America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
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Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#2Then start paying them
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#3Then start paying them
Or cut down on flights. You could easily ban private flights until there is enough capacity.
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#4Seems like a colossal error to have asked them all to quit.
I wonder -- if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B? The deadline they have been given to decide is Thursday; I have not seen any communication as to whether ATC (and TSA, etc.) will be operational Friday.
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#5How 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?
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#6Seems like a colossal error to have asked them all to quit. I wonder -- if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B? The deadline they have been given to decide is Thursday; I have not seen any communication as to whether ATC (and TSA, etc.) will be operational Friday.
I'd be interested to see the daily staffing levels over the past couple of weeks. If anyone knows where that could be found.
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#7Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#8Then start paying them
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 to be careful not to only lock the poorest in society out while the rich enjoy carrying on regardless, but in the case of low capacity private jets, I don't think that's a significant problem.
If the tax doesn't put off people enough, just raise it more until either it does start to dampen demand or you're raising so much money through it you no longer care and have a new revenue stream to spend on fixing whatever problems they're causing.
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#9How 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.
Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
#10Seems like a colossal error to have asked them all to quit. I wonder -- if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B? The deadline they have been given to decide is Thursday; I have not seen any communication as to whether ATC (and TSA, etc.) will be operational Friday.
I'd be interested to see the daily staffing levels over the past couple of weeks. If anyone knows where that could be found.
I couldn't find anything immediately definitive but this 2023 survey of federal workers was quite eye-opening: https://ourpublicservice.org/fed-figures/a-profile-of-the-20...