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America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

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Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#161

Post by rufus_foreman »

legitster wrote: post #79
tim333 wrote: post #75

There's a lawsuit going on: >FAA embroiled in lawsuit alleging it turned away 1,000 applicants based on race — that contributed to staffing woes https://nypost.com/2025/01/31/us-news/faa-embroiled-in-lawsu... The guy behind it is quite interesting. Got 100% on his exams but told they were only hiring 'diverse' folk https://archive.ph/ixmFB

> When Mr Brigida tried again to become an air traffic controller under the new tests, he said he failed the biographical questionnaire because he “didn’t fit the preferred ethnic profile”. This dude leading the lawsuit is incredibly unreliable. The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire: https://123atc.com/biographical-assessment It was a questi…

>> The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire

Looks like this is the case, https://casetext.com/case/brigida-v-buttigieg-1.

"Though not at issue in this motion, the Plaintiffs allege that the FAA failed to 'validate' the Biographical Questionnaire, and that the Biographical Questionnaire awarded points to applicants in a fashion untethered to the qualifications necessary to be an air traffic controller. For instance, applicants could be awarded fifteen points, the highest possible for any question, if they indicated their lowest grade in high school was in a science class. But applicants received only two points if they had a pilot's certificate, and no points at all if they had a Control Tower Operator rating, even though historic research data indicated that those criteria had 'a positive relationship with ATCS training outcomes'. Further, if applicants answered that they had not been employed at all in the prior three years, they received 10 points, the most awarded for that question."

Can you explain to me why it was more important for air traffic controller candidates to be bad at science and unemployed than it was for them to be pilots or trained in air traffic control?

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#162

Post by toast0 »

sc68cal wrote: post #46
GiorgioG wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They're not going to want to fly to a tiny airport in the middle of nowhere and then have to drive into the city. That defeats the whole point

Most places I've lived, there are tiny airports much more conveniently located than the large commercial airport. I would absolutely fly out of smaller airports, but don't because I fly commercial, and if they even fly out of the smaller airports it usually means more stops.

Depends where you're going though. DCA looks pretty convenient if you're visiting the capital; but lots of big cities have smaller airports that are more convenient if you can land at any airport.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#163

Post by calmbonsai »

legitster wrote: post #77

Everyone is going to make this about money or unions or etc, but my employer briefly worked with some ATC employee groups and I can tell you exactly why they are short staffed: - The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10% of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications - The trainin…

It's fiction, but for some sense of ATC stress, watch "Pushing Tin": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Tin

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#164

Post by XCabbage »

legitster wrote: post #79
tim333 wrote: post #75

There's a lawsuit going on: >FAA embroiled in lawsuit alleging it turned away 1,000 applicants based on race — that contributed to staffing woes https://nypost.com/2025/01/31/us-news/faa-embroiled-in-lawsu... The guy behind it is quite interesting. Got 100% on his exams but told they were only hiring 'diverse' folk https://archive.ph/ixmFB

> When Mr Brigida tried again to become an air traffic controller under the new tests, he said he failed the biographical questionnaire because he “didn’t fit the preferred ethnic profile”. This dude leading the lawsuit is incredibly unreliable. The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire: https://123atc.com/biographical-assessment It was a questi…

Indeed, it didn't have race-based questions, which I don't think anyone claimed. Rather it had totally arbitrary questions, not related to merit in any plausible way, and a score cutoff that made it highly likely you'd fail if you hadn't been tipped off with the correct answers.

For instance, there is a 15-point question for which you have to answer that your worst grade in high school was in Science, and a separate 15-point question where you have to answer that your worst grade in college was in History/Political Science; picking any of the other options (each question has 5 possible answers) means 0 marks for that question. Collectively, these two questions alone account for one eighth of all the available points. (Many questions were red herrings that were actually worth nothing.)

But then the same blacks-only group that had lobbied internally to get the questionairre instituted (the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees) leaked the "correct" answers to the arbitrary questions to its members, allowing them to get full marks. Effectively this was a race-based hiring cartel. Non-blacks couldn't pass; blacks unwilling to join segregated racial affinity groups or unwilling to cheat the test couldn't pass; but corrupt blacks just needed to cheat when invited to and they would pass easily, entering the merit-based stage of hiring with the competition already eliminated by the biographical questionairre.

(A sad injustice is that blacks who wouldn't join the NBCFAE or cheat the test, and so suffered the same unfair disadvantage as whites, are excluded from the class in the class-action lawsuit over this whole mess. Since the legal argument is that it was discrimination against non-blacks, blacks don't get to sue - they lost out because of their integrity, not their race, and they have no recourse at law for that.)

See the questions at https://github.com/kaisoapbox/kaisoapbox.github.io/blob/main... or read an account of the story at either https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-... (short) or https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa... (long).

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#165

Post by opoolaka »

trunnell wrote: post #20

To those who know more about ATC: is there any hope of automation?

Ton of people are working on it,

but forget the focus on automating air traffic control, datalink, complex ground IT, remote controls.. That is way to costly and difficult to do in the context of a collection of decentralized legacy systems.

Instead most people are trying to get rid of paper strips (notes used by ATC), and sell complex system that try to automate conflict management.

The hard thing is to improve the UX, the ATC has to communicate with humans (hard even with the highly codified language used), and DO NOT want to solve technical issues, the system has to indicate potential conflicts well in advance but not nag for it at a bad time. They are a lot of human factors to take in consideration and a system well designed with the air traffic controller at the center of it could help a lot.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#166

Post by toast0 »

fatbird wrote: post #123
wry_discontent wrote: post #12

My dad was an air traffic controller until the mid 10's and this has been a problem easily since like 2005. They struggled to recruit people who could do the job at all, and when people got into the building to be trained (after an initial training) most of them would quit because they couldn't do it.

Is there no way to restructure the job to be less onerous to the individual? I don't mean software that automates things, I mean things like more staff, shorter hours, etc. Or is there an irreducible complexity to it that mandates a single person handle everything in a given sector?

I'm not an ATC, but I think there's a clear need for awareness of potentially conflicting traffic. If you divide that traffic over more people, you need to add communication between the controllers in a way that you don't when it's all handled by a single person.

That's not to say there's not ways to divide it up, but it's not always easily divisible. Well implemented technology can help, but poorly implemented technology can hurt, so everything needs to be done slowly and carefully.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#167

Post by wbl »

brandonmenc wrote: post #147
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control... which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.

The idea back then was a one-time amnesty in exchange for a secure border, which didn't happen. That's why Republicans are unwilling to budge a second time.

Who ran ICE for the next 6 years?

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#168

Post by paulproteus »

AutistiCoder wrote: post #140
legitster wrote: post #77

Everyone is going to make this about money or unions or etc, but my employer briefly worked with some ATC employee groups and I can tell you exactly why they are short staffed: - The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10% of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications - The trainin…

I've dreamed of having an AI model run ATC. Just train an AI on ATC recordings and other data, maybe throw in some reinforcement learning,and then test it in low-stakes commercial airspace (like a regional airport)

Sounds good! Maybe you can start a business and have a low-stakes regional airport work with you. I think the main way to do it is as an add-on/assistant for the existing toolset.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#169

Post by 13_9_7_7_5_18 »

legitster wrote: post #77

Everyone is going to make this about money or unions or etc, but my employer briefly worked with some ATC employee groups and I can tell you exactly why they are short staffed: - The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10% of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications - The trainin…

[dead]

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#170

Post by [deleted] »

psunavy03 wrote: post #35
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?

The irony of someone on THIS site of all of them scoffing at other people for being nerds . . .

[deleted]
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