America desperately needs more air traffic controllers(cnn.com)
cnn.com
America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/business/air-traffic-controller-shortage/index.html
659 comments
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 side.
Technology hasn't changed is a political problem due to lack of... money. There isn't an issue with new technology, there's an issue with the government refusing to invest in upgrading the technology. Canada doesn't have this issue and they're far smaller than the US.
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 do absolutely, 100% think that this is a problem that can easily be solved with money.
I also think our politicians will flounder around making excuses about how the problem is unsolvable because it doesn't directly help their chances of re-election.
The first time a plane goes down carrying a dozen congress critters and their families, you can bet there will magically be money in the banana stand.
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 side.
Technology hasn't changed is a political problem due to lack of... money. There isn't an issue with new technology, there's an issue with the government refusing to invest in upgrading the technology. Canada doesn't have this issue and they're far smaller than the US.
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 do absolutely, 100% think that this is a problem that can easily be solved with money.
I also think our politicians will flounder around making excuses about how the problem is unsolvable because it doesn't directly help their chances of re-election.
The first time a plane goes down carrying a dozen congress critters and their families, you can bet there will magically be money in the banana stand.
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.
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.
Maybe we should TRY paying people more. Like just once. Just to see what happens.
We do?
Is there a reason you believe otherwise?
There are nearly infinite studies in infinite fields on this, and despite claims here, the results are mixed at best.
Certainly not the utopia consistently predicted.
I'm sure someone will next just say it's not enough money, rather than bother to read any of the studies and whether they tried to account for this or not, or ...
I'm going to ignore those comments, since it doesn't seem like a discussion anyone wants to learn anything in.
If you want to push your preferred position, that's sort of silly. There is no winning or losing here. If you want to actually learn something, happy to discuss it for real.
There are nearly infinite studies in infinite fields on this, and despite claims here, the results are mixed at best.
Certainly not the utopia consistently predicted.
I'm sure someone will next just say it's not enough money, rather than bother to read any of the studies and whether they tried to account for this or not, or ...
I'm going to ignore those comments, since it doesn't seem like a discussion anyone wants to learn anything in.
If you want to push your preferred position, that's sort of silly. There is no winning or losing here. If you want to actually learn something, happy to discuss it for real.
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 money is the only thing that matters and refuse to present any evidence that it is.
B. I will also claim that we never try it, despite it actually having been tried.
C. When someone takes the time to show me that we do try it, i will simply, without any further evidence, claim we aren't offering enough.
This sort of discussion is just kind of silly to have.
You know what - great, you figured it out. The real problem is that we just aren't paying enough. That's the only problem. It's not that the qualifications are too high, or the job as is is too stressful, or anything else ....
You have, without any data, evidence, etc, figured out the one simple and true solution to a very complex problem that lots of people have spent lots of time trying to puzzle through.
You won hacker news! Congrats!
I actually hope they offer an infinite amount of money to ATC controllers, so we stop having this particular reductive variant pop up in discussions.
It's fine if you want to argue money matters, i even believe money does matter. I just don't think it's the only thing that matters, nor do i believe you can solve a complex problem like this by just taking a single variable in that complex system and pushing it to the extreme.
The most likely outcome seems to be you increase the rejection rate from 90% (which is what it is now) to 99.99999%, given how the process actually works right now.
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 money is the only thing that matters and refuse to present any evidence that it is.
B. I will also claim that we never try it, despite it actually having been tried.
C. When someone takes the time to show me that we do try it, i will simply, without any further evidence, claim we aren't offering enough.
This sort of discussion is just kind of silly to have.
You know what - great, you figured it out. The real problem is that we just aren't paying enough. That's the only problem. It's not that the qualifications are too high, or the job as is is too stressful, or anything else ....
You have, without any data, evidence, etc, figured out the one simple and true solution to a very complex problem that lots of people have spent lots of time trying to puzzle through.
You won hacker news! Congrats!
I actually hope they offer an infinite amount of money to ATC controllers, so we stop having this particular reductive variant pop up in discussions.
It's fine if you want to argue money matters, i even believe money does matter. I just don't think it's the only thing that matters, nor do i believe you can solve a complex problem like this by just taking a single variable in that complex system and pushing it to the extreme.
The most likely outcome seems to be you increase the rejection rate from 90% (which is what it is now) to 99.99999%, given how the process actually works right now.
[deleted]
Why not at least try to pay people more? Everyone gives exactly your argument without ever trying to raise the base salary for new hires and give existing workers a boost in pay.
You can't say it doesn't work until you've raised the median salary in the field and observed the effect. Managers and bean counters aren't willing to do this so it will never happen.
You can't say it doesn't work until you've raised the median salary in the field and observed the effect. Managers and bean counters aren't willing to do this so it will never happen.
Again, we have?
I knew, of course, this would be the response. But i'm not sure why, in the history of the world, people assume we haven't tried paying people more in various fields, and that "managers and bean counters aren't willing to do it".
It's amazingly silly.
It would take you less than 60 seconds to find at least 100 studies on this, across tons of fields.
The next thing that happens is that when you point out studies (and there are plenty good and bad), they will start arguing with any study that doesn't support their already preferred position, rather than trying to ever spend time considering alternatives.
There are nearly infinite studies on infinite fields and the results are fairly mixed.
Certainly not the amazingly positive expected value that constantly gets paraded around.
Some of y'all are so money driven you just can't possibly contemplate that not everyone is driven by money.
I knew, of course, this would be the response. But i'm not sure why, in the history of the world, people assume we haven't tried paying people more in various fields, and that "managers and bean counters aren't willing to do it".
It's amazingly silly.
It would take you less than 60 seconds to find at least 100 studies on this, across tons of fields.
The next thing that happens is that when you point out studies (and there are plenty good and bad), they will start arguing with any study that doesn't support their already preferred position, rather than trying to ever spend time considering alternatives.
There are nearly infinite studies on infinite fields and the results are fairly mixed.
Certainly not the amazingly positive expected value that constantly gets paraded around.
Some of y'all are so money driven you just can't possibly contemplate that not everyone is driven by money.
All salient things being equal, which pretty much have to be the case for ATC (it will always have very high demands), adding more compensation will get more applicants.
Do you have other ideas on what constraints can be relaxed?
Do you have other ideas on what constraints can be relaxed?
> 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.
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 big floor of workers.
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 big floor of workers.
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.
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.
The rich want to and can afford to live in high cost of living areas. Everyone else is there to serve them.
[deleted]
Bruh
> There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do.
This is true for individuals.
With a sample size large enough, the probability that no one will be up for it given the increased pay, is extremely low, tending to zero.
This is true for individuals.
With a sample size large enough, the probability that no one will be up for it given the increased pay, is extremely low, tending to zero.
Sure, but increasing that sample size would require doing more than just paying them more.
IE it's not particularly useful to say "we will pay 1 million billion dollars to anyone in the united states who wishes to be an air traffic controller" if you want good air traffic controllers.
It is more useful, for example, to take the people who wanted to do this, and you stopped from doing this before for dumb reasons, and offer them more money to go back to doing this.
IE it's not particularly useful to say "we will pay 1 million billion dollars to anyone in the united states who wishes to be an air traffic controller" if you want good air traffic controllers.
It is more useful, for example, to take the people who wanted to do this, and you stopped from doing this before for dumb reasons, and offer them more money to go back to doing this.
> Sure, but increasing that sample size would require doing more than just paying them more.
Citation needed, because...
> IE it's not particularly useful to say "we will pay 1 million billion dollars to anyone in the united states who wishes to be an air traffic controller" if you want good air traffic controllers.
...if you're asserting that offering one quadrillion dollars as the salary for ATCs would not decisively solve the problem, that's insane and there can't be further discussion.
However, if your point is that this might be true, but the statement isn't useful, that's false too - it is useful to say this, because if true, then it means that there some function that describes the relationship between compensation and qualified applicants. And now that we've agreed that there is a function, we can then have a reasonable discussion about the inputs, and specifically the tradeoff between making the compensation higher vs. changing the way the training is structured and the artificial constraints on supply.
If you can say "to increase trained ATCs by 50% you can either make the salary $450k higher for 1k employees, or you can do a tech modernization that will cost $10M and keep your tech recent for the next decade" and provide a specific tradeoff between financial compensation vs non-salary factors, then you'll be able to have a logical argument about the two. And if the numbers are as skewed as in my example, you'll be able to convince the majority of logical people that increasing the salary is the suboptimal strategy.
Citation needed, because...
> IE it's not particularly useful to say "we will pay 1 million billion dollars to anyone in the united states who wishes to be an air traffic controller" if you want good air traffic controllers.
...if you're asserting that offering one quadrillion dollars as the salary for ATCs would not decisively solve the problem, that's insane and there can't be further discussion.
However, if your point is that this might be true, but the statement isn't useful, that's false too - it is useful to say this, because if true, then it means that there some function that describes the relationship between compensation and qualified applicants. And now that we've agreed that there is a function, we can then have a reasonable discussion about the inputs, and specifically the tradeoff between making the compensation higher vs. changing the way the training is structured and the artificial constraints on supply.
If you can say "to increase trained ATCs by 50% you can either make the salary $450k higher for 1k employees, or you can do a tech modernization that will cost $10M and keep your tech recent for the next decade" and provide a specific tradeoff between financial compensation vs non-salary factors, then you'll be able to have a logical argument about the two. And if the numbers are as skewed as in my example, you'll be able to convince the majority of logical people that increasing the salary is the suboptimal strategy.
> There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do.
Would you mind listing 2 or 3 examples? All the jobs that I do not want to do that I can think of, are actually poorly compensated.
Would you mind listing 2 or 3 examples? All the jobs that I do not want to do that I can think of, are actually poorly compensated.
I'm from the US, and the ATC problem is in the US, so a US-centric view is completely in play.
Plenty of people in the US have finical goals, and providing them a means to more quickly reach their goals will motivate them. Will you convince everyone to apply to a job with more pay? No, but you really just need to convince a few more qualified people.
Plenty of people in the US have finical goals, and providing them a means to more quickly reach their goals will motivate them. Will you convince everyone to apply to a job with more pay? No, but you really just need to convince a few more qualified people.
> In fact – plenty of [smart] people will take pay cuts for better qualify of life.
Yep, I dropped to a 4-day week prorated (so a 20% cut, a little less if you consider that changed my position with respect to tax boundaries, for 20% less work) a while back, to deal with family health issues and my own burn-out. As things are fixing up I'm considering keeping to this routine despite the fact the extra money would be useful – the extra time is _very_ nice too.
[Not sure how far into “smart” territory I'd be considered though :)]
Yep, I dropped to a 4-day week prorated (so a 20% cut, a little less if you consider that changed my position with respect to tax boundaries, for 20% less work) a while back, to deal with family health issues and my own burn-out. As things are fixing up I'm considering keeping to this routine despite the fact the extra money would be useful – the extra time is _very_ nice too.
[Not sure how far into “smart” territory I'd be considered though :)]
Do you think this is a counterargument? The implication is that for 20% + n% you'd go back to a 5 day week.
I thought I was agreeing. What were you thinking I was thinking I was countering?
There are three forms of pay cut: reducing pay for the same time spent working, reducing pay for the same work done (when pay is awarded piecemeal rather than by time), or indirectly by a reducing in work. Ask anyone on a zero-hours contract who unexpectedly gets a zero-hours week: it feels like a pay cut to them more than a joyful temporary freedom from work.
There are a number of companies experimenting with a 4-day working week with no change in pay or other conditions, some are finding the reduction in working time often doesn't reduce useful work output. A 20%-ish drop in income for a 4-day week is a pay cut when compared to that.
There are three forms of pay cut: reducing pay for the same time spent working, reducing pay for the same work done (when pay is awarded piecemeal rather than by time), or indirectly by a reducing in work. Ask anyone on a zero-hours contract who unexpectedly gets a zero-hours week: it feels like a pay cut to them more than a joyful temporary freedom from work.
