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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

#81

Post by brookst »

duxup wrote: post #66
blantonl wrote: post #30

If there is one thing I've learned in the past few days, acutely so, is that the vast majority of people do not understand the sheer complexity of what it takes to have an aviation industry.

I think “sense of urgency”, “trouble shooting”, “understanding what is influencing other people’s actions” and even the ability to run a sort of “run a mental simulation and anticipate second order effects” are uncommon skills. I worked with a good technical support team that worked on some high end equipment, and regardless of education the ability to troubleshoot could be found regardless and … in spite of educatio…

Some of the best troubleshooters I’ve ever met were comparatively uneducated factory workers in Mexico who just assumed they were diagnosing for diagnosing and fixing everything from forklifts to PBX systems.

The culture of that factory was amazing.

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

#82

Post by Loudergood »

Ekaros wrote: post #45
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.

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?

It's the last 3 or 4 administrations to blame at this point, and they were just offered early retirement deals.

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

#83

Post by pessimizer »

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.

You can't neglect something, then turn down fixes because they won't happen fast enough. Fast enough wasn't a concern during the period of neglect, so a sense of urgency is playacting. The optimal solution is to pay properly, and if temporary things have to be done (rewarding people for not retiring, paying a premium to develop/import some controllers quickly) then so be it.

What a "3-year training process" and the fact that accidents come at random does is create a grace period for profiteering. They would neither get a fast enough return on investments in staff, nor see fast enough losses from disasters resulting from staffing neglect, to see any problem with both not investing in staff and with finding savings in neglect.

Problems during the transition period between starting to do the right thing and when you will see the effects of that thing are good problems to have. They go away by themselves.

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

#84

Post by RandomBacon »

duxup wrote: post #66
blantonl wrote: post #30

If there is one thing I've learned in the past few days, acutely so, is that the vast majority of people do not understand the sheer complexity of what it takes to have an aviation industry.

I think “sense of urgency”, “trouble shooting”, “understanding what is influencing other people’s actions” and even the ability to run a sort of “run a mental simulation and anticipate second order effects” are uncommon skills. I worked with a good technical support team that worked on some high end equipment, and regardless of education the ability to troubleshoot could be found regardless and … in spite of educatio…

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

I agree those uncommon skills help make someone be a good controller.

Unfortunately I don't think the FAA is testing for that, of course the hiring process tests have changed since I was hired on.

(I hope someone from the FAA is reading this and tells CAMI. I was disappointed when there was no free text response on the survey they gave out a few weeks ago.)

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

#85

Post by esalman »

blantonl wrote: post #30

If there is one thing I've learned in the past few days, acutely so, is that the vast majority of people do not understand the sheer complexity of what it takes to have an aviation industry.

I mean there's an entire cult of people who think 5G causes Covid and RF changes your DNA.

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

#86

Post by giantg2 »

RandomBacon wrote: post #50
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.

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.

Median pay is higher than my pay, and it looks like equal to median dev pay. But why would I want the stress and lower flexibility? I hate my current job and still wouldn't be interested in ATC for the higher pay.

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

#87

Post by throw0101a »

jfengel wrote: post #7
sylware wrote: post #3

If they are understaff (namely giga honest, super solid competent people for air traffic ground control), you have to reduce air traffic as it is way too dangerous. For this kind of staff, it is not just a matter of "training", it is way more demanding.

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.

> Raise pay until you have enough staff.

Federal workers have just been told to leave:

* https://www.opm.gov/fork

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

#89

Post by brookst »

staplers wrote: post #76
9283409232 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't understand the complexity of anything and why it cost so much, including the moron trying to make cuts.

A society accustomed to "magic pills" tends to think this way. Feels like a marketing/PR issue where every complexity or downside is hidden.

Also speaks to a society more focused on blame than improvement. Why fix things when every problem further proves your opponents are bad people?

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

#90

Post by kevin_b_er »

cozzyd wrote: post #12

Those personnel numbers don't really make sense to me. Like, sure I believe O'Hare has 57 trained ATC staff, but Kalamazoo has 47 while La Guardia has 29, all at comparable percentages of trained staffing. Something is off... It's good to see that both Chicago airports are at full staffing though (when counting staff in training ).

Kalamazoo is the result of consolidation. The graph incorrectly just lists them as "Kalamazoo Tower", but its also a TRACON facility.

They're handling multiple airports remotely. In 2016, this was planned to be Grand Rapids, Lansing, Muskegon, Flint, and Saginaw, though I'm not sure all of them were consolidated.

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