America desperately needs more air traffic controllers • Hacker News Board

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#621

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 5:57 PM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #442

WalterBright wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't know why radar does not detect aircraft on a collision course. Why technology still does not track every airplane at the airport and flag runway incursions. Why there still are not cameras constantly recording flight ops at the airport. Why are we relying on accidental dash cam recordings? Why the cockpit voice recorder still does not record video.

Radar sweeps, it takes time to get back, it takes time to relay information and it takes time to respond. When you have aircraft moving at hundreds of miles an hour crossing in close proximity the trajectory can change and result in impact before radar can gather data, assess it, make a prediction and relay that information.

The radar can make a prediction, and automatically send the warning to the airplanes on a collision course.

All well within what we can do with radar and computers and radio today.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#622

Post by Aloisius » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #608

Aloisius wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Why would the FAA be involved in locality pay or staffing a Contract Tower? I thought the whole point of Contract Towers was a private company staffed and paid them and the FAA merely dispersed the contractual amount to the company.

The FAA chooses the contractor, and, according to the article: > The contract, however, did “not include locality pay to account for the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area.” This resulted in the new offer to SQL’s air traffic controllers coming in “significantly lower” than their current compensation, according to the county.

Is the contract referenced the one between the FAA and RVA or the contract between RVA and the existing controllers?

Is this just RVA trying to lowball controllers? I can't imagine their contract with the FAA specify the maximum amount they would pay their own controllers.

Frankly, if RVA can't fulfill their contract, then they should be penalized and have their contracts stripped. Given the contract is for several hundred million dollars and multiple airports, I imagine they'll figure out a way to add a housing stipend back in.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#623

Post by otikik » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

wqaatwt wrote: post #607

otikik wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But their cost of life is also lower.

Is it? Housing in Paris, London, Munich, Toronto, Vancouver etc. is extremely expensive relative to income of course other stuff varies.

Apples to apples. If you take the extremes in Europe, you have to take the extremes in the US as well. London and Paris most be compared to New York or San Francisco, not with Cheyenne (Wyoming).

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#624

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

lazystar wrote: post #611

throwaway2037 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> must have 20/20 vision in each eye, no contacts The page doesn't say that. It says: > Applicants must demonstrate distant and near vision of 20/20 or better in each eye separately. The use of bifocal contact lenses for the correction of near vision is unacceptable. Some light Googling will tell you that glasses or contact lenses to fix distant or near vision are fine.

thank you for proving cunninghams law still applies! much appreciated.

Cunningham's Law (the guy from the original Wiki): I had to look it up on Google:

    > The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#625

Post by janalsncm » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:15 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #371

janalsncm wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming all you’ve said is true, why doesn’t every country have an ATC shortage? > cannibalizing other talent pools If we accidentally paid ATCs so much that it ate into the investment banking or high frequency trading talent pools I think we’d still be ok

but what if it ate into a doctor or surgeon's talent pool instead?

Investment banking and HFT certainly eat into the surgeon talent pool but I’ve never heard anyone say we should pay investment bankers less as a result.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#626

Post by sesky » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #569

pif wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is completely true. I make less working remotely in a LCOL area than I would in the HCOL area where my office resides. The differential in COL, though, is so high that I'm saving a lot more. In other words, I'm making less but I'm building more wealth. Most of the money that goes into living in a HCOL area and commuting to office is just pure waste to satisfy the egos of upper managers who want to preside over a…

That seem like a reductive take on why people live in HCOL areas. Those areas cost a lot because most people believe the quality of life is better, which raises the cost of living due to competition for real estate.

If every part of the US became equally expensive and convenient for work, VHCOL areas like the Bay Area would still be immediately oversubscribed for reasons unrelated to work.

The Bay Area has arguably the best climate (cool Mediterranean) of any major city, unique proximity to a diverse set of outdoor recreation (Big Sur, Napa, Yosemite, Tahoe just to name a few), and all the desirable amenities of a major metro area.

That’s not to say you can’t have a perfectly happy life in other areas if you have different preferences, but the cost of living is ultimately a market, driven by the aggregate preferences of all people.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#627

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:23 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #502

0xB31B1B wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why don't other highly developed countries have the same issues finding employees?" Baumol effects. Our economy is incredible, extremely high productivity along with full employment. Its why we have ordering kiosks at fast food restaurants, pay 225k for bucee's managers and 20 dollars/hour to flip burgers at fast food restaurants. ATC is a low productivity growth job, technology hasn't increased the number of planes…

> technology hasn't increased the number of planes or amount of airspace one ATC can manage As I understand, the primary limiting factor for airport runway throughput (arrivals and departures) is wake turbulence from the engines. I remember, as a kid in the 80s/90s, that there were some accidents related to smaller planes taking off into the wake of larger planes. I am pretty sure that regular passenger jets (say, A3…

I cannot find the original article about new arrival flight paths for London Heathrow, but I found this: https://www.heathrow.com/company/local-community/noise/opera...

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#628

Post by analog31 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:37 PM UTC

mcmcmc wrote: post #305

analog31 wrote: post #300

I realize it's not a complete or immediate solution, but I wonder how much buses and trains would help. I think about this, in a town with a regional airport, ~ 100 miles from a couple of "hub" airports. Flying to the hub is often slower than driving when all things are considered, and with the risk of delays. A bus or train could work a lot better if the locations of the stations were coordinated, and if there was a…

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted (minus the false claim about buses and weather), if we don’t have enough have enough ATCs to satisfy air traffic demands the other level to pull is to decrease air traffic, either by offering substitutes for cross country travel or just straight up making it more expensive to fly. A flat per flight tax, say a flat ATC fee on each ticket, would marginally decrease demand for air t…

With apologies to Captain Corcoran, "Well, hardly ever."

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#629

Post by whycome » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 7:57 PM UTC

V99 wrote: post #527

kristjansson wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: why do they work in a tower?

A lot of them don't. They work in nondescript windowless buildings controlling all the airspace that isn't right above an airport. There have also been trials done with "virtual towers" at smaller airports, using a bunch of cameras and with controllers remotely monitoring them and communicating.

And as far as I can tell, representations are still projected on a 2D screen. Air traffic using 3d projections might lower the technical bar for controllers? VR + AI seems inevitable.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#630

Post by pas » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 8:09 PM UTC

sincerely wrote: post #582

marcusverus wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was already addressed in the original post. Why write in this "spelling it out for you" style when they already addressed it? The supply of labor for a given job is related to the market price of the job. This is literally ECON 101.

In most fields of study, you eventually learn that the information from 101 classes are broad oversimplifications at best. I would be surprised if economics was an exception

microeconomics holds up amazingly well.

things get complicated of course as the situation under analysis gets further and further from the ideal setup, as data gets more scarce, and so on.

but the job market is pretty darn close to the simple model, and this question is also close to the ideal (how much more price need to rise for supply to meet demand, we draw the graph based on data from other professions, and boom, there's our answer, if we want to get very fancy we can do various models to try to estimate the curves.)