Bay Area Air Traffic Control Is Down to 1 Meteorologist After Trump's Hiring Freeze

The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze is squeezing the team of meteorologists who help air traffic controllers inform pilots about the weather minute-by-minute as they steer airplanes in and out of the Bay Area’s three major airports.

For several weeks, a single meteorologist has staffed the National Weather Service’s Fremont-based Center Weather Service Unit Oakland after a forecaster there retired. The unit already had two vacant positions when President Trump ordered a federal hiring freeze on Jan. 20, which have not been filled.

“This person’s doing the job by themselves, and our hands are kind of tied because of the hiring freeze,” said Dalton Behringer, the Bay Area office’s union steward for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. “There’s definitely a possibility of a degradation of service.”

“A lot of people don’t even realize this job exists,” said Behringer, who is a meteorologist with the weather service’s Bay Area office but spoke to KQED after hours in his union capacity. “Ninety-five percent of the delays at San Francisco International Airport are actually due to the weather.”

Meteorologists located at the weather service offices in Seattle, Washington, and Palmdale, California, are helping, but those teams are also short-staffed, Behringer said.

Trump’s order included a non-specific exemption for public safety jobs, which the White House has said includes air traffic controllers. However, it is not clear if the meteorologists who support them are also exempt. Behringer said he is not sure if the administration will fill the vacancies and is unsure who could authorize a hire; typically, regional managers would do so, but it would require approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The meteorologist works with the air traffic controllers at a command center in Fremont. Their role is to provide real-time weather updates seven days a week, forecasting any turbulence from around 40,000 feet in the air down to the runway.

This includes issuing pre-shift briefings, weather advisories and coordinating with the weather service’s Aviation Weather Center. The work is similar to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s public-facing weather service located in Monterey. But the center’s forecasters are looking for threats to airplanes, thunderstorms, strong wind, volcanic ash and anything else that could affect flights.

This information, compiled by looking at local weather observations and satellite imagery, is vital for safely landing the around 1.2 million passenger flights and 140,000 cargo flights that travel to the region each year.

The meteorologists from this office provide guidance to jets flying west from places like Nevada, north from Southern California, east as they approach from Asia and south as they draw near from Alaska, Behringer said.

“Aspects of the job are quite hidden,” Behringer said. “If you’re on a flight and everything went smoothly, you can thank the air traffic controllers, but a meteorologist was feeding them the information, and in this case, the sole meteorologist there at the Oakland Center.”

San José Mineta International Airport officials said they “aren’t in a position to provide feedback” on the situation. San Francisco International Airport press officers did not respond to KQED’s interview request.

Officials with the Oakland International Airport said in a statement that it “relies upon its partners for flight traffic direction and weather data” and referred KQED to the Federal Aviation Administration for further comment. The FAA directed questions to NOAA.

Scott Smullen, NOAA’s deputy director of communications, would not speculate if the hiring freeze could impact its service to the region. “Per long-standing practice, we are not discussing internal personnel and management matters,” Smullen said.

He said the agency remains dedicated to its mission of “providing timely information, research, and resources that serve the American public and ensure our nation’s environmental and economic resilience.” He added agency staff will “continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission.”

There are 21 of these weather service units nationwide who work alongside air traffic controllers. NOAA and the FAA founded the program after a Southern Airways flight flew into a thunderstorm and crashed while en route to Atlanta in 1977. An investigation found that air traffic controllers needed timely weather information.

While Behringer said the safety of passengers is not in jeopardy, a single sick day could create problems.

The meteorologists are employees of the weather service, which pays for their time off. The FAA funds their salaries.

“Safety and efficiency are really the top issues,” Behringer said. “If you have a weather surprise on your hands and suddenly you have to change the traffic pattern, then the controllers may have a little more urgency.”