natca history

In May 1989, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) celebrated the ratification of their first collective bargaining agreement. This landmark contract, approved by a decisive 84 percent of union […]

On Sept. 23-24, 1986, 72 delegates attended NATCA’s founding convention in Chicago including provisional representatives from each of the FAA’s nine regions. John Thornton, the founding father of NATCA, announced that NATCA had collected more than […]

NATCA is marking a notable anniversary: Ten years ago, on Feb. 14, 2012, President Obama signed H.R. 658, the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. It was the final step in making FAA Reauthorization a […]

(From the NATCA archives, “NATCA News,” October 1993) NATCA Lobby Week (1993) in Review Controllers Converge Upon Capitol Hill To Discuss NATCA’s Legislative AgendaRepresentatives Register Their Support for HR 2663 NATCA Lobby Week, by all estimates, […]

During NATCA’s early years, organizers John Thornton and Howie Barte found funding for the controllers’ organizing efforts after initial support and money from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) was exhausted by late 1985.

In October 1985, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association President Gene DeFries called Barte to say MEBA would fund them. While this relationship would define the organization for the rest of the 1980s, the Union was ready for a change by the 1990s.

The story of NATCA began long before the Union’s 1987 election and Federal Labor Relations Authority certification. It began with NATCA’s founding father, John F. Thornton, a gifted and influential leader whose passion for representing the interests of the nation’s air traffic controllers began with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), and continued as a national organizer of NATCA.

“He gave this union the foundation on which to build, and he set the tone that NATCA was a different union with different goals,” said NATCA President Paul Rinaldi. “Without John Thornton, NATCA may never have existed.”