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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

#631

Post by coldburst »

WalterBright wrote: post #621
hattmall wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would that be much different/better than TCAS?

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#632

Post by SkiFire13 »

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.

I feel like this could be counterproductive. If people retire after 10 years instead of after 30 years, you now have to hire 3x the amount of people over time.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#633

Post by [deleted] »

DannyBee wrote: post #605
TeMPOraL wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't? I.e. if "10% more" doesn't seem to affect anything, we should maybe try "10x more" instead, and if that doesn't do anything, then conclude there's no more relevant labor left in the pool.

This of course, falls squarely into what i wrote at the end of my comment. Why is money the only thing to do here? Why do you assume that is the driver, despite tons of data suggesting it's simply not the only driver? Can you please, please , take like 10 minutes, and go read any of the 1000's of studies on this, and then make some reasoned argument that is more than just what you are doing now, which is: A. I think…

[deleted]

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#634

Post by eternityforest »

fn-mote wrote: post #388
imoverclocked wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technology hasn't changed is a political problem due to lack of... money. Tell me you haven’t worked in aerospace without telling me you haven’t worked in aerospace. There is plenty of money sunk into all corners of the field but progress is slow because the risk of change is lives lost. At some point, the risk of not changing means more lives lost… and that’s when things will change.

> There is plenty of money sunk into all corners of the field but progress is slow … because of mismanagement, just like other large software rewrites that you are probably familiar with. It’s the same problem - updating a complex system - except there’s no other vendor you can switch to.

Other large software rewrites have unit tests.

ATC has human operators and people are non-deterministic and non repeatable and you can't just run a few tests and conclude it's fine.

The issues you're trying to stop may only occur once a month globally across all airports or something, and only be noticed once a year.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#635

Post by marcusverus »

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

Fact: If the job paid 10X what it does, we would have more than enough of applicants.

Fact: Somewhere between 1X and 10X is a salary where we would have enough applicants.

It's objectively true.

Whatever prior assumptions prompt you to second guess this obvious, objective truth are ripe for reanalysis.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#636

Post by canadianfella »

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,…

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

Name a few.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#637

Post by johnnyanmac »

mayneack wrote: post #410
johnnyanmac wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does that really mean for those he outright fired? They didn't "resign".no one who (stupidly) responded to that email to resign would have taken any effect anyway.

Were there air traffic controllers fired? I saw reports about some upper management at the faa and related, but haven't seen anything here.

Tbh I have no idea at this point. I read info he did fire people, but I'm seeing conflicting reports between his actions, intent, the deferred layoffs and later cancelation of the deferred layoffs.

It's all a twisted yarn:

https://wlos.com/news/nation-world/no-evidence-trump-fired-t...

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#638

Post by fastball »

mjmsmith wrote: post #603
fastball wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is why anything like affirmative action was always a terrible idea. If relevant to who gets hired, you are literally discriminating against candidates on the basis of race. If irrelevant, you still have the "maybe they're just an affirmative action hire" pall hanging over those people. Nobody wins.

So how do you address structural discrimination in American society, including the workplace? (If your answer is "it doesn't exist", please flag me and move on.)

Depends on where the structural discrimination is and what form it is taking.

"American society" is a little broad – I don't think there is a single solution (at that scale) which will do more good than harm.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#639

Post by datavirtue »

somenameforme wrote: post #459
hattmall wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Part of being a good doctor is good bedside manner. They're not going to bitch about it to a stranger, but it's a huge and well known problem that is almost certainly the single biggest cause for doctor burnout (which is extremely widespread). Some random source (though my experience comes from family) : "What they learned was that during office hours, half the time — a huge chunk — was allocated to desk work, like d…

This tracks. I just read through all the notes in my daughter's medical file for the last few visits and couldn't fathom where the doctor had time for it. It looked to be automatically transcribed.

Re: America desperately needs more air traffic controllers

#640

Post by varloid »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #139
randerson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATCs have the upper hand in this negotiation because they're essential and can't be quickly replaced. If enough ATCs quit that major airports have to be shut down or reduce flights, the airlines (and stock market) will turn against Trump pretty quickly. My guess is the going salary for ATCs is going to increase substantially once they realize they need to lure back those who quit. I would love to see all ATCs in DC q…

> Wouldn't it be great if Air Force One was stranded because of this. I was under the impression that AF1 flew in/out of Andrews air force base, which I (possibly naively?) assumed did not use civilian ATC. But yes, that would be great :)

https://123atc.com/facility/ADW
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