The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Friday it will close 149 air traffic control towers run by contractors at small and mid-sized airports across the country due to the mandatory federal budget cuts known as sequestration, leaving many in the airline industry questioning how it might affect safety.

“The real concern that we have is that the reductions and tower closings are really kind of arbitrary and there are a number of other cost saving measures that could be considered,” said Heidi Williams, vice president of air traffic and modernization for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), an organization that objected to the cuts.

Most of the roughly 5,000 US public airports don’t have control towers, but Williams said air traffic controllers add an additional layer of safety.

Of the 189 towers that were on a proposed closure list released earlier this month, 149 towers will be shut down beginning April 7. The FAA said that closing the additional towers “would have a negative impact on the national interest.”

“We heard from communities across the country about the importance of their towers and these were very tough decisions,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “Unfortunately we are faced with a series of difficult choices that we have to make to reach the required cuts under sequestration.”

The FAA announcement affects smaller airports that have fewer than 10,000 commercial arrivals or departures spanning dozens of states.

As is the case with the Frederick Municipal Airport in Maryland, located less than an hour outside of Washington, its 106-foot tower which is now on the list to close, was opened less than a year ago with $5.3 million in federal stimulus money.

The closures are part of the $85 billion in federal government spending cuts which went into effect March 1. The FAA was tasked with finding $627 million in cuts from its budget by September 30.

The FAA also announced that most of its 47,000 workers will have unpaid furloughs one day for every two week pay period through the end of September.

Source: FAA