There are a number of companies experimenting with a 4-day working week with no change in pay or other conditions, some are finding the reduction in working time often doesn't reduce useful work output. A 20%-ish drop in income for a 4-day week is a pay cut when compared to that.
I thought, with your example of not accepting money in exchange for an extra day of work. you were addressing GP's argument that:
"The notion that if you just pay enough, people who are otherwise qualified will do anything, is amazingly reductive. ... It's totally non-obvious this is true."
But perhaps you were just responding to the narrower assertion that some people will be happy to trade money for more leisure time. Apologies if I misunderstood which point you were addressing.
"The notion that if you just pay enough, people who are otherwise qualified will do anything, is amazingly reductive. ... It's totally non-obvious this is true."
But perhaps you were just responding to the narrower assertion that some people will be happy to trade money for more leisure time. Apologies if I misunderstood which point you were addressing.
> not surprisingly, it does not have an amazing history of working out (especially compared to other mechanisms).
So, you're claiming that there's empirical evidence that supports your claim. Please link it.
So, you're claiming that there's empirical evidence that supports your claim. Please link it.
>why would they do this, even if you paid more?
The complaints in the article were all about too many hours. More pay, more workers, less hours.
I didn't see anything about not liking the job. At least not in the article.
The complaints in the article were all about too many hours. More pay, more workers, less hours.
I didn't see anything about not liking the job. At least not in the article.
> There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do.
If you think that, you aren't considering paying them enough money.
> Given the people in question have good other options, why would they do this, even if you paid more?
You ain't thinking about offering them enough money. Enough money means as much as it takes to make your offer better than any other option they have.
> In fact - plenty of smart people will take pay cuts for better qualify of life.
True, but also the same people will take quality of life cuts if you offer enough money.
Also, in general, the best way to improve one's quality of life is... through more money.
> 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.
Counterexample: add four zeros to the salary offered, and watch how many of them won't be happy to uproot and move with their whole family to your location within 24 hours.
> 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.
This assumption is sound in theory and almost always true in practice, it's just rarely attempted, because you need to spend money, which people absolutely hate.
Almost all cases of skilled staff shortage can be solved with multiplying the payment by 2-10x (and convincing people you mean it - at the 10x end, people may start having doubts, precisely because it's so uncommon to see). Do that, and you'll have your competitors' staff jumping ship, and a wave of skilled applicants from abroad, committed to relocate if you let them. If the market for the skill is growing and you're able to sustain the pay bump, people will retrain and entrepreneurs will start schools for future candidates.
And yes, with that much extra money available, other entrepreneurs will try and pitch all kinds of software and hardware that will reduce your need for skilled labor, hoping you pay them instead.
Of course, 2-10x bump might make the whole endeavor stop making business sense on your end. It's often the case. But in this situation, saying there's shortage of labor is a lie. It's only a shortage at the price you're willing to pay.
This all just follows the same dynamics everything else in the economy does. If you believe employment is a special case where this doesn't apply, you're still not imagining paying enough money :).
If you think that, you aren't considering paying them enough money.
> Given the people in question have good other options, why would they do this, even if you paid more?
You ain't thinking about offering them enough money. Enough money means as much as it takes to make your offer better than any other option they have.
> In fact - plenty of smart people will take pay cuts for better qualify of life.
True, but also the same people will take quality of life cuts if you offer enough money.
Also, in general, the best way to improve one's quality of life is... through more money.
> 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.
Counterexample: add four zeros to the salary offered, and watch how many of them won't be happy to uproot and move with their whole family to your location within 24 hours.
> 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.
This assumption is sound in theory and almost always true in practice, it's just rarely attempted, because you need to spend money, which people absolutely hate.
Almost all cases of skilled staff shortage can be solved with multiplying the payment by 2-10x (and convincing people you mean it - at the 10x end, people may start having doubts, precisely because it's so uncommon to see). Do that, and you'll have your competitors' staff jumping ship, and a wave of skilled applicants from abroad, committed to relocate if you let them. If the market for the skill is growing and you're able to sustain the pay bump, people will retrain and entrepreneurs will start schools for future candidates.
And yes, with that much extra money available, other entrepreneurs will try and pitch all kinds of software and hardware that will reduce your need for skilled labor, hoping you pay them instead.
Of course, 2-10x bump might make the whole endeavor stop making business sense on your end. It's often the case. But in this situation, saying there's shortage of labor is a lie. It's only a shortage at the price you're willing to pay.
This all just follows the same dynamics everything else in the economy does. If you believe employment is a special case where this doesn't apply, you're still not imagining paying enough money :).
This is again, so reductive i don't know where to begin.
You really just assume everyone, at their core, is money driven enough. So to you, everything is about whether they are beign offered enough money. You even use the amazingly circular reasoning that if you discover them saying no, it just means you weren't trying to pay them enough.
There is apparently no limit to this, and anything gets solved by more money. This of course, can't possibly be disproven, since you will just say to increase the limits.
Meanwhile, as I've said, this is an intensely researched thing. I have yet to see a single person constantly pushing the infinite money angle make any reasoned argument, backed up by any study or data.
As I've said, plenty of studies have explored the effect and limits of giving more money on happiness, on recruitment, etc, on tons and tons and tons of fields.
Rather than just making reductive arguments that don't really get us anywhere, why don't you make a reasoned one?
also consider, just for a second, the possibility that not everyone is this money driven. Seriously.
"Enough money means as much as it takes to make your offer better than any other option they have."
That doesn't always exist. That's the whole thing about not everyone being money driven.
You really just assume everyone, at their core, is money driven enough. So to you, everything is about whether they are beign offered enough money. You even use the amazingly circular reasoning that if you discover them saying no, it just means you weren't trying to pay them enough.
There is apparently no limit to this, and anything gets solved by more money. This of course, can't possibly be disproven, since you will just say to increase the limits.
Meanwhile, as I've said, this is an intensely researched thing. I have yet to see a single person constantly pushing the infinite money angle make any reasoned argument, backed up by any study or data.
As I've said, plenty of studies have explored the effect and limits of giving more money on happiness, on recruitment, etc, on tons and tons and tons of fields.
Rather than just making reductive arguments that don't really get us anywhere, why don't you make a reasoned one?
also consider, just for a second, the possibility that not everyone is this money driven. Seriously.
"Enough money means as much as it takes to make your offer better than any other option they have."
That doesn't always exist. That's the whole thing about not everyone being money driven.
You know what's extremely reductive and dishonest? Shifting the goalposts from "if you offer enough pay, you can get enough applicants" to "if you offer enough pay, you can get a specific person to take the job".
The original claim was this:
> Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified? Sounds like you need more applicants? Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation.
You then dishonestly moved the goalposts:
> 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.
Maybe before accusing people of being reductive, you should respond to the actual point being made instead of moving the goalposts.
> As I've said, plenty of studies have explored the effect and limits of giving more money on happiness, on recruitment, etc, on tons and tons and tons of fields.
None of which you have linked. Go ahead, link a study that says that even offering an unbounded amount of money isn't enough to get enough applicants within the amount of time it takes to go through the training pipeline.
The original claim was this:
> Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified? Sounds like you need more applicants? Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation.
You then dishonestly moved the goalposts:
> 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.
Maybe before accusing people of being reductive, you should respond to the actual point being made instead of moving the goalposts.
> As I've said, plenty of studies have explored the effect and limits of giving more money on happiness, on recruitment, etc, on tons and tons and tons of fields.
None of which you have linked. Go ahead, link a study that says that even offering an unbounded amount of money isn't enough to get enough applicants within the amount of time it takes to go through the training pipeline.
>There are plenty of jobs that you can't pay people enough money to want to do.
Name a few.
Name a few.
> Want to attract more applicants? Offer more compensation.
This was already addressed in the original post. Why write in this "spelling it out for you" style when they already addressed it?
> 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 side.
This is really reductive. There are multiple reasons:
- very stable employment
- very prestigious job, and has been for centuries. Conveys authority. Your family can boast that you're a doctor.
- very interesting tales come out of employment, and your family probably
- very easy to feel good about being a doctor - directly helping people etc
Not all of those for everyone, and they no doubt don't all turn out to be the case, but doctors apply for multiple reasons, and many of them aren't in high-paying areas at all. Doctors (in America, which I assume is what you're focusing in on) are paid well partly because they have high expenses in terms of liability insurance.
This was already addressed in the original post. Why write in this "spelling it out for you" style when they already addressed it?
> 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 side.
This is really reductive. There are multiple reasons:
- very stable employment
- very prestigious job, and has been for centuries. Conveys authority. Your family can boast that you're a doctor.
- very interesting tales come out of employment, and your family probably
- very easy to feel good about being a doctor - directly helping people etc
Not all of those for everyone, and they no doubt don't all turn out to be the case, but doctors apply for multiple reasons, and many of them aren't in high-paying areas at all. Doctors (in America, which I assume is what you're focusing in on) are paid well partly because they have high expenses in terms of liability insurance.
> 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.
The supply of labor for a given job is related to the market price of the job. This is literally ECON 101.
It's still a simplistic view. If you increase salaries the pay has to come from somewhere. Does that mean making flights more expensive? Or raising taxes? Either way it's not as simple as "just increase salaries, dummy".
Making flights more expensive would also address the ATC shortage, by reducing workload. Good idea.
(Econ 101 again: increased price -> reduced demand, i. e. fewer flights.)
(Econ 101 again: increased price -> reduced demand, i. e. fewer flights.)
Except that the people making these decisions are politicians. So while Econ 101 applies, so does Politics 101: don't anger voters. It's not uncommon for those two to be in conflict.
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.
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.
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.)
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.)
Unfortunately you've completely misunderstood. This is where they addressed it:
> at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools
Nothing to do with raising pay causing/not causing more supply.
> at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools
Nothing to do with raising pay causing/not causing more supply.
Total non-issue. They hired ~1800 air traffic controllers in '24, which would be 0.06% of college grads in a given year and a much smaller number of the total workforce.
I appreciate your "attack at all costs" comment style, but I was just pointing out how irrelevant your condescending "econ 101" comment was. There's no point debating me now about someone else's point; I was just saying they addressed it already.
New vocabulary, thanks.
Reductive
-tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form, especially one viewed as crude.
Reductive
-tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form, especially one viewed as crude.
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.
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.
> Doctors dont have interesting tales to tell, nor should have due to things being private by law.
Identifiable tales are illegal, yes. That's not all tales. Surely you know a doctor and they've told you stories before?
I'm listing other reasons doctors like being doctors over just money. I don't know what the rest of your comment has to do with this.
Identifiable tales are illegal, yes. That's not all tales. Surely you know a doctor and they've told you stories before?
I'm listing other reasons doctors like being doctors over just money. I don't know what the rest of your comment has to do with this.
> Doctors dont have interesting tales to tell
You must know few doctors, or they must work in very boring locations.
> nor should have due to things being private by law
You wouldn't believe how amazingly easy to tell stories without any patient identifying details. Think of any of your best stories - could you tell them to me without providing me breadcrumbs about any identities? I bet you could with nearly every story you have to tell.
You must know few doctors, or they must work in very boring locations.
> nor should have due to things being private by law
You wouldn't believe how amazingly easy to tell stories without any patient identifying details. Think of any of your best stories - could you tell them to me without providing me breadcrumbs about any identities? I bet you could with nearly every story you have to tell.
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!
> Sounds like a doctor?
Not disagreeing, but the US also has a doctor shortage for at least a decade that it is seemingly unable to fix.
Not disagreeing, but the US also has a doctor shortage for at least a decade that it is seemingly unable to fix.
There are multiple reasons for the doctor shortage but it's at least partly intentional. The primary bottleneck on producing new physicians is the number of residency program slots: every year some students graduate with an MD but are unable to practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency slot (some do get matched the following year). Most residency programs are funded through Medicare and Congress has refused to significantly increase that budget for years. But here's the trick. By limiting the number of doctors they also hold down the cost of Medicare claims. If a Medicare beneficiary can't get an appointment because there are no doctors available then no claim will be generated and the federal government doesn't have to pay anything.
https://savegme.org/
https://savegme.org/
I love how that page is from the AMA, the organization that is largely responsible for pushing Congress to institute the residency caps in the first place because they feared too many physicians would drive down existing physician's incomes.
