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America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

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Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#431

Post by opo »

nradov wrote: post #295
fiftyfifty wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've toured a couple of ATC towers recently and my impression was they were surprisingly low tech. A tech upgrade seems like the most viable solution at this point. There are processes for writing and testing software and hardware for environments such as this, but the government needs to be willing to make the investment.

The government is making that investment. Upgrading the legacy system will take decades regardless of how much money they spend. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen

A big problem with US air traffic control is that you have the regulator regulating themselves. The USA is one of the few countries where the regulator also provides the ATC service. In comparison to Canada, the US government run air traffic control is noticeably less productive and more expensive.

The first proposal to break out the regulation of air traffic control with the provision of the air traffic control was done by the Clinton administration. Support since then has been bipartisan and opposition has also been from members of both parties for various reasons. (I read somewhere that one of the biggest long time opponents of breaking out the air traffic control has been the associations of owners of private jets as they currently pay about 1% of the cost of ATC, but are closer to 10% of the flights in major airports. In reality, owners of private jets can likely afford to pay a more proportional percentage of the costs they impose on the system.)

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#432

Post by hattmall »

somenameforme wrote: post #380
datavirtue wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my city it's an underpaid work-a-day job that half of them hate. There is something about being trapped that can make any job sick the life out of you. I remember a former CEO who would come into work each day and let out a heavy sigh before unlocking his office door. I learned that he was trapped in the job until he retired for various reasons...most of his own making.

It's the paperwork. Most people have no idea the amount of paperwork doctors have to fill out - it adds up to 20-30 hours of it per week. It's getting close to a full time job by itself. Think about how pleasant the experience is of filling out bureaucratic/government paperwork, and now imagine doing that as a full time job.

What? This doesn't sound right at all. I've worked very closely with Doctors during the implementation of EHR systems and they don't spend nearly that much time on paperwork. They spend a couple minutes charting things for each patient. Then about 30 minutes at the end of the day going over anything that's been flagged by admin. Then about 1-3 hours every two weeks adjusting rejected claims.

There's certainly a lot of paperwork that has to be done, but doctors aren't doing it.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#433

Post by smcin »

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…

> - The fundamentals and technology of the job have not changed in decades, despite air traffic exploding in recent years

Ok what's the top-5 list of technology things that need to be changed? finally rolling out the decades-delayed ATCC upgrade (currently delayed to 2032)? real-time transponders? satellite location? using digital radio instead of VHF, for better audio quality? Is https://www.city-journal.org/article/reagan-national-airport... accurate?

(Total ATC salaries are 14,000 ATCs * median salary of $140K = only $1.9bn, so they could certainly hire more and pay higher.)

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#434

Post by hattmall »

mikeyouse wrote: post #200
b112 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we are an aged society, with such an incredibly low birth rate, this will only get worse. There are only so many competent people in our society, and that talent pool is being spread thin across all sectors of society which require such candidates. There are looming doctor shortages, too. Professionals of all stripes.

The birth rate thing is a bit of a canard in this context. There are something like 100 million Americans under the age of 30.. we’ll have some demographic problems in a generation or two but there are plenty of people to staff the physician and ATC roles. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the...

Yeah, I really don't think it's a lack of people, it's just that increased regulations make things continuously more cumbersome. Intelligent people are going to develop the skills that come with the least amount of operation overhead.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#435

Post by sooheon »

8note wrote: post #424
tw04 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you have listed above could be solved with money. Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified? Sounds like you need more applicants? Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation. The training and onboarding is incredibly long? Sounds like a doctor? Do you know why people go through the pain of becoming a doctor? Because they make a lot of money when they get through the other s…

i dont think offering more compensation solves the problem. the people you might want mignt 1. always have a better option elsewhere and if your raise the offer, competitors will offer something even higher instead, beyond the pittances the government is willing to spend 2. never be willing to take on the job as specified - huge responsibility and risk of killing people, with long hours and no recognition 3. never fi…

Money talks. No amount of outreach makes a mispriced offer attractive.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#436

Post by Dylan16807 »

bruce511 wrote: post #409
chii wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "low view" is out of jealousy and the idea that they're "doing evil" to get that money. It's a personal bias, which i personally also would ignore. I have respect for lawyers, and i have respect for investment bankers (who make huge merger/acquisition deals work).

