If there is one thing I've learned in the past few days, acutely so, is that the vast majority of people do not understand the sheer complexity of what it takes to have an aviation industry.
[deleted]
Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
131–140 of 238 posts
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is disengenious. They received the same deferred resignation email that every other federal employee got. They weren't told to 'leave immediately' nor was anyone else, they were offered an option to leave or stay on for 9 months, with pay. I'm getting frustrated at 'my people' seemingly just making things up on this topic. Edit: Also linking another comment where ATC was literally told they're not in the offer..…
If I get an email from my superior telling me to either pledge loyalty or resign I'm going to read the very obvious writing on the wall here. You would have to be a massive idiot to not see it. And the ATC was told they're not included in the offer after the emails were already sent out. Like you trying to reframe it and add more context makes it more stupid, not less.
>pledge loyalty or resign
This is made up. It's a layoff letter like we see at big corps any other week. "We're reorganizing, here's an offer, take it or not, your job might get cut in 9 months."
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#133Please just entertain a hypothetical: If it turns out that the FAA was hiring much more slowly than it needed to be because it was unable to reach its DEI goals, can we all agree that we should stop doing DEI for important things?
Sure, if you’ll also entertain a non-hypothetical that DEI does not mean hiring quotas where you refuse to fill open spots, it means proactively reaching out to find talent in non-traditional areas (e.g. doing a job fair at an urban vocational school in addition to the usual ones at mostly-white colleges). And, if for some reason it turns out that the FAA was doing a terrible job of DEI and somehow was trying to meet…
> if you’ll also entertain a non-hypothetical that DEI does not mean hiring quotas where you refuse to fill open spots
I'm sure this is true about the FAA, I have no reason to doubt you, but quotas are a very real part of DEI in other sectors and slots do stay open until they find a suitable quota-fitting candidate.
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is disengenious. They received the same deferred resignation email that every other federal employee got. They weren't told to 'leave immediately' nor was anyone else, they were offered an option to leave or stay on for 9 months, with pay. I'm getting frustrated at 'my people' seemingly just making things up on this topic. Edit: Also linking another comment where ATC was literally told they're not in the offer..…
They didn't make anything up. What they said is 100% accurate and lines up with what you said, you just have additional context they didn't have. Your fight should be with the reporting outlets because that is how they are reporting it.
> Trump telling all ATC controllers to leave, immediately
this is not 100% accurate by any definition of the word accurate. It is an interpretation of a letter, and a wrong one in my opinion.
Believe me I'm quite pissed at the media for finally making both sides of the US political spectrum equally uninterested in facts
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#135The big question every one seems to be ignoring is whether air travel in the US should now be considered dangerous. If ATC is understaffed or filled with unqualified people, then how is any flight safe? Why would anyone get on a plane unless they really have to and have no other option?
Because air travel is ridiculously safe. The incident with the helicopter and the plane is making the rounds precisely because of how insanely improbable it is, and even then from what we know, chances are the error was in the helicopter, not the tower.
A plane and helicopter over DC came within 500' of each other over DC barely 24 hours before the crash. They avoided collision because they were over 1000' and the TCAS was still active: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huVFZ__q2rI
During the day the only thing that was keeping those collisions from happening under 1000' was pilots seeing each other. At night the only thing keeping it from happening was luck.
The error is in allowing flightpaths to be so close to each other in distance and time.
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#136I find it almost completely mind boggling that with all the breathless new coverage on the "incredible shortage of qualified tower personnel", I have yet to hear even one mention of what I find to be the elephant in the room. Uhhh...why not use AI to start controlling the airports and airplanes? Talk about an app that, to me at least, seems an almost trivial use of its abilities and I'm sure that an AI could be train…
Maybe because it'd be unwise to put an algorithm in control of human safety when it can't even tell that 9.9 is larger than 9.11?
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#137Hundreds of qualified applicants were denied jobs through a "Biographical Assessment" that you can take yourself: https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ Spend a bit of time taking it and it's clear what at least one reason for this shortage is.
Labor shortages don't exist. Every empty seat can be filled with attractive compensation until your unemployment rate hits zero. Labor competition has only one constraining factor, and it's name is money.
The correlation of compensation to educated workers probably explains why the US government is staffed by morons that treat the economy like a teething ring.
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Raise pay until you have enough staff. Federal workers have just been told to leave: * https://www.opm.gov/fork
I'm not sure how relevant that is to air traffic control. They don't work from home, they are heavily performance and standards based to even get a chance at joining, and there is no clear reason to assume to automatically exclude the air traffic control portion of the FAA from what's described in #3. The US federal government is one of the largest employers in the world (or the largest, depending exactly how you dec…
Getting rid of the WFH is just the easy thing. They are planning to gut the federal workforce generally.
That may be less sledgehammer-like when it comes to people whose jobs are obviously critical. But everyone else is on the chopping block, including quite a few whose absence will be noticed when people die.
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#139Feel like I'm having deja vu in away. Didn't this exact problem blow up a couple years ago?
There's been a lot of reporting in their vein over the last couple years—both on the ATC staffing shortage, and the large number close-calls at airports (which some observers link to ATC staffing). I.e.,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl... ("Airline Close Calls Happen Far More Often Than Previously Known" (2023))
- "But the most acute challenge, The Times found, is that the nation’s air traffic control facilities are chronically understaffed. While the lack of controllers is no secret — the Biden administration is seeking funding to hire and train more — the shortages are more severe and are leading to more dangerous situations than previously known."
- "As of May, only three of the 313 air traffic facilities nationwide had enough controllers to meet targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers, The Times found. Many controllers are required to work six-day weeks and a schedule so fatiguing that multiple federal agencies have warned that it can impede controllers’ abilities to do their jobs properly."
...
- "“The staffing shortage is beyond unsustainable. It has now moved into a phase of JUST PLAIN DANGEROUS,” one controller wrote to the F.A.A. last year in a confidential safety report that The Times reviewed."
- "“Controllers are making mistakes left and right. Fatigue is extreme,” the report continued. “The margin for safety has eroded tenfold. Morale is rock bottom. I catch myself taking risks and shortcuts I normally would never take.”"
Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows
#140Feel like I'm having deja vu in away. Didn't this exact problem blow up a couple years ago?
A couple years ago the transportation secretary tried to get funding to hire 2,000 more controllers. Congress said no
https://thehill.com/regulation/transportation/4617992-buttig...