Crazy how they present as a guild but behave like a cartel.
Hmm, guilds were often the institution that controlled a profession, while cartels are usually voluntarily joined. Is that really what you meant?
This is fucked.
My simple understanding is that the width of the bottleneck is controlled by existing doctors who are (unfortunately) monetarily motivated to limit the supply of new doctors.
Nope, your understanding is mostly wrong. It's primarily controlled by Congress in the form of Medicare limits on residency funding. And to a lesser extent by the management of teaching hospitals. Most of those people aren't doctors.
At one point the AMA lobbied Congress for those funding limits but they reversed position on that years ago.
https://savegme.org/
At one point the AMA lobbied Congress for those funding limits but they reversed position on that years ago.
https://savegme.org/
Ah damn, looks like my understanding was incorrect. Thanks for the link, that's very illuminating!
The USA restricts the number of positions for medical schools and residencies. It's a problem that money could solve.
There is no restriction on medical school admissions. It's really just residencies.
There are no artificial restrictions on residency slots. The Federal government funds a fixed number of slots, but states and hospitals also fund residencies. The "shortage" has much to do with geography and specialty--the money and interest is working in specialties on the coasts, not as a GP in rural towns. People who are rejected are typically vying for slots in high-demand areas and specialties; they often could have been accepted if they had applied elsewhere.
One answer would be to raise GP salaries, but that's difficult, especially if you're self-funding residencies and already paying out the nose for specialists and other inflated expenses deemed necessary in modern healthcare systems. Kaiser California imports medical school graduates from abroad for their in-house residency programs, which is presumably cheaper than raising salaries to draw more US resident candidates.
Kaiser arguably points the way forward. As an HMO--a vertically integrated healthcare system--there's greater financial incentive to self-fund residencies. When insurers, hospitals, and doctors are all at arms length from each other, the financial incentives don't align very well, thus the "need" for outside funding (i.e. the government) of residencies.
Note that unfunded residencies are also a thing, where the resident is responsible for sourcing the funds for their salary and expenses.
One answer would be to raise GP salaries, but that's difficult, especially if you're self-funding residencies and already paying out the nose for specialists and other inflated expenses deemed necessary in modern healthcare systems. Kaiser California imports medical school graduates from abroad for their in-house residency programs, which is presumably cheaper than raising salaries to draw more US resident candidates.
Kaiser arguably points the way forward. As an HMO--a vertically integrated healthcare system--there's greater financial incentive to self-fund residencies. When insurers, hospitals, and doctors are all at arms length from each other, the financial incentives don't align very well, thus the "need" for outside funding (i.e. the government) of residencies.
Note that unfunded residencies are also a thing, where the resident is responsible for sourcing the funds for their salary and expenses.
My understanding is that this is a distinction that doesn't make a difference? Without a residency, can you become a doctor?
Yes, because you have to be (or be about to be and in time to start) a doctor in order to be apply for residency.
Resident doctors are doctors, exactly as junior SWEs are software engineers.
(UK doctors have for some reason long objected to 'junior' and recently become 'resident doctors' over exactly this. All the more confusing - throughout and still there's been 'Senior House Officers', because 'house' used to be what it was called, like US residency, doing house, there were junior and senior house officers, so why not just revert to that? Who knows, but now they're all resident doctors - and some of which are senior house officers - until they're registrars/consultants, and they're happier with that than junior doctors.)
Resident doctors are doctors, exactly as junior SWEs are software engineers.
(UK doctors have for some reason long objected to 'junior' and recently become 'resident doctors' over exactly this. All the more confusing - throughout and still there's been 'Senior House Officers', because 'house' used to be what it was called, like US residency, doing house, there were junior and senior house officers, so why not just revert to that? Who knows, but now they're all resident doctors - and some of which are senior house officers - until they're registrars/consultants, and they're happier with that than junior doctors.)
That's mostly correct, but there are a few students who enroll in medical school with no intention of becoming practicing physicians. They want to go into some other career like research or technology or hospital administration.
The supply of doctors is limited by the AMA and state MA, to avoid excess doctors = price competition
And part of the problem there is that money and profit got introduced in the healthcare system.
In other countries people become doctors because they want to heal others. Not because they want to become wealthy. In the US doctors spend half of their time haggling with the insurance companies.
In other countries people become doctors because they want to heal others. Not because they want to become wealthy. In the US doctors spend half of their time haggling with the insurance companies.
I mean going to school for 10 years only to be in debt for 100K-300K+ dollars, and not have a good idea of whether you will be able to pay that back... is a massive problem. Most countries don't have this issue, for example. They have an abundance of doctors and engineers, because people who actually want to do those things, are able to pursue those careers without financial investment. We are snubbing an entire generation of people and then acting surprised when the very obvious consequences of those actions start to come back to bite us. Its the definition of insanity.
It's hardly "most countries". The USA is about average for developed countries in terms of physicians per capita. We're higher than France, Belgium, UK, Japan, Canada, etc.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?most_rec...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?most_rec...
> They have an abundance of doctors and engineers
They are usually paid several times less than people doing the same jobs in US.
They are usually paid several times less than people doing the same jobs in US.
But in other countries they dont need to pay so much for social system, insurance or healthcare, kindergarden and so on..
You can not always compare everything with money, when there is a lot around it.
Would you rather spend 10% of 50k on healthcare or 15% of 100k?
Also taxes are generally much higher in these countries as well.
Also taxes are generally much higher in these countries as well.
Taxes are usually higher, but not incredibly so. Healthcare spending is generally less for better results. Switzerland spends the most, although nowhere near what America spends, and is where Romney/heritage foundation got the mandatory health insurance idea from.
Well yes, Switzerland is pretty much the only place in Europe where income/wages are overall on par with those in the US (of course not in all sectors). Other countries are generally very poor in comparison.
> Taxes are usually higher, but not incredibly so
So again.. would you rather make 60k and pay 45% in taxes or make 100k and pay 35%?
> nowhere near what America spends
Sure, if you are above median higher will likely more than compensate the higher healthcare costs (unless you’re very unlucky of course).
> Taxes are usually higher, but not incredibly so
So again.. would you rather make 60k and pay 45% in taxes or make 100k and pay 35%?
> nowhere near what America spends
Sure, if you are above median higher will likely more than compensate the higher healthcare costs (unless you’re very unlucky of course).
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).
> Only 10% of applicants are physically and mentally qualified?
Another way would be investing in education (instead of dismantling it, or mixing it with religion and politics), making it more accessible so more people come out who are better equipped to take on "complex jobs"
Another way would be investing in education (instead of dismantling it, or mixing it with religion and politics), making it more accessible so more people come out who are better equipped to take on "complex jobs"
I generally agree with your sentiment for improving education, but I don't think the limiting factor for ATCs has to do with it, but with innate qualities in individuals.
You can see the list of criteria here: https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
You can see the list of criteria here: https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
I think most people underestimate the amount of "innate qualities" from patience to creativity etc. that actually are influenced by education, parenting, etc. rather than being defined at birth by genetics.
Education isn't just about changing the quantity of knowledge people have learned - a country with good free education, along with other things like mental health support, good parenting resources/education/support, etc. will lead to more people having the qualities needed to be ATCs despite not having learned them by going to specific "managing stress 101" classes.
(Edit: It's possible I misunderstood you and by innate qualities you literally just meant the things in their explicit requirements list like being under 31 and being a US citizen, if so apologies but I'll leave my comment here anyway.)
Education isn't just about changing the quantity of knowledge people have learned - a country with good free education, along with other things like mental health support, good parenting resources/education/support, etc. will lead to more people having the qualities needed to be ATCs despite not having learned them by going to specific "managing stress 101" classes.
(Edit: It's possible I misunderstood you and by innate qualities you literally just meant the things in their explicit requirements list like being under 31 and being a US citizen, if so apologies but I'll leave my comment here anyway.)
A quick google suggests that only 35% of US adults have 20/20 vision (although I guess it might be higher if you restrict to the population of the age required) which is one of the requirements so that by itself limits the pool of applicants significantly regardless of education, parenting etc?
- Be a United States citizen
- Be under the age of 31
Well, they restrict the pool pretty harshly right from the start.
- Be under the age of 31
Well, they restrict the pool pretty harshly right from the start.
I don’t think being a good applicant for air traffic control has a lot to do with classical education. It demands a lot of stuff you don’t really need for university, and a lot of experience and education in university won’t make you a better traffic controller.
Once upon a time in a country of the Universe some wise leader decided that there should be twice the number of graduates than before, so they made the education more accessible, accepting twice as many people than before. However, one - evil and ugly - department in the unversity was a barrier. They failed much more students than before with their old and ugly exams, so with some convincing they improved their exams reducing the level of expectations and voila, there were much more graduates designing buildings and other critical infrastructures than ever before, everyone lived happily ever after.... ?
> 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.
Or pay people enough they can afford to work part time. A stressful job is less stressful if you only have to work 2 days a week.
Or pay people enough they can afford to work part time. A stressful job is less stressful if you only have to work 2 days a week.
This also applies to doctors and any stressful job really. Long hours compound the stress problems, making the job really unattractive.
I suspect this would probably be counterproductive, for a couple reasons. First, you’d be encouraging people to take on a second job with all of their free time, which would lead to more overall stress. But I think you’d also see a reduction in efficiency and overall quality of work when you’re only “practicing” two days a week, especially after five days off. I mean, when I come in to work after a long weekend, I can hardly remember what the hell it is I even do!
> Offer more compensation.
> 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 highly doubt that solving the problem with just money will get the right people.
A high salary becomes the goal in an of itself, and everything else falls to the wayside.
Do you really care about safety? Applicants may say they do, but only want to retire after 10 years and will lie through their teeth.
Money is a corrupting factor. I don’t like to take this side of the argument, since I want people to be paid fairly, but there’s something fundamental to seeing unpaid volunteers having the best intentions and most love for their craft
> 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 highly doubt that solving the problem with just money will get the right people.
A high salary becomes the goal in an of itself, and everything else falls to the wayside.
Do you really care about safety? Applicants may say they do, but only want to retire after 10 years and will lie through their teeth.
Money is a corrupting factor. I don’t like to take this side of the argument, since I want people to be paid fairly, but there’s something fundamental to seeing unpaid volunteers having the best intentions and most love for their craft
Corrupting or motivating? Thin line I’d say.
The other side of the coin is you won’t get the candidates you want if they can get the same money for less taxing jobs. Game theory 101.
The other side of the coin is you won’t get the candidates you want if they can get the same money for less taxing jobs. Game theory 101.
> 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 side.
I think the guaranteed respect and admiration that comes from the title is actually a more powerful draw. Don't get me wrong, the money is good, but on par with senior manager in any large tech firm. Doctor is a primal respect that technical roles do not carry.
You're not getting instant respect from mother in laws and pastors as an ATC.
I think the guaranteed respect and admiration that comes from the title is actually a more powerful draw. Don't get me wrong, the money is good, but on par with senior manager in any large tech firm. Doctor is a primal respect that technical roles do not carry.
You're not getting instant respect from mother in laws and pastors as an ATC.
> You're not getting instant respect from mother in laws and pastors as an ATC
You would if it was known to pay $500k/yr+
You would if it was known to pay $500k/yr+
Earning highly does not universally command respect the way being a doctor does. Some would even see earning that much as being immoral (i.e. actually negative)
Which very highly paid job does not command respect in society? I can’t think of any (Outside of anti-capitalist circles ofc)
Many people have a low view of lawyers and investment bankers.
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).
I have respect for lawyers, and i have respect for investment bankers (who make huge merger/acquisition deals work).
It’s not out of jealousy.
Many people believe investment bankers are a net negative for society.
In the case of lawyers, a necessary evil. I have respect for people, not a profession.
Many people believe investment bankers are a net negative for society.
In the case of lawyers, a necessary evil. I have respect for people, not a profession.
