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US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

thedailybeast.com

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Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#351

Post by toomuchtodo »

vidarh wrote: post #321
user68858788 wrote: post #311

A quick search shows that there are over 20,000 ATCs employed in the United States. (I'm not confident in the sources I found - anyone know where to get reliable stats for things like this?) Is the number of retiring ATCs higher than normal? I assume it is, but the article doesn't mention the baseline. It's hard for me to understand the scale of the issue from this article alone.

If we take the lower number of 15, than that is nearly 5.5k a year. Even if we round it down, that'd be 25% a year if your number is right and this situation continued. Of course it can't continue very long, because there won't be that many old enough to have the choice, presumably. But it's a crazy rate.

There is currently a shortage of ~3k controllers (as of this comment), and the time to train and put new controllers into service is significant. Excess retirements reduces time to system failure due to labor shortages.

https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications

> Entry-level applicants must complete required training courses and spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Applicants are paid while in training. After graduating the academy, individuals are placed in locations across the country and must gain 2-3 years additional training, both classroom and on-the-job experience, before becoming a certified professional controller. This rigorous training includes close supervision and evaluation by senior controllers that ensures controllers are competent, professional, know their airspace environment and can deal with the pressures and high pace of the job.

Controllers in training have been quitting because of the shutdown.

Flights to Los Angeles Airport halted due to air traffic controller shortage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45715771 - October 2025

> The shutdown is having real consequences, as some students at the controller academy have already decided to abandon the profession because they don’t want to work in a job they won’t be paid for, Duffy said. That will only make it harder for the FAA to hire enough controllers to eliminate the shortage, since training takes years. He said that the government is only a week or two away from running out of money to pay students at the academy.

Air traffic controller shortages cause widespread flight delays amid government shutdown - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/air-traffic-controller-... - November 1st, 2025

> “Currently nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are experiencing staffing shortages, and nearly 90 percent of air traffic controllers are out at New York–area facilities,” the FAA said in a statement posted on X on Friday evening.

(think in systems)

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#352

Post by dragonwriter »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #332
antonymoose wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of this recipients are Republican constituents?

It doesn't matter. A Representative represents everyone in their district, not their voters.

> It doesn't matter.

I think you mean it shouldn't matter.

> A Representative represents everyone in their district

In theory, maybe; in practice, very much not; its one of the strongest arguments for having a system that has proportional representation (whether with small multimember districts or at-large proportionality or a hybrid system like Mixed Member Proportional.)

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#353

Post by arkis22 »

senderista wrote: post #319
retrochameleon wrote: post #307

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Sometimes I look at our country like a strategy game: where we are investing resources, infrastructure planning and investment, active problems or threats and how they are being prioritized and handled, managing citizen happiness, etc. The last 10-20 years feel like a massive lost opportunity to invest in some of these improvements and forward-thinking planning. In th…

I can't escape the impression that the person currently most responsible for these shortsighted decisions simply doesn't care what happens after he's gone.

It is fascinating how there are two current opinions about Donald Trump and that one is that he is a serial liar and the other is that he tells it how it is. I'm sympathetic to the latter because he manages to talk without a filter, but the things he lies about are much more serious and much more obvious and much more dangerous. But it gets him very far because people seem to think that "owning the libs" is the success condition for domestic and foreign policy.

I agree though, the next 3 years are going to be him insisting things are great. China will probably try for Taiwan after he leaves and he'll just continue to say things like they wouldn't have done it if he was in office. And sure that's partly true, because why not just wait a year until he's gone, then China can really split the electorate on what we should do.

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#354

Post by [deleted] »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #322
samrus wrote: post #296

So the deadlock is over ACA premium tax credits. A subsidy towards premiums, inversely proportional to income. Republicans have to budge on this right? Health insurance is already dire in this country, you cant fuck it up even more. The working class is the biggest part of the citizenry, and we are in an affordability crisis

60% of ACA recipients are in Republican controlled districts. That shows how much they care about their constituents.

[deleted]

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#355

Post by foobarchu »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #342
jsrcout wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, either (except, of course, to himself).

There's something particularly pathetic about lauding a guy for not taking a $400K yearly salary when he spends $4M a weekend on taxpayer money playing golf, but that's what you get when we've spent the better part of the past 50 years demonizing social programs and the people who have been forced to rely on them.

