Local air traffic controllers Tuesday warned of a looming 'staffing crisis' that they said could lead to major flight delays and possible safety concerns. Representatives of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association argued that the Federal Aviation Administration has not adequately prepared for the wave of retirements expected to hit the industry in coming years. Nearly half of the nation's controllers—about 7,100—may retire during the next nine years, according to a U. S. Department of Transportation report. That's more than three times the number of controllers who have left in the past eight years. 'If the FAA does not hire large numbers of controllers immediately, there will be a necessary, significant increase in delays and, unfortunately, maybe even a reduction in the margin of safety,' said Mark Sherry, alternate Western Pacific regional vice president of the Air Traffic Controllers Association. Sherry, a controller at San Francisco International Airport, joined other local union representatives at a news conference in Fremont—part of a nationwide NATCA public awareness drive leading up to a U. S. Senate Appropriations Committee vote next month on FAA funding. The association and a bipartisan group of senators is calling on the committee to authorize $14 million for the FAA to begin hiring, saying 1,000 new controllers a year are needed to help stem the expected flood of retirees—those hired after 12,000 striking workers were fired by former President Reagan in 1981. But FAA officials say only about one-quarter of controllers traditionally retire when they first become eligible, and there won't be a mass exodus of controllers at any one time. FAA spokesman Donn Walker said the agency expects to see a large number of retirements when eligibility peaks in 2007, but denied there is a crisis. The agency will be ready to deal with the issue, he said. 'There is no staffing crisis, and there is no shortage of air traffic controllers,' he said. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said in June that the agency would present Congress with a plan by December to deal with the expected retirements, and Walker flatly denied NATCA' s gloomy predictions. 'They (NATCA representatives) have a crystal ball, I guess, that I don't have. They're making all these sort of wild predictions that don't have any basis in fact... We have the world's safest aviation system, and we will continue to have the world's safest aviation system. We will not do anything to jeopardize safety, despite what some people may tell you. ' However, Jeff Tilley, president of the NATCA local at the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Fremont, said the center already is facing a staffing crunch. 'At Oakland Center, we do not have a looming staffing crisis—we are in the middle of one,' Tilley said. 'We have already had days when we have been forced to curtail services and limit the efficiency of airline operations due to staffing shortages. ' The center, which is responsible for 18.8 million square miles of airspace, has 191 fully trained controllers and 57 trainees—20 short of the 268 it is authorized to have, Tilley said. Twenty-nine of the controllers are eligible for retirement and could leave at any time, and 25 more are scheduled to transfer. In the past eight years, about ______ controllers have retired.