To be fair, the term "lawyer" is generic in the US. It can mean many different things: (1) in-house corporate counsel, (2) external corporate counsel (advise on merge/acq/deals/contract), (3) civil lawyer (sue/divorce/personal injury/intellectual property, etc.), (4) defender (public or private), (5) public prosecutor (work for attorney general office), (6) law professor, (7) judge (Can you be a judge in US without a law degree? It seems hard to imagine in 2025.). And there must be other categories that I forgot. My point: Most people will have differing views on each category. Example: Most people would view public defenders, law professors, and judges as honorable, socially beneficial jobs.
Indeed. And this is an interesting counterpoint to the idea that higher income (always) confers status. Because the corporate jobs will typically be higher paid but lower status.
Regardless of how that bias is formed it's a relevant opinion. A not insignificant amount of the population holds a negative opinion of lawyers and views them as trashy or shady. So much so that in many neighborhoods real estate brokers will off a casual caveat if one of the neighbors is a lawyer.
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 people in tough jobs like see workers. Doesn't mean my mom wouldn't prefer I date a nice doctor. My point being that social respect does not come with your personal respect.
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 people in tough jobs like see workers. Doesn't mean my mom wouldn't prefer I date a nice doctor. My point being that social respect does not come with your personal respect.
One thing to consider about investment bankers: Many of them do pretty mundane work, like work on non-national/federal gov't and corporate bond issuance. (In most countries, national/federal gov't can directly issue bonds without investment bankers.) There is literally trillions of dollars of these bonds issued each year (usually to roll-over maturing debt) across all highly developed nations. It is fundamental to modern capitalism. I would estimate that 99.5% of these bond deals use "vanilla term sheets" (my term) -- literally copy and modify from the last deal. And, the buyers of these bonds are 99% institutional: our pension funds, mutual funds, and bond ETFs.
Also, secondary equity issuance is pretty non-controversial, and an important fund raising option for publicly-listed corporations.
Also, secondary equity issuance is pretty non-controversial, and an important fund raising option for publicly-listed corporations.
> 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.
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.
They brought up bankers and lawyers in response to someone asking "Which very highly paid job does not command respect in society? I can’t think of any"
So yes it is irrelevant in the specific context of that sub-conversation. Which isn't to say that your point arguing why that might not be applicable to ATCs isn't also a relevant thing to say to being the conversation back to the main topic of this thread.
So yes it is irrelevant in the specific context of that sub-conversation. Which isn't to say that your point arguing why that might not be applicable to ATCs isn't also a relevant thing to say to being the conversation back to the main topic of this thread.
It's not directly relevant to that preceeding comment, but it's relevant to the reason those were being brought up a couple commments higher.
Being relevant to either of those is enough to make it overall be: relevant.
Being relevant to either of those is enough to make it overall be: relevant.
> Which very highly paid job does not command respect in society?
Banking? Sales?
> Outside of anti-capitalist circles ofc
Well that's quite the point. Maybe those circles are small in the US, but they aren't in most of the rest of the world.
Let me just say that if I called my parents and told them that I had gotten a well-paid job at, say, a hedge fund, they would not be impressed and would likely think less of me for it.
Banking? Sales?
> Outside of anti-capitalist circles ofc
Well that's quite the point. Maybe those circles are small in the US, but they aren't in most of the rest of the world.
Let me just say that if I called my parents and told them that I had gotten a well-paid job at, say, a hedge fund, they would not be impressed and would likely think less of me for it.
One doesn't need to be anti-capitalist to dislike bankers, salespeople, or many other similar careers. They, in many cases at least, rely on information inequalities to deceive and rip off people. I love capitalism, but I loathe sketchy behavior done in the pursuit of money. They are two very different things.
Also, a nonzero amount of people remember events like the Great Recession that were caused by the hubris of bankers.
Underwater welders
Crane operators, any equipment operators really. Plumbers, HVAC tech, Boat Mechanics, the guy that climbed down in my septic tank to retrieve whatever he used to clear the line is making $300 an hour.
And... uhm... software developers.
And... uhm... software developers.
I respect the shit out of the first category tbh, those people keep society going
> Which very highly paid job does not command respect in society?
All of them. Respect is not commanded because you make lots of money or have a certain job.
All of them. Respect is not commanded because you make lots of money or have a certain job.
Lawyers, CEOs, hedge fund managers, investment bankers, congresspeople are all widely despised. To a lesser extent dentists, influencers and advertising executives are not well-loved.
Politician?
>"Doctor is a primal respect that technical roles do not carry."
Used to be. Not anymore. Nowadays many doctors act as a smartass business people.
Used to be. Not anymore. Nowadays many doctors act as a smartass business people.
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.
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.
There's certainly a lot of paperwork that has to be done, but doctors aren't doing it.
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 documentation in the electronic medical record (EMR), reviewing test results, handling medication requests, and filling out forms. What was remarkable was that even during office visits, doctors interacted with their patients for only half of the time; the rest was EMR and paperwork. As a matter of fact, for every hour of face-to-face patient time, another two hours were spent on desk work." [1]
The paper mentions that was the amount of time spent for doctors with "documentation support" (various forms of automation/streamlining) that would generally be absent in something like a primary care physician's office, meaning he'll be spending substantially more time on paperwork. The paper also (at a quick skim) did not mention out-of-office work, where doctors often spend even more time filling out paperwork. And there are also regulations meaning doctors themselves have to be the ones filling out much of this paperwork.
[1] - https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/physicians-paperwork-and...
"What they learned was that during office hours, half the time — a huge chunk — was allocated to desk work, like documentation in the electronic medical record (EMR), reviewing test results, handling medication requests, and filling out forms. What was remarkable was that even during office visits, doctors interacted with their patients for only half of the time; the rest was EMR and paperwork. As a matter of fact, for every hour of face-to-face patient time, another two hours were spent on desk work." [1]
The paper mentions that was the amount of time spent for doctors with "documentation support" (various forms of automation/streamlining) that would generally be absent in something like a primary care physician's office, meaning he'll be spending substantially more time on paperwork. The paper also (at a quick skim) did not mention out-of-office work, where doctors often spend even more time filling out paperwork. And there are also regulations meaning doctors themselves have to be the ones filling out much of this paperwork.
[1] - https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/physicians-paperwork-and...
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.
there's something about the guaranteed aspect, whereas a senior manager is at the behest of office politics and the business cycle
> 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
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.
Sure, let's have FAA reject qualified ATC applicants because they answered "science" as their worst subject in high school and/or "history" in college. (The core crux of Brigida vs FAA 2015 lawsuit)
Or the passive visual skin color test (Brigida vs Buttigieg 2021 lawsuit).
That'll be about 4,120 qualified ATC applicants that won't be coming back: would you come back if a sizable class-action award is forthcoming?
If that was the plan (to lock up and away FAA ATCs, to inflate supply-demand, that's a shrewd economic move, but I don't think so).
Or the passive visual skin color test (Brigida vs Buttigieg 2021 lawsuit).
That'll be about 4,120 qualified ATC applicants that won't be coming back: would you come back if a sizable class-action award is forthcoming?
If that was the plan (to lock up and away FAA ATCs, to inflate supply-demand, that's a shrewd economic move, but I don't think so).
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 finds out that the pay is high - nobody talks about it, or sells its existence as an option. 4. doesnt have a parent in the business to teach them what to do
raising the payment seems to fail a lot, even though its suggested naively all the time as the solution to all labour problems.
alternatives might be to increase outreach, immigration, enslaved prison workers, stronger unions to make the job more like what people are willing to work, etc
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 finds out that the pay is high - nobody talks about it, or sells its existence as an option. 4. doesnt have a parent in the business to teach them what to do
raising the payment seems to fail a lot, even though its suggested naively all the time as the solution to all labour problems.
alternatives might be to increase outreach, immigration, enslaved prison workers, stronger unions to make the job more like what people are willing to work, etc
Of course it solves the problem. People will prevaricate and blow a ton of money in so many ways before they acknowledge the easiest fix.
The extra expenses will also encourage actual fixes to the system like better automation or whatever to reduce costs.
The extra expenses will also encourage actual fixes to the system like better automation or whatever to reduce costs.
Money talks. No amount of outreach makes a mispriced offer attractive.
> Everything you have listed above could be solved with money.
Except that when money was on the table, Reagan fired them. ATC is remote from most people's day-to-day awareness unless planes hit each other, but medical help that's held back is really in-your-face.
Granted, that's decades in the past. No way anyone would jump in and try to gut the public service like that today [1].
[1] sarky.
Except that when money was on the table, Reagan fired them. ATC is remote from most people's day-to-day awareness unless planes hit each other, but medical help that's held back is really in-your-face.
Granted, that's decades in the past. No way anyone would jump in and try to gut the public service like that today [1].
[1] sarky.
I respectfully disagree - there's always money in the banana stand.
> Everything you have listed could be solved with money.
No that's actually not true. Government jobs are soul crushing. The way the bureaucracy works, its all about social standing, politics, and seniority. In these jobs you trade your sanity for money, and they have a long reputation for being just like this which is why few ever apply.
No reasonably average intelligence person is going to do that unless they are absolutely desperate. Its a dead end job.
No that's actually not true. Government jobs are soul crushing. The way the bureaucracy works, its all about social standing, politics, and seniority. In these jobs you trade your sanity for money, and they have a long reputation for being just like this which is why few ever apply.
No reasonably average intelligence person is going to do that unless they are absolutely desperate. Its a dead end job.
You must be an economist. :D
- Can you swim now?
- No.
- What if I give you money?
- Can you swim now?
- No.
- What if I give you money?
> 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.
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 "...The first time a plane goes down carrying a dozen congress critters and ...."
Is it realized it almost happened in the recent helicopter / aeroplane crash. As it was said the helicopter was used for moving VIPS ....
Is it realized it almost happened in the recent helicopter / aeroplane crash. As it was said the helicopter was used for moving VIPS ....
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 require a commitment to try to understand the thing you're managing.
Politicians don't hire competent administrators because they believe that building a solution yourself and buying a solution from a contractor are basically equivalent, which anyone on this website can tell you is not true. This is an easier problem to solve than most think, but it's not trivial. And it's really hard when you have clowns like Elon Musk purposefully destroying institutional knowledge for no good reason.
But upgrading technology requires government administrative capacity. That's generally cheaper than outsourcing technology development to third parties, but does require a commitment to try to understand the thing you're managing.
Politicians don't hire competent administrators because they believe that building a solution yourself and buying a solution from a contractor are basically equivalent, which anyone on this website can tell you is not true. This is an easier problem to solve than most think, but it's not trivial. And it's really hard when you have clowns like Elon Musk purposefully destroying institutional knowledge for no good reason.
> 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.
They genuinely cant. They can make a sorta kinda prototype of something that costs Google several million dollars.
You're right that a hobbyist couldn't build something like search or maps or docs in a weekend, but a lot of what Google ships is boring webapps. And I promise that they are really hard to ship: approvals are annoying and time-consuming, and the infrastructure is designed for scalability and performance, not flexibility or iteration speed.
There's a joke inside Google that Google infra makes easy things hard and impossible things possible.
There's a joke inside Google that Google infra makes easy things hard and impossible things possible.
with more money you will attract greedy people and greedy is contradictory with being responsible
Paying too much can be counterproductive, if the job is demanding, people don't find it inherently rewarding, and most people are not qualified for it. If you earn enough to retire after 10 years, you also earn enough to feel financially secure after 3 years, quit, and find a better job.
> 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.
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.
… 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.
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.
Maybe the technology part can’t be fixed easily with money but sounds to me like all the other aspects of the money argument are still valid.
Like “too much stress?”
Money only does so much to improve your life. Stress is a way to shorten your life. Long term chronic stress literally makes you ill in ways that medicine can’t fix.
Money only does so much to improve your life. Stress is a way to shorten your life. Long term chronic stress literally makes you ill in ways that medicine can’t fix.