You miss the point. why the low view exists is irrelevant. Frankly, while I acknowledge their necessity, I have a poor (default) view of both bankers and lawyers. I don't see them as bad people, but people in their professions do many bad things. If my son brings a banker home as a prospective mate, well, let's say they're not earning status points from their profession. You (may have) and I (do) have respect for peo…

> You miss the point. why the low view exists is irrelevant.

It's very much relevant to this conversation. Without specific negative factors like a "predatory" aspect, increasing earnings will increase prestige. ATC doesn't have those factors.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#437

Post by chrismarlow9 »

pimlottc wrote: post #414
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…

> - 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 This stands out to me: > Be under the age of 31 > Applicants must demonstrate distant and near vision of 20/20 or better in each eye separately. The use of bifocal contact lenses for the c…

Yeah the under 31 surprised me. That alone would bring a shortage.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#438

Post by RandomBacon »

smcin wrote: post #427
RandomBacon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Air Traffic Controller and I'm required by the FAA to say these opinions are my own and not necessarily of the FAA. Some fully-certified air traffic controllers cannot afford to live where they work, not to mention the trainees that have the added stress of training and making less money. At my first facility, to live within 45 minutes of work, my whole paycheck went to rent, thank goodness I had savings from…

How much advance notice do you get of overtime requirement? Can you plan a week or month ahead? Do you have to cancel days off or vacations? (How much of those stats are available by FOIA, for each ATC location? Also, how can we see how many hires wash out/quit by year of experience, or pay grade?) > At my first facility, to live within 45 minutes of work, my whole paycheck went to rent... That's because your federal…

I'm on the "No" list for overtime, so I don't normally get scheduled it, but when I do, it's about two or three weeks in advance. People on the "Yes" list get the scheduled overtime when the schedule comes out about 5 or 6 weeks in advance.

By law we cannot work more than 10 hour days, 6 days in a row. There are some facilities where controllers are all being scheduled to that limit.

I do often get calls on my days off asking if I want to come in for overtime that day.

Our schedules are generally pretty consistent, so I can kind of plan my time off in advance, but on a particular day I won't know if my shift starts at noon or 3pm until the schedule is posted. We can trade shifts, ask to be bumped up or back an hour or two, or even use leave for maybe the first few or last few hours of a shift, but coworkers get squirrelly about it if you do it too often.

If you bid leave, those days are guaranteed. If something comes up that you want to do (party, convention, child's recital) and put in a leave request and it doesn't get approved, then most people will call in sick. As long as there's not a pattern to calling in sick (like you only call in sick on Saturdays), then most people don't care, because this is a job where your head needs to be focused and not distracted or in a funk.

You could probably FOIA the wash-out/quit stats, but I have no idea.

Yes, pay after graduating from the FAA Academy is about 50k until you start getting certified on sectors (D1, D2, D3, then CPC).

Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#439

Post by hattmall »

landryraccoon wrote: post #213
giantrobot wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am completely naive about the challenges presented. The problem isn't collision detection or predicting movement. They're not a bunch of particles on simple ballistic trajectories. They're powered objects traveling in a turbulent and difficult to predict medium. In emergency conditions they can turn from a powered vehicle to an unpowered one. They can need to land immediately when flight worthiness changes in fli…

This is a general objection to AI responding to real world events in general : "What if something unexpected happens?" It comes up in self driving as well. Things like "What if something suddenly appears in the middle of the road" or "Can it drive in snow conditions with zero visibility? My question is, how do you know that in general human beings respond better to unexpected or very complex / difficult situations th…

>Unless a situation is so unexpected that it has literally never happened in the history of aviation,

I would say this is actually the most likely scenario for an edge case. The sheer number of variables make it unlikely that the same unexpected event would happen twice.

In an emergency situation the combination of, the emergency, ground conditions, weather, visibility, instrumentation functionality, and surrounding aircraft is most frequently going to be unique.

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