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Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

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Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#41

Post by nyokodo »

thoroughburro wrote: post #10
Avicebron wrote: post #6

Ok? So we have tons of US citizens who want to be in high-skilled high-paying professions, bring more people into training programs and staff them? I assume people working high skilled high wage professions spend more on things like housing and food and other things -> economy boost. Where is the hangup?

The hangup is that the current administration is asking them to resign en masse, not hiring more.

> the current administration is asking them to resign en masse, not hiring more

While they did initially receive the resignation memo the Office of Personnel Management clarified that Air Traffic Controllers aren’t eligible for the resignation offer nor subject to the hiring freeze. [1]

1. https://apnews.com/article/jet-helicopter-crash-air-traffic-...

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#42

Post by taeric »

perihelions wrote: post #23
n1b0m wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was dropped in 2018

Then it's topical for understanding the makeup of ATC controllers right now, isn't it? The impact of hiring decisions in 2018 would continue through their retirement age in the 2050's. We still talk about Reagan's mass-firing of ATC controllers, and that event was in *1981*. The impact is multi-generational and is still very visible.

Not necessarily. In the reparations lawsuit, there are only 1000ish individuals. Assuming all of them would have qualified, you are talking about around 2% of the current workforce. Not nothing. But the last admin grew the workforce by more numbers. And did not have this policy.

So, by all means, chase reparations. But don't think you've stumbled on the reason, either.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#44

Post by leeoniya »

cogman10 wrote: post #14
giantg2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you modernize the system (not just tech but potentially the procedures). Kind of stupid to increase air traffic and traffic density over decades and just expect the old systems to scale.

I'm not sure this is something that is solved by tech. It sounds like they simply don't have enough staff, whether that a budget problem or hiring problem IDK. The article mentions they have a 50% reduction in new hires which either says it's hard to be competent, the job is too demanding, or both. They had 1 tower with 1 operator and no redundancy at a fairly busy airport, which is definitely concerning.

> I'm not sure this is something that is solved by tech

in this case it seems like it could definitely have been solved by tech. both aircraft were traveling at predictable paths and opertating nominally.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#45

Post by Ekaros »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
jfengel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't cut traffic for the same reason they are understaffed: money. Raise pay until you have enough staff. It's not always that simple, but sometimes it is. Not everyone could do it, but a lot of people could. You just have to pay them to attract them from more lucrative jobs (which includes training them to do it). Instead they'll pay as little as they can, and occasionally pay to replace an aircraft.

> They won't cut traffic for the same reason they are understaffed: money. Raise pay until you have enough staff. It's really not that simple. It's a 3-year training process. There's really nothing that's going to get you adequately staffed in the short term. Sure, that could solve the problem medium term.

If it is 3-year training process is it not the previous administration that is to blame? Surely they would have trained enough people. And it is not like huge amount of controllers were fired just now?

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#46

Post by rayiner »

tomohawk wrote: post #2

Hundreds 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.

It’s so much worse than I had assumed. Look at the question about how many “Art/Dance credit” hours you took in college. The scoring is completely random. The most points for 0, but then second most points for 7-12 hours, but 0 or 1 points between 1-6 or 13+. It looks clearly designed by the FAA basically to have “secret codes” that could be given to favored applicants through affiliated advocacy groups.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#47

Post by BowBun »

fzeroracer wrote: post #33
perihelions wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's topical for understanding the makeup of ATC controllers right now, isn't it? The impact of hiring decisions in 2018 would continue through their retirement age in the 2050's. We still talk about Reagan's mass-firing of ATC controllers, and that event was in *1981*. The impact is multi-generational and is still very visible.

I'm pretty sure what's more topical is Trump telling all ATC controllers to leave, immediately. Rather than a shitty test that was used for a few years and then phased out.

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... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899944

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#48

Post by icegreentea2 »

mbreese wrote: post #28
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't cut traffic for the same reason they are understaffed: money. Raise pay until you have enough staff. It's really not that simple. It's a 3-year training process. There's really nothing that's going to get you adequately staffed in the short term. Sure, that could solve the problem medium term.

I think you’ve found the root issue. There is no short term fix. And our current governmental setup isn’t capable of handling medium to long term problems. It has been this way for quite a while, so this issue isn’t new. Long-term political will isn’t there, so if the problem can’t be fixed quickly, it’s as if there is no possible solution.

This may be true, but it's not properly reflective of this particular situation. While it's true that it takes 2-3 years to fully certify, the initial academy (a few months long) still has limited spots.

ATC staffing problems did not just appear this week. The FAA is limited by Congress in how to deploy its budget towards recruitment.

Congress passed a bill earlier in 2024 authorizing the FAA to hire at the maximum capacity possible (https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/05/faa-will-soon-be-a...). Action is possible.

We've known since the initial post-COVID travel bump that the FAA was short on controllers - these could have been addressed potentially as early as late 2022.

Infact a 2-3 year timeframe is absolutely short enough to count as "short term". Thats within an election cycle.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#49

Post by giantg2 »

fzeroracer wrote: post #22
giantg2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you modernize the system (not just tech but potentially the procedures). Kind of stupid to increase air traffic and traffic density over decades and just expect the old systems to scale.

Modernize the system how? Like do you have explicit steps on how to modernize it and what needs to be done?

They're working on multiple technical upgrades already, and some airports have been upgraded. I think better information distribution is one thing. Large craft could have ADS-B (or ATC's view) tracking of a 1-3 mile bubble displayed to them. This would add a check to being blindly told what to do and blindly trusting that others are doing what they're told. You could change certain procedures such as the military having one pilot use NVG while the other not when flying in high traffic and high illumination airspace. No reason we can't add better sensors to planes when you think about all the collision detection we are adding in cars. I'm sure there are many other things that can be changed as well. Some of it's the pace. Stuff that's already been piloted and shown to be effective is still taking forever to roll out at the other airports.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#50

Post by RandomBacon »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
jfengel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't cut traffic for the same reason they are understaffed: money. Raise pay until you have enough staff. It's not always that simple, but sometimes it is. Not everyone could do it, but a lot of people could. You just have to pay them to attract them from more lucrative jobs (which includes training them to do it). Instead they'll pay as little as they can, and occasionally pay to replace an aircraft.

> They won't cut traffic for the same reason they are understaffed: money. Raise pay until you have enough staff. It's really not that simple. It's a 3-year training process. There's really nothing that's going to get you adequately staffed in the short term. Sure, that could solve the problem medium term.

ATC here (opinions are my own, not of the FAA, etc)

Pay is a huge part of it, so it really is that simple.

Qualified people are choosing not to even apply anymore because the pay is no longer competitive with other high-paying jobs that don't destroy you mentally and physically, or have a complicated hiring process like ATC does.

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