Paying more money can make a huge difference to stress. Obviously it can't make an hour of doing the work less stressful in itself, but more money could do one or more of the following:
- Allow people to retire after a decade rather than several decades of work
- Allow (or require) people to only work part-time (eg 2 days a week, or 5 days of 2 hours a day, or...) while still earning a full time equivalent salary
- Allow a work day to be 10mins on, 50mins resting for every hour (requiring 6x as many staff), while paying as if the full hour was work
- Pay for therapy, stress-management lessons, etc.
- Pay for a professional cleaner at home, a part-time chef or lots of restaurant/takeaway meals, or whatever else helps to minimise the amount of work you need to do outside the job
- Probably other ideas that haven't come into my mind in the two minutes I've spent on the subject of how more money can help fight issues caused by stress
- Allow people to retire after a decade rather than several decades of work
- Allow (or require) people to only work part-time (eg 2 days a week, or 5 days of 2 hours a day, or...) while still earning a full time equivalent salary
- Allow a work day to be 10mins on, 50mins resting for every hour (requiring 6x as many staff), while paying as if the full hour was work
- Pay for therapy, stress-management lessons, etc.
- Pay for a professional cleaner at home, a part-time chef or lots of restaurant/takeaway meals, or whatever else helps to minimise the amount of work you need to do outside the job
- Probably other ideas that haven't come into my mind in the two minutes I've spent on the subject of how more money can help fight issues caused by stress
mid 100k salary... not worth it for that level of stress
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.
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.
> I would argue an ATC employee is worth every penny, but I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work. These people are already very well compensated, and at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools.
It wouldn't happen overnight, but surely if ATC had a similar compensation reputation as, say, investment banking, we wouldn't have the pipeline problem that we do now. Surely banks don't have a problem finding young, quick thinking minds to put through their pressure factories. I don't think the ATC candidate pool is currently even close to the limit of people who could take the stress and do the work. Offer controllers starting salaries of $1M/yr and see how things start to change.
Your point in the other thread about marketing the job to teenagers is also good. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people interested in ATC aren't already "aviation adjacent" to some degree (ex-military, family are pilots, and so on)
It wouldn't happen overnight, but surely if ATC had a similar compensation reputation as, say, investment banking, we wouldn't have the pipeline problem that we do now. Surely banks don't have a problem finding young, quick thinking minds to put through their pressure factories. I don't think the ATC candidate pool is currently even close to the limit of people who could take the stress and do the work. Offer controllers starting salaries of $1M/yr and see how things start to change.
Your point in the other thread about marketing the job to teenagers is also good. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people interested in ATC aren't already "aviation adjacent" to some degree (ex-military, family are pilots, and so on)
I think you're simplifying the frame far too much here. My wife works in medicine as an ENT surgeon. There is an ENT surgeon position open in a rural hospital outside of fresno CA that pays 1.1M dollars/year, or about 2.5-3x the salary a large hospital in a major metro would pay for the work. The position has been unfilled for 4 years. As best I can tell, the two main reasons the job goes unfilled are a combination of (1) it has a stressful call schedule and (2) its in an remote and undesirable location. ATC jobs have a wide geographic distribution. You need ATC at the commercial airports in Klamath Falls OR and Elmira NY and these are places people are generally moving away from, not moving into because they are run down and have low opportunity and general prevalence of rural poverty. Paying more money doesn't automagically fill these roles, and there is an upper limit to how much you can pay someone and have it be a net benefit.
> There is an ENT surgeon position open in a rural hospital outside of fresno CA that pays 1.1M dollars/year
while 1.1m/yr sounds like a lot, it isn't the right number to consider. The right number is the difference between this job, and a similar job else where that has better facilities/amenities and comfort. If said surgeons who would qualify could've gotten a similar job in a major city for a similar amount of money, they might prefer it there (near family/friends, amenities etc).
So how much _over_ the typical pay is the 1.1m/yr salary offered?
while 1.1m/yr sounds like a lot, it isn't the right number to consider. The right number is the difference between this job, and a similar job else where that has better facilities/amenities and comfort. If said surgeons who would qualify could've gotten a similar job in a major city for a similar amount of money, they might prefer it there (near family/friends, amenities etc).
So how much _over_ the typical pay is the 1.1m/yr salary offered?
The commenter did say up to 3x, so up to ~730K higher than that job in a major city (with possibly better facilities but who knows)
It sounds like it needs to be higher than 3x then
Probably one of those things were the money ceases to be a concern when the rate is already high enough at nicer locations.
Doesn't mean you can't keep upping the rate and getting one anyway, but probably it becomes more cost effective to literally ship the rural patients instead of the doctor.
Doesn't mean you can't keep upping the rate and getting one anyway, but probably it becomes more cost effective to literally ship the rural patients instead of the doctor.
part of the problem is the structural problems caused by high turnover are themselves causing high turnover. people can't take vacation, people need to work 6 days 12 hours a week.
there is also the issue of location. where applicants are and where controllers are needed is often two distinct circles and once you throw relocation into remote areas into the mix it becomes really unattractive.
there is also the issue of location. where applicants are and where controllers are needed is often two distinct circles and once you throw relocation into remote areas into the mix it becomes really unattractive.
And not allowing people to take anxiety meds is nuts. Some of those meds seem perfect for this job, putting you in a very mellow, but focused state.
> Some of those meds seem perfect for this job, putting you in a very mellow, but focused state.
Many drugs, especially some anxiety medications, produce false feelings of sobriety.
I can’t believe I have to write this, but: Feeling mellow and focused from drugs does not mean you’re okay to perform well at mentally demanding or safety-critical tasks like driving or directing air traffic.
Many drugs, especially some anxiety medications, produce false feelings of sobriety.
I can’t believe I have to write this, but: Feeling mellow and focused from drugs does not mean you’re okay to perform well at mentally demanding or safety-critical tasks like driving or directing air traffic.
Or smoke cannabis after a hard stressful day at work
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.
> 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 impairment of a drug.
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 impairment of a drug.
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.
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.
I think this is a naive way of looking at the problem. People that start working in banks, generally do that as a starting point. ATC is the end of the road for that career.
Working in a bank is the start of a quite lucrative career, working as an ATC is the end.
Indeed, we can offer more money to ATC, but there is not a lot, progression wise.
Honestly, how would a junior ATC look like, compared with a senior?
Working in a bank is the start of a quite lucrative career, working as an ATC is the end.
Indeed, we can offer more money to ATC, but there is not a lot, progression wise.
Honestly, how would a junior ATC look like, compared with a senior?
ATC salary increases with experience. The better ones are promoted to supervisors.
Hahahahahaha....
ATC here, opinons are my own and not necessarily (definitely not in this case) that of the FAA.
Thank you for the laugh.
Out of the 10 supervisors I've had, one was amazing, one was average, and one I attended the funeral of after he drunk himself to death.
ATC salary only increases with the sub-inflation 2% or whatever presidential raise and 1.6% union-negotiated raise, each year.
No one is promoted, they have to apply, and the good controllers don't apply because if they hate it and go back to controlling, they lose their seniority (this is the union's rule). The bad controllers apply to be supervisors so they don't have to really control (they do the minimum 16 hours a month on a empty sector in the morning). Maybe this is a feature - a way to get bad controllers away from traffic.
ATC here, opinons are my own and not necessarily (definitely not in this case) that of the FAA.
Thank you for the laugh.
Out of the 10 supervisors I've had, one was amazing, one was average, and one I attended the funeral of after he drunk himself to death.
ATC salary only increases with the sub-inflation 2% or whatever presidential raise and 1.6% union-negotiated raise, each year.
No one is promoted, they have to apply, and the good controllers don't apply because if they hate it and go back to controlling, they lose their seniority (this is the union's rule). The bad controllers apply to be supervisors so they don't have to really control (they do the minimum 16 hours a month on a empty sector in the morning). Maybe this is a feature - a way to get bad controllers away from traffic.
promoting someone to their level of incompetence i see?
Technical jobs should not be promotion driven at all. It should be a combination of seniority, and technical expertise/experience. Their metric should be something like number of accidents under their tenure, vs accident free hours under operation.
A supervising position might not see problems as fast as someone actually doing said job, which wastes the experience acquired by said supervisor!
Technical jobs should not be promotion driven at all. It should be a combination of seniority, and technical expertise/experience. Their metric should be something like number of accidents under their tenure, vs accident free hours under operation.
A supervising position might not see problems as fast as someone actually doing said job, which wastes the experience acquired by said supervisor!
The vast majority of aviation mishaps are entirely due to pilot error or mechanical failure. It would be stupid to count those when evaluating controllers. But the FAA does already have a rigorous process to deal with controllers who make safety errors.
What job have you ever held where the management was consistently better than ICs?
Hopefully they don’t throw juniors on to the busiest runways in the country
Where else would they learn how to handle that kind of environment?
By starting at smaller airports or less busy runways, getting comfortable, then stepping up to more demanding situations.
On submarines (still flying, just underwater), we don’t throw new underway buddies into the most difficult scenarios right away. We do give them a seemingly overwhelming amount of qualifications to achieve in a very short period of time, but we don’t make them practice the hard stuff until we’re sure that they understand the fundamentals. Because much like ATC, if you make a mistake hundreds of feet underwater (or thousands of feet in the sky), you’re gonna have a bad time.
…kind of. In reality, there is always a qualified individual ready to physically stop you from doing the wrong thing, and there are multiple independent safety systems, interlocks, etc.
…kind of. In reality, there is always a qualified individual ready to physically stop you from doing the wrong thing, and there are multiple independent safety systems, interlocks, etc.
The million dollar salary thing is compelling. I would certainly switch careers from ML engineering for a million bucks of cash comp, especially in a low CoL location :)
Also, the "30 years old" thing mentioned in the GP seems excessive, surely if they were really desperate to staff up, they could loosen that age limit.
20/20 vision in each eye (no contact lenses) is also a requirement. I have a feeling thatll rule out a lot of software engineers on this site.
I believe this is incorrect - your vision just has to be correctable to 20/20 in both eyes: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_39... (Also you can't be color blind.)
Still a bit of a risk though - if your vision ever degrades you might be out of work unless you can get transferred to a desk job or something.
Still a bit of a risk though - if your vision ever degrades you might be out of work unless you can get transferred to a desk job or something.
I assume plenty of people will be happy to go through LASIK for that
As far as I recall, in the Aviation world, LASIK is still a major gamble. If you're a pilot or ATC and come out of LASIK surgery with any weird surgery-induced vision abnormalities like "halos" or "starbursts", you're out, permanently.
Which is why when I got mine done around 2015, Navy pilots were still required to get PRK. Much more painful and longer recovery, but the risk of defects was lower. I heard they can now get LASIK; presumably advances have been made since then.
My own experience tells me that past 30 years old my thinking is slightly slower in the form of slightly longer reaction times, and slightly longer time to recall specific facts. This hardly matters in my current job but perhaps ATC would be different. Perhaps they are taking that into account.
What they're taking into account is their mandatory retirement age (56), which is indeed related to things like reaction times for people as they get older; and then they work back from that to say you need to be young enough to have earned your pension by the time
you're forced to retire.
So a rules change could improve things on that front, as they could for example allow working from 40 to 56 to count as enough to earn a full pension, without any change to their safety policy on the age cutoff for finishing working as an ATC - but it wouldn't be cheap, as you not only are massively increasing the cost of pensions across the board, but you're also paying the same amount to train a 40yo applicant as a 30yo one, but getting fewer years of valuable work back from that training cost.
So a rules change could improve things on that front, as they could for example allow working from 40 to 56 to count as enough to earn a full pension, without any change to their safety policy on the age cutoff for finishing working as an ATC - but it wouldn't be cheap, as you not only are massively increasing the cost of pensions across the board, but you're also paying the same amount to train a 40yo applicant as a 30yo one, but getting fewer years of valuable work back from that training cost.
[deleted]
It's a different kind of pressure. Lives aren't on the line making trades, not like air travel. This lends to a different type of stress.
Losing millions for your boss, losing your job != killing hundreds with a single mistake made in seconds.
Losing millions for your boss, losing your job != killing hundreds with a single mistake made in seconds.
