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America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

cnn.com

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Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#541

Post by DannyBee »

tw04 wrote: post #201
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…

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…

There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do.

The notion that if you just pay enough, people who are otherwise qualified will do anything, is amazingly reductive. It's a super US-centric view, and not surprisingly, it does not have an amazing history of working out (especially compared to other mechanisms).

Given the people in question have good other options, why would they do this, even if you paid more?

In fact - plenty of smart people will take pay cuts for better qualify of life.

Example: Plenty of folks take pay cuts to work remotely from places they like more, and because they find it a better quality of life.

Not everyone is money driven, and the assumption that here is that the intersection of "money driven, capable of doing this job, etc" is large enough that increasing the amount of money will make the result larger.

It's totally non-obvious this is true.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#542

Post by mrweasel »

silvestrov wrote: post #533
mrweasel wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up an interesting solution: Figure out how many flights can be services with the current number of air traffic controllers, take away 5 - 10% to deal with illness and unforeseen issues, cap the number of flights to that number.

Then you have the problem that Congress overrules you. > The number of flights at Reagan National is capped because of its congestion. But lawmakers have an interest in boosting direct flights to their states – for themselves and their constituents – because the airport is more convenient to downtown than Dulles International Airport https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/30/safety-... So the knew the airp…

That not just selfish, that's irresponsible. Why not ensure better transportation links for Dullas instead. Aren't the two airports less than an hour away from each other?

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#543

Post by joakleaf »

tw04 wrote: post #201
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…

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…

Sorry. But people in general do not choose to study medicine because they can make a lot of money after the study.

I have had some experience with family, girl friends, friends and med-students. And it was definitely not the primary reason any one of them chose that path.

I don’t think money is a strong enough single motivator for med-school or any other long term hard study/job.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#544

Post by themaninthedark »

Aurornis wrote: post #455
themaninthedark wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the moderation here frustrating at times when people will down vote but not explain why. There may be a very go reason to not allow anxiety medication, I don't know enough about it myself.

> There may be a very go reason to not allow anxiety medication, I don't know enough about it myself. You’re getting downvoted because your comment is dangerously misinformed. Air traffic controllers aren’t allowed to take those anxiety medications (benzos, etc) because they impair your performance and judgment, even if you feel fine while taking them. Don’t confuse the way a drug makes you feel with the objective im…

The comment I replied to is not one that I wrote.

I appreciate you providing reasoning. I think the best way to deal with misinformation is good information and up/down votes are sometimes a good signal, sometimes it is an agree or disagree button.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#545

Post by pif »

DannyBee wrote: post #541
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…

There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do. The notion that if you just pay enough, people who are otherwise qualified will do anything, is amazingly reductive. It's a super US-centric view, and not surprisingly, it does not have an amazing history of working out (especially compared to other mechanisms). Given the people in question have good other options, why would they do this,…

> Plenty of folks take pay cuts to work remotely

Pay cuts are not important; profit is! If I get paid 100 less, and spend 90 less because of no commuting, I'm gaining more than before.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#546

Post by watwut »

natnat wrote: post #313
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 don't honestly think that technology is meaningfully downstream of money. A startup or hobbyist can build something that costs Google several million dollars in a weekend. Most of these systems are complex, but not as complex as e.g. an operating system. But upgrading technology requires government administrative capacity. That's generally cheaper than outsourcing technology development to third parties, but does r…

> A startup or hobbyist can build something that costs Google several million dollars in a weekend.

They genuinely cant. They can make a sorta kinda prototype of something that costs Google several million dollars.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#547

Post by robertlagrant »

Shinolove wrote: post #539
watwut wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors dont have interesting tales to tell, nor should have due to things being private by law. Stability of employment is something that traffic controllers could have, this is just a question of "working conditions" and solvable by money. I really do not see why traffic controller could not feel good about being traffic controller. They do more "life saving" jobs then any of us on hacker news.

Jokes on you I am working on ATC software solutions (safety modules exactly aiming to predict and warn about this kind of events)

This is wonderful. Anything built that long ago that's still around is a testament to the amazing engineers who made it, and also it probably should be replaced or severely upgraded!

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#548

Post by michielderhaeg »

tw04 wrote: post #201
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…

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…

> Too much stress? I bet if you paid people so much money that they could work for 10 years and then either retire to a lower paying job, or retire entirely, people would deal with it.

Don't underestimate just how high-stress these jobs are and what it does to you. People quit these kinds of jobs for 2 reasons

  1) They can't deal with the stress mentally, or don't want to.

  2) They were not smart enough to choose option 1 and their body just physically gives up and they are no longer capable of performing their job as an ATC.
I know someone who is now legally handicapped because her lungs don't function properly anymore due to the stress and was forced to retire early.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#549

Post by Shinolove »

jasondigitized wrote: post #184
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 might get absolutely destroyed for this but here goes. We have video games like Fortnite that can handle collision detection across a hundred players with bullets flying everywhere. Is it that much of a stretch to use similar technology and things like text to speech to help air traffic controllers do a better job? Genuinely curious about the technology advances in this space and if I am completely naive about the…

I work on ATC software in another country. In my experience the biggest hurdle is the way the software is being developed and sold. ATC authorities and service providers buy these systems as a product but they don't have the code. Developers of the products (people like me) constantly have to maintain different versions deployed all around the world for different areas or countries or service providers. And there are hundreds of different systems working in parallel for no reason. For example there is an airport with 5 runways here and they installed a specific software just to monitor the speed and altitude of the planes taking off from this runway. They already have 5 different survelliance monitors feeding this info as well as direct view from the tower. Every new software now also has to consider and integrate with this specific system and many like it.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#550

Post by [deleted] »

pif wrote: post #545
DannyBee wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do. The notion that if you just pay enough, people who are otherwise qualified will do anything, is amazingly reductive. It's a super US-centric view, and not surprisingly, it does not have an amazing history of working out (especially compared to other mechanisms). Given the people in question have good other options, why would they do this,…

> Plenty of folks take pay cuts to work remotely Pay cuts are not important; profit is! If I get paid 100 less, and spend 90 less because of no commuting, I'm gaining more than before.

[deleted]
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