Narrative:

We have a lot of construction going on. Our primary departure runway is closed; along with some major taxiways; leaving us having to juggle using the other four for arrival and departures. We are currently training a group of tower tmcs. They have been directed by the operations manager to stay on an east flow unless the winds reach opposite direction; tailwind; 10 KTS or greater. This conflicts with guidance in the 7110.65 and safety of the operation. Several aircraft were rolling to the end of the runway; causing trailing aircraft to go-around; or were coming in too high requiring them to go-around; and the compression on final was increasing the risk of runway incursions due to shortened opportunities to cross the runway. Lahso unavailable due to tailwind component. Our management's sole concern is the impact on delays. They completely abdicate their safety mandate by issuing directives/policies like this. They are counting on the layers of bureaucracy to insulate them in case something happens; like a runway overrun or a go-around. Management should be ordered to stop concerning itself with delays. All delay tracking equipment should be removed. Stop involving users in their decision-making in the day to day operations. While I believe it worthwhile that users know what is going on; time and again management has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to insure their sacred trust of safety of the NAS ahead of getting the approval of the users. They pay lip service to creating a 'safety culture'; then they go behind closed doors and order supervisors and tmcs to create operational flows and make decisions that are the least safe. I cannot remember a single time that; without loud input from the workforce; management made a decision on their own that wasn't the least safe option; in terms of workload; conflicting traffic; runway incursion mandates; etc. Why should they? Until body bags are being filled; they have no accountability for these bad decisions if the controllers keep it safe anyway. 'Safety culture' shouldn't be defined as system safety in spite of the decisions of management but because of the controllers.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: IAH Controller expressed concern regarding management's runway use philosophy noting minimal system delays are given more priority than safety.

Narrative: We have a lot of construction going on. Our primary departure runway is closed; along with some major taxiways; leaving us having to juggle using the other four for arrival and departures. We are currently training a group of Tower TMCs. They have been directed by the Operations Manager to stay on an east flow unless the winds reach opposite direction; tailwind; 10 KTS or greater. This conflicts with guidance in the 7110.65 and safety of the operation. Several aircraft were rolling to the end of the runway; causing trailing aircraft to go-around; or were coming in too high requiring them to go-around; and the compression on final was increasing the risk of runway incursions due to shortened opportunities to cross the runway. LAHSO unavailable due to tailwind component. Our Management's sole concern is the impact on delays. They completely abdicate their safety mandate by issuing directives/policies like this. They are counting on the layers of bureaucracy to insulate them in case something happens; like a runway overrun or a go-around. Management should be ordered to stop concerning itself with delays. All delay tracking equipment should be removed. Stop involving users in their decision-making in the day to day operations. While I believe it worthwhile that users know what is going on; time and again Management has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to insure their sacred trust of safety of the NAS ahead of getting the approval of the users. They pay lip service to creating a 'safety culture'; then they go behind closed doors and order Supervisors and TMCs to create operational flows and make decisions that are the least safe. I cannot remember a single time that; without loud input from the workforce; Management made a decision on their own that wasn't the least safe option; in terms of workload; conflicting traffic; runway incursion mandates; etc. Why should they? Until body bags are being filled; they have no accountability for these bad decisions if the Controllers keep it safe anyway. 'Safety culture' shouldn't be defined as system safety in spite of the decisions of Management but because of the Controllers.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.