Yeah, the closest I ever came to life-critical software was payroll projects.
I discovered by accident that people will notice a one-cent change in their paycheck.
I discovered by accident that people will notice a one-cent change in their paycheck.
> at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools
The mass of unemployed CS grads?
The mass of unemployed CS grads?
What makes you think CS grads would be good candidates for a high stress job that requires excellent communication skills?
Ability to rapidly process information and react to changes.
Communication is a learned skill.
Ability to handle stress and thrive under pressure is the key.
Communication is a learned skill.
Ability to handle stress and thrive under pressure is the key.
I don’t think your average tech worker has any notion of what stress is, unless you’re consistently on-call overnight. Even then, it’s not the same.
This isn’t meant to belittle or scoff at people’s lived experiences, but the difference between “if I get this wrong, my company will lose millions of dollars” and “if I get this wrong, hundreds of people die” is VAST.
This isn’t meant to belittle or scoff at people’s lived experiences, but the difference between “if I get this wrong, my company will lose millions of dollars” and “if I get this wrong, hundreds of people die” is VAST.
We should have plenty of people that play video games.
They won't be, which is why it's funny to me.
> I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work.
There would be more people interested in aviation choosing to be ATC than a pilot if our pay matched that of major airline pilots.
There are people going through the training and then quiting when they realize that can't get an opening in their hometown because that spot is reserved for a random person one week behind them in the FAA academy, and the pay won't make it worth moving away from their family.
There are more examples, and appropriate pay would fix most of them.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
There would be more people interested in aviation choosing to be ATC than a pilot if our pay matched that of major airline pilots.
There are people going through the training and then quiting when they realize that can't get an opening in their hometown because that spot is reserved for a random person one week behind them in the FAA academy, and the pay won't make it worth moving away from their family.
There are more examples, and appropriate pay would fix most of them.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
> at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools
I don't think any sane person would be against raising ATC wages. But to refer back to my post, the situation might be different if it there were not also a massive pilot shortage as well! If these two pools of talent mostly overlap raising wages on one will probably just pull from the other.
It's probably a combination of raising wages and putting more money into recruiting teenagers considering vocational programs.
I don't think any sane person would be against raising ATC wages. But to refer back to my post, the situation might be different if it there were not also a massive pilot shortage as well! If these two pools of talent mostly overlap raising wages on one will probably just pull from the other.
It's probably a combination of raising wages and putting more money into recruiting teenagers considering vocational programs.
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.
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...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the...
Is it?
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/ag...
Look at 1980's population pyramid. Look at 2020's. 1980 is how societies with mild population growth look. 2020 is how populations with below replacements look (see the graph end?)
It doesn't matter how many Americans are under 30. It matters how many are between 20 and 60. And my comment was about "coming up". Over the next 10 years.
There is a very significant shift in our populations, all across the entire planet. The US isn't as bad as some regions, but it's still bad. Moving from "lots of young people" to "the same amount of young people as old", means more taxes, fewer people working in society, and so on.
Older people require more doctors, too. So you have fewer people in the working pool (as a percentage of the overall population), but with doctors you need more, the more aged your population is. And it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse and worse, with such low birth rates. A downward spiral.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/ag...
Look at 1980's population pyramid. Look at 2020's. 1980 is how societies with mild population growth look. 2020 is how populations with below replacements look (see the graph end?)
It doesn't matter how many Americans are under 30. It matters how many are between 20 and 60. And my comment was about "coming up". Over the next 10 years.
There is a very significant shift in our populations, all across the entire planet. The US isn't as bad as some regions, but it's still bad. Moving from "lots of young people" to "the same amount of young people as old", means more taxes, fewer people working in society, and so on.
Older people require more doctors, too. So you have fewer people in the working pool (as a percentage of the overall population), but with doctors you need more, the more aged your population is. And it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse and worse, with such low birth rates. A downward spiral.
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.
A doctor shortage cannot be solved with more money, sadly! It needs to be solved with political / regulatory means, allowing more people go through the hospital training / practice programs and become doctors.
Ofcourse it would. Capitalism is all about dealing with shortages in exchange for money.
So clearly someone just doesn't want to pay up.
So clearly someone just doesn't want to pay up.
I think there’s a catch, which is lag time. Even under pure capitalism, if the market doesn’t believe the money will last, prospects aren’t going to risk their careers given the training lead time required.
In the US, ATC are federal employees, aren’t they? So they are regularly furloughed, too. In the current political climate, facing the wrath of politicians doesn’t seem that unlikely, either.
The US has form in this area, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...
Even if the federal government were to “pay up”, they cannot be relied upon to honor favorable contract terms since they also have the ability to change the law.
In the US, ATC are federal employees, aren’t they? So they are regularly furloughed, too. In the current political climate, facing the wrath of politicians doesn’t seem that unlikely, either.
The US has form in this area, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...
Even if the federal government were to “pay up”, they cannot be relied upon to honor favorable contract terms since they also have the ability to change the law.
Conversation about how there’s a critical shortage of ATCs is at least a decade old, and likely older. “Best time to plant a tree” and all that.
> some ATC employee groups and I can tell you exactly why they are short staffed:
> - The FAA has strict hiring requirements.
So what happened? Why did the FAA upend a stable hiring process, undercut the CTI schools it had established to train its workforce, and throw the plans of thousands of eager would-be air traffic controllers into disarray?
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
So what happened? Why did the FAA upend a stable hiring process, undercut the CTI schools it had established to train its workforce, and throw the plans of thousands of eager would-be air traffic controllers into disarray?
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
That was quite the rabbit hole. Thanks for sharing.
One of the interesting aspects is that organizations with strict hiring requirements have to have deep supply chains in order to meet those requirements. Its always interesting to read an account that describes these otherwise unknown-to-me subcultures.
I'm an air traffic controller at a core 30 airport and I firmly believe that many but not all of the issues we face can be fixed by increasing compensation. Namely mandatory 6 day work weeks, high attrition, and burnout.
Maybe occasional free pizza, casual Friday's, and an employee of the month plaque would help?
I know your comment is a joke, but we already have that more-or-less.
I'm getting close to doxxing myself, so without getting into specifics... controllers often bring in food to share, and we dress pretty casually every day. There used to be a professional dress code years ago, but that was negotiated out by the union.
I'm getting close to doxxing myself, so without getting into specifics... controllers often bring in food to share, and we dress pretty casually every day. There used to be a professional dress code years ago, but that was negotiated out by the union.
So bring back a uniform so your Union can negotiate jeans-friday?
> about money
Why don't other highly developed countries have the same issues finding employees? You never read about "ATC hiring crisis" in other countries. Why only the US?
> The real need is new and modern technology that automates much of the mistake-prone, human-centric tasks. But nobody wants to risk introducing changes to such a fragile system.
The link that shared is excellent. When I looked under the medical requirements area, and section "Eye", I see:
> 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.
"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 or amount of airspace one ATC can manage. As other jobs and sectors of the economy improve in productivity, people migrate to those sectors from low productivity sectors like ATC because on average high productivity sectors can pay more. The salaries of ATCs rise because there is more competition for the limited pool so you end up paying more but getting the same or worse outcomes over time.
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 or amount of airspace one ATC can manage. As other jobs and sectors of the economy improve in productivity, people migrate to those sectors from low productivity sectors like ATC because on average high productivity sectors can pay more. The salaries of ATCs rise because there is more competition for the limited pool so you end up paying more but getting the same or worse outcomes over time.
> technology hasn't increased the number of planes or amount of airspace one ATC can manage
Loosely related: I cannot remember the website now, but someone posted here in the last 3 years an insane website that showed (visually!) the new approaches to London Heathrow Airport (world's busiest two runway airport). It was batshit crazy. I am sure they spent months designing the new approaches. It looked like multiple DNA helix'es where planes circle to wait for landing slots.
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...
> technology hasn't increased the number of planes or amount of airspace one ATC can manage
which should put pressure on the entity managing the ATC to increase an ATC's productivity via tech. And yet this hasn't happened. So why is that?
I say at a guess, that capitalism isn't working for the entity that manages ATC, because that entity is immune to the pressures of capitalism - ala, federal gov't doesn't care that these ATC isn't as "profitable".
In a scenario where different ATC zones are managed by separate, private entities that are looking to make a profit (e.g., the higher number planes in a single ATC zone, the more they profit) would spend to improve ATC's individual capacity.
which should put pressure on the entity managing the ATC to increase an ATC's productivity via tech. And yet this hasn't happened. So why is that?
I say at a guess, that capitalism isn't working for the entity that manages ATC, because that entity is immune to the pressures of capitalism - ala, federal gov't doesn't care that these ATC isn't as "profitable".
In a scenario where different ATC zones are managed by separate, private entities that are looking to make a profit (e.g., the higher number planes in a single ATC zone, the more they profit) would spend to improve ATC's individual capacity.
You can look at contract towers to see how private entities handle ATC duties. They under-staff to the point that single controllers are handling the entire airspace without so much as coverage for the bathroom sometimes for the full length of their shift. Service is significantly worse in all aspects - the controllers aren't as well trained, they can't handle as much traffic as safely, and they're both less pleasant and less clear on the radio (phraseology, etc - not voice clarity)
> You never read about "ATC hiring crisis" in other countries. Why only the US?
The UK has a controller hiring/retention problem at the moment, too. The less lucrative airports keep losing controllers to the bigger players and can’t replace them. Periods of service reduction are common.
The UK has a controller hiring/retention problem at the moment, too. The less lucrative airports keep losing controllers to the bigger players and can’t replace them. Periods of service reduction are common.
To add to this - it's just generally not a very interesting story internationally, so naturally we would, even if it were an exactly equal problem in every country, hear about it from the US most and UK secondarily due to our reading English-language sites like HN. If the polish media were constantly talking about about lack of ATCs in Poland, would we ever notice?
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 general problem here is that we need to do something about the government contracting process. It has been thoroughly captured by large government contractors who do mediocre work for enormous sums of money while excluding anyone who could do better from the process through corruption and red tape.
Which in turn means that important systems become frozen in time because upgrade attempts become boondoggles that can't meet requirements until they're so far over budget they get canceled, or never attempted.
One of the major problems that should be fixed immediately is that the government pays for code to be written but then doesn't own it, which makes them dependent on the contractor for maintenance. Instead they should be using open source software and, when custom code is necessary, requiring it to be released into the public domain, both for the benefit of the public (who might then be able to submit improvements to the code they're required to use!) and so that maintenance can be done by someone other than the original contractor.
Which in turn means that important systems become frozen in time because upgrade attempts become boondoggles that can't meet requirements until they're so far over budget they get canceled, or never attempted.
One of the major problems that should be fixed immediately is that the government pays for code to be written but then doesn't own it, which makes them dependent on the contractor for maintenance. Instead they should be using open source software and, when custom code is necessary, requiring it to be released into the public domain, both for the benefit of the public (who might then be able to submit improvements to the code they're required to use!) and so that maintenance can be done by someone other than the original contractor.
You touch on an interesting idea. Imagine if there is a "USA ATC Github" open-source repo. As a consultant, you bid on maintenance of the repo and get repo ownership privilege in exchange for your contract. Now you are paid to contribute to the repo for the duration of the contract. The public gets to see if you are worth your fee. If your contract ends, ownership revoked and handed to the next consultant.
The obvious downside to this is that hardening code becomes a potential large amount of effort/overhead that could normally be concealed behind binaries and proprietary code.
The obvious downside to this is that hardening code becomes a potential large amount of effort/overhead that could normally be concealed behind binaries and proprietary code.
> The obvious downside to this is that hardening code becomes a potential large amount of effort/overhead that could normally be concealed behind binaries and proprietary code.
This is not a downside, it's a benefit.
Suppose an adversarial country eventually gets access to the proprietary code. Do you want members of the public to have found and patched any obvious vulnerabilities before this point? Yes you do.
This is not a downside, it's a benefit.
Suppose an adversarial country eventually gets access to the proprietary code. Do you want members of the public to have found and patched any obvious vulnerabilities before this point? Yes you do.
