as possible-gone were the days of a friendly chat or the opportunity to express a deeply felt thanks for their service. Since then, unbelievably, its gotten worse.