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America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

cnn.com

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Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#21

Post by novemp »

eterm wrote: post #8
Ekaros wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or cut down on flights. You could easily ban private flights until there is enough capacity.

Don't ban. Tax. Never ban. Tax low capacity flights more. That both reduces the number of flights and raises money which can be put toward paying ATCs more and increasing the headcount. You then have a lever available to dial up and down to further reduce flights / raise money. Banning is expensive and increases legislative and judicial burden. Taxing is a much more efficient way to stop people doing things. You have…

I fear this would only exacerbate the problem of carriers selling more tickets than there are seats.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#23

Post by _jss »

hansvm wrote: post #11

This should be easy enough to solve. Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class. You get bonus points if their jets are also delayed during normal taxiing and clearance requests -- explain that it's for their safety, since they're more important than everyone else and can't slot in to the same sorts of back-to-back landings that the com…

You'd have to change more regulations, because airports don't close when ATC closes, it regresses to an untowered airport environment (and related airspace designation).

ATC is there to provide specific services that increase safety and throughput (mostly by sequencing and separation).

If you did this with the ruling class, they'd likely pass regulations that would benefit themselves disproportionately and hurt general aviation (the small little Cessnas flying around). There is already a bunch of problems with privatized ATC, don't make it worse.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#24

Post by psunavy03 »

butterlettuce wrote: post #16

Fellas, I got a question. Is it really safe to fly these days if this is now a national discussion?

It has always been and will continue to be more safe than driving to the airport. The fact that something extraordinarily safe is potentially less safe is a topic for discussion, but not at the expense of realizing the relative risks of everything else.

Prior to the midair at DCA, there had not been a fatal (edit) airliner crash in this country since 2009, and there had not been a midair collision involving an airliner since the 1970s. The fact that some people have an irrational fear of flying does not justify that irrational fear dictating policy any more than people who have an irrational fear of clowns wanting them banned.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#25

Post by GiorgioG »

hansvm wrote: post #11

This should be easy enough to solve. Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class. You get bonus points if their jets are also delayed during normal taxiing and clearance requests -- explain that it's for their safety, since they're more important than everyone else and can't slot in to the same sorts of back-to-back landings that the com…

> Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class

The ruling class flies private aircraft and don't have to operate out of large municipal airports.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#26

Post by mooreds »

butterlettuce wrote: post #16

Fellas, I got a question. Is it really safe to fly these days if this is now a national discussion?

Here's a study[0] looking at data from 2022 that says flying keeps getting safer. The press release[1] has some nice quotes:

> “You might think there is some irreducible risk level we can’t get below,” adds Barnett, a leading expert in air travel safety and operations. “And yet, the chance of dying during an air journey keeps dropping by about 7 percent annually, and continues to go down by a factor of two every decade.”

0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09696...

1: https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-flying-keeps-getting-safer-0...

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#27

Post by psunavy03 »

hansvm wrote: post #11

This should be easy enough to solve. Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class. You get bonus points if their jets are also delayed during normal taxiing and clearance requests -- explain that it's for their safety, since they're more important than everyone else and can't slot in to the same sorts of back-to-back landings that the com…

This is childish.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#28

Post by _jss »

ryandrake wrote: post #19
eterm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't ban. Tax. Never ban. Tax low capacity flights more. That both reduces the number of flights and raises money which can be put toward paying ATCs more and increasing the headcount. You then have a lever available to dial up and down to further reduce flights / raise money. Banning is expensive and increases legislative and judicial burden. Taxing is a much more efficient way to stop people doing things. You have…

Careless and hamfisted taxing/banning of "private jets" can have the unintended effect of also killing light piston general aviation, flight instruction, and the whole pipeline of training the next generation of airline pilots. Flight training is almost always low capacity (one-on-one) so uncarefuly-crafted legislation could catch it in the blast radius. Piloting is already one of the more expensive careers to train…

Landing fees already have this built into the structure, along with waived fees for fuel purchases, etc.

It probably is reasonable to look at occupancy percentage along with engine type, and adjust landing fees based on that. Two out of 18 souls on board with a turbine? High landing fees, divert some to an ATC fund.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#29

Post by lenerdenator »

7speter wrote: post #9
Apreche wrote: post #5

How many of those nerds who role play as air traffic controllers on flight simulations at home qualified to do it for real? How much extra training would they need?

From what I understand, if they are over 30 and have less than 20/20 vision, they aren’t qualified.

Seems like a problem to me; nearsightedness is becoming more and more common.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#30

Post by mooreds »

harimau777 wrote: post #22

How much do they get paid?

From https://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers :

> The approximate median annual wage for air traffic control specialists is $127,805. The salaries for entry-level air traffic control specialists increase as they complete each new training phase.

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