A lot of this is also driven by the government insisting on every modernization effort covering every issue, and then changing their mind when they learn that it will take 10 years it upgrade, so they spend 2 years of requirements gathering to get ~6 months of upgrades, which is basically enough to keep things barely maintained...
* the voters need to be willing to not scream bloody murder if long term ATC investment raises taxes or airfares by $0.01
If anything tech upgrades could potentially just make the job less stressful for current traffic controllers - which might end up (long term) with big benefits for everyone.
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
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.)
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.)
> "The fundamentals and technology of the job have not changed in decades, despite air traffic exploding in recent years"
Isn't this, ultimately, the real problem? Improved technology with radically more automation would both improve safety and reduce workload on controllers.
What's really needed is some sort of "next-generation ATC" moonshot project. But of course, in such a safety-critical and risk-averse domain, generational improvement is really hard to do. You certainly can't "move fast and break things", so how do you prevent such a project getting bogged down in development hell?
Isn't this, ultimately, the real problem? Improved technology with radically more automation would both improve safety and reduce workload on controllers.
What's really needed is some sort of "next-generation ATC" moonshot project. But of course, in such a safety-critical and risk-averse domain, generational improvement is really hard to do. You certainly can't "move fast and break things", so how do you prevent such a project getting bogged down in development hell?
SpaceX moved fast, broke things, and still did pretty well on their safety-critical Dragon program, all things considered.
But SpaceX is solving a simpler problem because it’s a greenfield program (aside from docking with ISS, but there’s a spec and they implemented it). ATC involves interactions with the entire existing enormous worldwide fleet of aircraft and pilots.
All that being said, a system that allocates certain volumes of airspace to aircraft and alerts aircraft if they are on a trajectory likely to encroach on someone else’s allocated airspace seems doable and maybe even doable in a backwards compatible way. But this, by itself, would not meaningfully increase capacity.
And I agree this is silly and unfortunate. SFO, for example, has two parallel runways, and airplanes can only land simultaneously on them if visibility is very good. Surely modern GNSS plus radio (which can do time-of-flight and direction measurements with modern technology!) plus inertial measurement could let a cooperating pair of planes maintain appropriate separation and land simultaneously, safely, with zero visibility, even under conditions of active attack by a hostile system. But that would require a kind of competence and cooperation between the government and vendors that does not currently exist.
But SpaceX is solving a simpler problem because it’s a greenfield program (aside from docking with ISS, but there’s a spec and they implemented it). ATC involves interactions with the entire existing enormous worldwide fleet of aircraft and pilots.
All that being said, a system that allocates certain volumes of airspace to aircraft and alerts aircraft if they are on a trajectory likely to encroach on someone else’s allocated airspace seems doable and maybe even doable in a backwards compatible way. But this, by itself, would not meaningfully increase capacity.
And I agree this is silly and unfortunate. SFO, for example, has two parallel runways, and airplanes can only land simultaneously on them if visibility is very good. Surely modern GNSS plus radio (which can do time-of-flight and direction measurements with modern technology!) plus inertial measurement could let a cooperating pair of planes maintain appropriate separation and land simultaneously, safely, with zero visibility, even under conditions of active attack by a hostile system. But that would require a kind of competence and cooperation between the government and vendors that does not currently exist.
There are some small airports that don’t have an ATC. You could start with those
Thanks for the link, I was curious if I'd be a candidate and it turns out I was eliminated by the very first qualification:
"must have 20/20 vision in each eye, no contacts"
This will be more and more of a bottleneck as time goes on; growing up in-doors and looking at computer screens all day will increase nearsightedness.
"must have 20/20 vision in each eye, no contacts"
This will be more and more of a bottleneck as time goes on; growing up in-doors and looking at computer screens all day will increase nearsightedness.
> must have 20/20 vision in each eye, no contacts
> 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.
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.Government is not immune to the economics of things. There is an opportunity cost for everything.
Government has historically been far behind the pay scale curve for things like this, but that isn't the main driver of people not going into these fields.
There is a huge talent pool that simply will not apply for Government jobs. That is because the work environment is toxic. A special kind of parasite that walks upright on two legs rears its head where everything is about standing, and seniority, rather than production and results, and DEI is a big part of that.
The restrictions are also very high, for any G-man job. Government jobs have gotten the worst reputation, because quite literally any good person doing those jobs eventually trades their sanity for them. Its filled with personal cost.
It also doesn't help matters that the government actually created these problems to begin with. If you don't know what I'm talking about google the 1981 Reagan ATC strike, and how Reagan broke the backs of the ATC union labor movement overnight.
The system is fragile because its centralized. Single points of failure, and front of line blocking are some of the worst types of problems to deal with in highly complex systems because they often are not obvious except to the people whose job it is to design resiliency into the system.
Government has historically been far behind the pay scale curve for things like this, but that isn't the main driver of people not going into these fields.
There is a huge talent pool that simply will not apply for Government jobs. That is because the work environment is toxic. A special kind of parasite that walks upright on two legs rears its head where everything is about standing, and seniority, rather than production and results, and DEI is a big part of that.
The restrictions are also very high, for any G-man job. Government jobs have gotten the worst reputation, because quite literally any good person doing those jobs eventually trades their sanity for them. Its filled with personal cost.
It also doesn't help matters that the government actually created these problems to begin with. If you don't know what I'm talking about google the 1981 Reagan ATC strike, and how Reagan broke the backs of the ATC union labor movement overnight.
The system is fragile because its centralized. Single points of failure, and front of line blocking are some of the worst types of problems to deal with in highly complex systems because they often are not obvious except to the people whose job it is to design resiliency into the system.
There's a class action of about 900 people who were rejected based on the FAA prioritizing diversity in ATC hiring. That would be a good place to start hiring new people.
Do you have a source? Because that doesn't pass the smell test to me.
If they're hiring 10 people and have 20 good, qualified applicants then sure, maybe diversity efforts would mean that a straight white man gets overlooked.
But we're talking about the context of them complaining that they can't hire enough people, and absolutely no diversity program anywhere is saying "well we need to hire people, and there aren't any good applicants left except those who don't tick diversity boxes, but still let's not bother hiring them". It really doesn't make sense at all unless those 900 people actually weren't good enough applicants and are wrongly believing that diversity is the reason.
If they're hiring 10 people and have 20 good, qualified applicants then sure, maybe diversity efforts would mean that a straight white man gets overlooked.
But we're talking about the context of them complaining that they can't hire enough people, and absolutely no diversity program anywhere is saying "well we need to hire people, and there aren't any good applicants left except those who don't tick diversity boxes, but still let's not bother hiring them". It really doesn't make sense at all unless those 900 people actually weren't good enough applicants and are wrongly believing that diversity is the reason.
This provides a good overview. There are some good sources within if you want to dig deeper.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...
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 challenges presented.
> 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 flight. A situation on the ground can make landings unsafe or impossible and an aircraft needs to diverted disrupting traffic at another airport.
Automating ATC works until one or more exceptional conditions arises. Then it's completely unsuitable and everyone from pilots to ATC need to work against the happy path automation to keep people alive.
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 flight. A situation on the ground can make landings unsafe or impossible and an aircraft needs to diverted disrupting traffic at another airport.
Automating ATC works until one or more exceptional conditions arises. Then it's completely unsuitable and everyone from pilots to ATC need to work against the happy path automation to keep people alive.
Known exceptional conditions can all be modeled and simulated preemptively. Like on each position update, for each plane, what does the overall situation look like if it needs to all of a sudden make an emergency landing.
(and just to be clear, no I'm not talking the "AI" genie but rather straightforward search algorithms that enforce the needed invariants)
(and just to be clear, no I'm not talking the "AI" genie but rather straightforward search algorithms that enforce the needed invariants)
Aircraft work within an envelope. You can model what a max speed/min speed max/climb min climb/ trajectory is and work that in. It's a solvable problem. Aircraft can't go from 200-0 knots or 0-200 knots instantly etc
200-0 happens regularly. especially with GA aircraft. The plane will be scattered across a field most likely.
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 than an automated system would? Yes, human beings can improvise, but automated systems can have reaction times more than an order of magnitude faster than that of even the quickest humans.
I'd like to see some statistics on the opposing hypothesis : How good are humans, really, when encountering unexpected situations? Do they compare better with automated systems in general?
Here's a competing hypothesis: An automated system can incorporate training data based on every recorded incident that has ever happened. Unless a situation is so unexpected that it has literally never happened in the history of aviation, an AI system can have an example of how to handle that scenario. Is it really true that the average human operator would beat this system in safety and reliability? How many humans know how to respond to every rare situation that has ever happened? It's at least possible that the AI does better on average.
My question is, how do you know that in general human beings respond better to unexpected or very complex / difficult situations than an automated system would? Yes, human beings can improvise, but automated systems can have reaction times more than an order of magnitude faster than that of even the quickest humans.
I'd like to see some statistics on the opposing hypothesis : How good are humans, really, when encountering unexpected situations? Do they compare better with automated systems in general?
Here's a competing hypothesis: An automated system can incorporate training data based on every recorded incident that has ever happened. Unless a situation is so unexpected that it has literally never happened in the history of aviation, an AI system can have an example of how to handle that scenario. Is it really true that the average human operator would beat this system in safety and reliability? How many humans know how to respond to every rare situation that has ever happened? It's at least possible that the AI does better on average.
In theory, everything works. In practice, we can't even master automated driving, on two dimensional streets with painted lanes, relatively slow speeds, and cars that can just stop in case a decision could not be made. If we can't make this happen, how do you expecct the same with higher speeds, an additional dimension, planes with radio-only (no additional telemetry) and pilots with heavy accents?
>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.
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.
> I'd like to see some statistics on the opposing hypothesis : How good are humans, really, when encountering unexpected situations? Do they compare better with automated systems in general?
This is already out there. You can go research how Airbus and their automation works in practice.
You can also listen to air traffic control recordings to get an idea of what types of emergencies exist and how often they happen. I'm sure the FAA has records you can look at. :)
Now that apply that to something 3 orders of magnitude more complex.
This is already out there. You can go research how Airbus and their automation works in practice.
You can also listen to air traffic control recordings to get an idea of what types of emergencies exist and how often they happen. I'm sure the FAA has records you can look at. :)
Now that apply that to something 3 orders of magnitude more complex.
Air traffic control is almost 100 years old now. Unusual things happen, yes... but unpredictable ones do not. Ever. No conceivable emergency in ATC cannot be handled by a machine following a procedure, if it could be handled by people following the same procedure.
Just another perplexing case of humans insisting on doing a robot's job for no good reason.
Just another perplexing case of humans insisting on doing a robot's job for no good reason.
> We have video games like Fortnite that can handle collision detection across a hundred players with bullets flying everywhere.
With Fortnite, Epic pushes one update and a week later virtually every gamer has the update for free. And when an update goes bad, or the game goes down, usually nobody dies.
With aviation? Lifecycles there are measured in decades, and the changes needed for new control systems in an existing aircraft can be so huge that the entire aircraft needs a new certification. Hell if you want and can acquire such a thing, you can fly aircraft that's over a century old. Many avionics systems still in use today fundamentally date back to shortly after WW2 - VOR/DME for example is 1950s technology.
For tower control systems, you'd need a system that's capable of dealing with very very old aircraft, military aircraft that doesn't even have transponders activated a lot of the time, aircraft that don't have transponders at all (e.g. ultralights), has well defined interfaces with other systems (regional/national/continental/oceanic control zones)...
Oh and someone has to pay for all of that.
With Fortnite, Epic pushes one update and a week later virtually every gamer has the update for free. And when an update goes bad, or the game goes down, usually nobody dies.
With aviation? Lifecycles there are measured in decades, and the changes needed for new control systems in an existing aircraft can be so huge that the entire aircraft needs a new certification. Hell if you want and can acquire such a thing, you can fly aircraft that's over a century old. Many avionics systems still in use today fundamentally date back to shortly after WW2 - VOR/DME for example is 1950s technology.