For a massive part, if not the majority of his voter base, they don't get to experience assets and investments that aren't their regular salary or wages and the physical items they purchase with them. They don't get high value benefits, vesting stocks, or auid pro other than bartering with their pees. From that perspective, forgoing a salary seems like a huge personal sacrifice.

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#356

Post by bix6 »

throw0101a wrote: post #325
retrochameleon wrote: post #307

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Sometimes I look at our country like a strategy game: where we are investing resources, infrastructure planning and investment, active problems or threats and how they are being prioritized and handled, managing citizen happiness, etc. The last 10-20 years feel like a massive lost opportunity to invest in some of these improvements and forward-thinking planning. In th…

> I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Politicians should have to play several hundred hours of 4X games (Civ 4/5/6/7, Stellaris, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron) before they're allowed to run for office. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X If they can't beat some of these videos at the highest difficulty settings they should not be allowed to break things IRL.

Any 4X recs for mobile? I had fun with Polytopia.

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#357

Post by mothballed »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #332
antonymoose wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of this recipients are Republican constituents?

It doesn't matter. A Representative represents everyone in their district, not their voters.

The incentive to provide benefits is to buy votes. If it doesn't buy votes for them either way because they are mostly voting (D) no matter what, then there's not much carrot to provide them, and since money doesn't come from thin air a distinct possibility you will end up selling the vote of some of the people you tax it from.

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#358

Post by bobthepanda »

throw0101a wrote: post #292
themafia wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then if you collect too little? Where does the excess come from? Do you keep the fees high and pay that back next year? Do you account for inflation or charge points? Is there some reason you _don't_ want this system to have slightly more funding than it "needs?"

Nav Canada, the non-profit which runs Canada's ATC, charges user fees which they adjust every so often, but they also have buffer/contingency funds. Quarterly/annual financial reports are available at their site: * https://www.navcanada.ca/en/corporate/investor-relations/fin... * https://www.navcanada.ca/en/corporate/service-charges.aspx

It is worth noting that Nav Canada also has controller shortages. Privatization is not really correlated with with better outcomes for ATC.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11354998/air-traffic-controller-s...

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#359

Post by arkis22 »

retrochameleon wrote: post #307

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Sometimes I look at our country like a strategy game: where we are investing resources, infrastructure planning and investment, active problems or threats and how they are being prioritized and handled, managing citizen happiness, etc. The last 10-20 years feel like a massive lost opportunity to invest in some of these improvements and forward-thinking planning. In th…

Most of my early 30 year old friends are very pessimistic about the future. I am pessimistic but less so. I think (and hope) that the republic will still be standing. But what I see and expect is that Trump will spend his time doing performative actions. He is narcissistic and he conflates the deference he receives when flying around the world negotiating trade deals with deference to the US. The reality is that telling him he deserves the Nobel peace prize is easy pickings for politicians who don't want to tank their economies while they realign with Russia.

Ultimately I think where we end up after his second term is he leaves, he says he did a great job and his supporters believe him. But we have problems. And he has this fantastic blessing of controlling all 3 branches of government, which he is wasting by grabbing power and solving NONE of them. So really we just wasted 4 years. And where the world is right now it's probably the worst 4 years we could ever waste.

Re: US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

#360

Post by tyre »

silisili wrote: post #330
retrochameleon wrote: post #307

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Sometimes I look at our country like a strategy game: where we are investing resources, infrastructure planning and investment, active problems or threats and how they are being prioritized and handled, managing citizen happiness, etc. The last 10-20 years feel like a massive lost opportunity to invest in some of these improvements and forward-thinking planning. In th…

It's hard not to zoom out and look at the world as a game at times. If you do that, and go back way more than 10 years, it feels like every country is playing terribly. Countries used to routinely go on domination quests for land and resources. They used to go find exotic lands and claim them as their own. They used to harvest resources and enslave the losers. Now, not so much. If you watched it zoomed out as a game,…

The United States has benefited tremendously by having global peace and free trade in the developed world. And the rest of the world generally has as well.

It's simply not in the United States' best interest to go colonizing militarily, nor is it in other countries' if the sole super power is providing stability.

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