A brief Air Traffic Control overview:

Towers control aircraft on the airport as well as those in the air within approximately five to ten miles around the airport and up to about two thousand five hundred feet.  Towers make sure runways are clear for landing and take-off or that the specified separation is applied for these operations.  Towers generally control aircraft taxiing on some portions of the airport.

Approach Controls (TRACONs) work the aircraft transitioning in and out of airport airspace up to about ten to fifteen thousand feet and are intermediary between the towers and centers. The Tracon generally sequences all IFR traffic into streams and "fine tunes" specified spacing for the various airports under its jurisdiction.  Spacing is generally based on airport conditions such as wind, available runways, visibility, cloud layers, guidance equipment, and others.

En-Route Centers (ARTCC) pretty much work the rest of the available airspace up to sixty thousand feet and sometimes higher. Centers provide sequencing and spacing for Tracons as well as other adjacent Centers.  Oakland Center has two Oceanic areas that work the majority of the Pacific Ocean.  These two areas use separation rules that don't require the use of RADAR since none is available over the water.  Oakland Center has three other areas that control chunks of airspace over Northern California and Western Nevada.  My area in Oakland Center works the airspace north of the San Francisco Bay Area to the Oregon border and east to near the Utah border. This area also has sections that are quite similar to an approach control (in the vicinity of Santa Rosa, Napa, Chico, and Redding) so the work is never dull.  Each area is further subdivided into sectors.  Sectors are defined by map type boundaries as well as vertical boundaries and are assigned discrete radio frequencies.  If it flies, we work it.  General Aviation, Commercial, Military, etc.

Other info:

Most delays are a result of weather changes or having more flights scheduled than an airport can accept over a given period.  Local and National traffic Flow programs are constantly initiated or modified to try to minimize delays as much as possible.  Believe me, it's not an exact science.  Controllers on the whole do their best to minimize delays as much as possible as well as helping aircraft make up time or stay on tight schedules by shortening routes when possible.  We take pride in making our Air Traffic system work as safely and as efficiently as possible while working with the equipment available.  Controllers make the system work.  Unfortunately, the shortsightedness of the recent administration has reduced moral, job satisfaction, and the number of veteran controllers to basement levels.  Bad news for travelers.

I'm a member of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) which is concerned with issues that affect air safety and the controller workforce. I have served as President at Palo Alto Tower, San Jose Tower, and and Area Representative at Oakland Center.

 We are both, NATCA and I, committed to improving the work place and making the United States Air Traffic Control System the safest in the world.

NATCA membership is also open to non-controllers through the Associate Member Program. This program will allow you to stay abreast of current issues and concerns with regard to Controllers and the Air Traffic System as well as supporting our efforts. E-mail me for information or go to NATCA's membership pages. 

Information about becoming an Air Traffic Controller is available HERE.

Loads of additional information available on the main NATCA web site.

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