For tower control systems, you'd need a system that's capable of dealing with very very old aircraft, military aircraft that doesn't even have transponders activated a lot of the time, aircraft that don't have transponders at all (e.g. ultralights), has well defined interfaces with other systems (regional/national/continental/oceanic control zones)...
Oh and someone has to pay for all of that.
How many ancient aircraft are there? What would be the cost of upgrading them, as compared to the cost of training more ATCs, and having them burn out and leave in a few years?
The vast majority (or at least a very significant portion) of GA aircraft are from the 60s-70s. Plenty of 135 and even some 121 aircraft are old also (90s, 2000s, etc). The Lear that crashed in Philly was from 1982.
Upgrading to the latest avionics costs tens of thousands of dollars in the cheapest case. Multiply that times the number of aircraft, and the weeks or months it takes for the upgrade to be completed and you're talking about a staggering economic impact.
Upgrading to the latest avionics costs tens of thousands of dollars in the cheapest case. Multiply that times the number of aircraft, and the weeks or months it takes for the upgrade to be completed and you're talking about a staggering economic impact.
TCAS exists. It doesn't always work and of course not all aircraft have it.
Everyone likes to imagine the controller has a screen with perfect information on it. They do not. Especially when light aircraft are involved.
Everyone likes to imagine the controller has a screen with perfect information on it. They do not. Especially when light aircraft are involved.
Fortnite is a closed system, everything controlled by one company. ATC is not.
But yes, presumably there is scope for improved tools.
But yes, presumably there is scope for improved tools.
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.
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
> 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 I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work
There is an iron law of nature that, hiring is never a problem of shortages, just insufficient pay. If you don't pay them enough they will get a job doing something that pays more and/or has better working conditions.
Labor isn't any more immune to market forces than any other good. The only people who are qualified for the job and willing to do it for cheap are the ones on the right side of the bell curve. Pay moves that bell curve and exposes more of it.
There is an iron law of nature that, hiring is never a problem of shortages, just insufficient pay. If you don't pay them enough they will get a job doing something that pays more and/or has better working conditions.
Labor isn't any more immune to market forces than any other good. The only people who are qualified for the job and willing to do it for cheap are the ones on the right side of the bell curve. Pay moves that bell curve and exposes more of it.
If job is too stressful since people get overloaded, simply add more people and adjust structure so that it actually delivers more throughput. It doesn't scale linearly, but it doesn't need to, this is not some rock bottom budget service but simply a security monopoly.
The goal here shouldn't be to have a small set of brilliant people-machines that perform always 100% under various stress and understaffing, the goal is to have a larger set of good workers that are easily replaceable (ie if they call in sick, have accident or other sudden events).
Money and probably just a mild change of approach how such team is created and maintained. If you pay those folks more than lawyers and doctors, then many of those and other high performers will apply for such job. Also it would be one of the more moral high paying jobs out there.
Given how much is constantly at stake money and people wise its still peanuts, feel free to take away 10% budget from completely useless airport security ala TSA - here literally everybody would win (apart from security folks, but those jobs are crap and they hate it AFAIK)
The goal here shouldn't be to have a small set of brilliant people-machines that perform always 100% under various stress and understaffing, the goal is to have a larger set of good workers that are easily replaceable (ie if they call in sick, have accident or other sudden events).
Money and probably just a mild change of approach how such team is created and maintained. If you pay those folks more than lawyers and doctors, then many of those and other high performers will apply for such job. Also it would be one of the more moral high paying jobs out there.
Given how much is constantly at stake money and people wise its still peanuts, feel free to take away 10% budget from completely useless airport security ala TSA - here literally everybody would win (apart from security folks, but those jobs are crap and they hate it AFAIK)
> - 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 correction of near vision is unacceptable.
This almost seems like a catch-22 give than approx most adults (80%+) will experience presbyopia by their mid-40s. So even if you're a qualified candidate, you've likely only got 10-15 years max before you are disqualified.
More broadly, I suspect some of these vision requirements could be reconsidered in the face of improved display technology and UX improvements (e.g. accommodations for certain forms of partial colorblindness).
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 correction of near vision is unacceptable.
This almost seems like a catch-22 give than approx most adults (80%+) will experience presbyopia by their mid-40s. So even if you're a qualified candidate, you've likely only got 10-15 years max before you are disqualified.
More broadly, I suspect some of these vision requirements could be reconsidered in the face of improved display technology and UX improvements (e.g. accommodations for certain forms of partial colorblindness).
The use of "bifocal contact lenses" is not allowed. Bifocal glasses are fine.
Yeah the under 31 surprised me. That alone would bring a shortage.
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.
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.
You must be able to do something, though. And if not, get more data.
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.
All well within what we can do with radar and computers and radio today.
Would that be much different/better than TCAS?
> Cameras
You might be interested to know that the video feed (the marketing one at least, not the one for engineers) for the recent boom supersonic flight was just a phone and a starlink in one of the planes following. Things can be done.
You might be interested to know that the video feed (the marketing one at least, not the one for engineers) for the recent boom supersonic flight was just a phone and a starlink in one of the planes following. Things can be done.
Oh, I know. Think of the dash cam people have in their cars. The idea that one cannot be installed in the cockpit because of the expense is absurd.
[deleted]
there is an insane overhead to any improvement that can be made to these systems.
Yes, it's ludicrously expensive to install an hd camera in the tower and point it at the runway, and record in a loop.
Not.
Not.
> - 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.)
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.)
I work closely with transportation dispatchers, and this applies almost word for word
My uncle did ATC in the soviet military. They were allowed to do 2 hour shifts max. The mental work is so intense that the human brain can only sustain it for a short time.
More money would definitely help.
Becoming a doctor is a long, expensive and arduous process in the US, with a very narrow funnel (much too narrow but that's another topic). But if you make it through residency, you're mostly guaranteed to make good money for the rest of your life (if you don't screw up, etc.)
Start by tripling the ATC salary and see what happens.
Then, reduce ATC hours to reduce stress and errors. That means hiring more people (==higher incentives).
Becoming a doctor is a long, expensive and arduous process in the US, with a very narrow funnel (much too narrow but that's another topic). But if you make it through residency, you're mostly guaranteed to make good money for the rest of your life (if you don't screw up, etc.)
Start by tripling the ATC salary and see what happens.
Then, reduce ATC hours to reduce stress and errors. That means hiring more people (==higher incentives).
Problem is US is stalled on modernising and far behind the rest of the world and has been for decades.
https://www.montrealgazette.com/business/article267028.html
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107917
https://www.montrealgazette.com/business/article267028.html
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107917
> The training and onboarding process is incredibly long, and turnover is high
The turnover part is usually solved by salaries and working conditions. High turnover is consonance of bad working conditions and low salaries. So, this point can be solved by money.
The other points are just repetition of the same thing - people doing this job must be capable.
The turnover part is usually solved by salaries and working conditions. High turnover is consonance of bad working conditions and low salaries. So, this point can be solved by money.
The other points are just repetition of the same thing - people doing this job must be capable.
If you look at the graph, you'll realize it's a compensation (and housing crisis) issue. Detroit has 100% fill rate. My money is on the real-estate being cheap there. If you are renting a single bedroom for $2500 in Queens, then you need a $100k+ starting salary just to have an average lifestyle.
It's fiction, but for some sense of ATC stress, watch "Pushing Tin": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Tin
ATC here, I love that documentary :-)
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
I have some wild stories, but unfortunately sharing them would dox me.
The most inaccurate thing though is a transfer CPC (fully-certified controller at their previous facility) plugging in and being able to work without months of training in that area.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
I have some wild stories, but unfortunately sharing them would dox me.
The most inaccurate thing though is a transfer CPC (fully-certified controller at their previous facility) plugging in and being able to work without months of training in that area.
Obviously you're aware of this, but even swapping areas within a center isn't a plug and play process. Most people have no idea the level of effort required to control, between flight following, separation, LOAs, diversions, weather, and answering "how are the rides today?" or "is higher any smoother?" every 4.7 seconds.
It seems like a good career path for people retiring from commercial aviation. They have been on the other end of ATC and know the gravity of the situation.
You must be younger than 31 to qualify for training as an ATC: https://www.faa.gov/faq/what-are-age-requirements-individual...
Does seem odd to me - why restrict it this low? People are living longer and healthier than ever into older years (and better vision)
The job requires 20/20 uncorrected vision near and far. After 50, that starts to become pretty darn rare. The mental load required to keep all of these moving parts in your head and recall both what you have instructed them to do and what needs to still be instructed in the very near future requires a mental acuity that is not a young person's game. It can also take years for an ATC to have the experience required to meet the most pressing needs. I can see why they don't want to waste their efforts on people likely to be unqualified soon after reaching a useful level of experience.
> The job requires 20/20 uncorrected vision near and far.
Isn't it 20/20 corrected vision?
Isn't it 20/20 corrected vision?
A lot of pilots seem to retire into commercial aviation after their military careers. They already have all the training and flight hours. After 20 years and a pension they're keen to keep on flying, but not as high-speed.
There is a maximum age for atc applicants (31) that unfortunately makes this infeasible.
[deleted]
The education and training could be subsidized-- this was done for nursing.
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Yeah, I think this is one of the most difficult and demanding job in the world.
But my instinct tells me some filters happen too early. Don't know about the US but in France for example you need to be an engineer to become an air controller; and to be an engineer you need to go to prep school; and to go to prep school you need to have majored in physics in high school (not just math).
Which means that, if you choose not to take physics in 11th grade when you're 16, that's it: you will never be an air controller in France, whatever your other motivations or qualities.
But it would seem some personal qualities, like the ability to switch context easily, be resistant to stress (or even enjoying it), etc. should be more relevant to this job than just having studied physics in high school.
But my instinct tells me some filters happen too early. Don't know about the US but in France for example you need to be an engineer to become an air controller; and to be an engineer you need to go to prep school; and to go to prep school you need to have majored in physics in high school (not just math).
Which means that, if you choose not to take physics in 11th grade when you're 16, that's it: you will never be an air controller in France, whatever your other motivations or qualities.
But it would seem some personal qualities, like the ability to switch context easily, be resistant to stress (or even enjoying it), etc. should be more relevant to this job than just having studied physics in high school.
*turnover = money
There has been a buzz of having "computerized, automated ATC" since, well, forever. It's like the flying car of the aviation world. I don't know if the government still hopes that is "right around the corner" so they don't really want to ramp up hiring. I mean, look ChatGPT can solve math problems already, surely it can funnel planes into an airport... /s
There certainly some automation involved, but not at the level where we can just let the all the people go home and have it take over.
There certainly some automation involved, but not at the level where we can just let the all the people go home and have it take over.
I've dreamed of having an AI model run ATC.
Just train an AI on ATC recordings and other data, maybe throw in some reinforcement learning,and then test it in low-stakes commercial airspace (like a regional airport)
Just train an AI on ATC recordings and other data, maybe throw in some reinforcement learning,and then test it in low-stakes commercial airspace (like a regional airport)
What is "low stakes"? This is quite literally life-or-death.
Also, just FYI -- airports don't hire their own ATC; it's all FAA (or the equivalent wherever you are located.)
Also, just FYI -- airports don't hire their own ATC; it's all FAA (or the equivalent wherever you are located.)
[deleted]
Sounds good! Maybe you can start a business and have a low-stakes regional airport work with you. I think the main way to do it is as an add-on/assistant for the existing toolset.
"US ATC System Under Scrutiny" "Fatal crash brings attention to shortage" "There are simply not enough air traffic controllers to keep aircraft a safe distance from one another."
Like, perhaps there is merit in arguing for more controllers or more pay for controllers, and perhaps that would lead to a safer airspace, but the attempts to implicitly tie the fatal crash to ATC in this case seems pretty poor form, here. What we know from the ATC transcripts[1] already tells us that ATC was aware the helicopter & the plane would be near each other well in advance of the crash; ATC informed the helo, the helo responded that he had the aircraft in sight. Time passed, the ATC gets a proximity warning (labelled as "[Conflict Alert Warning]" in VASAviation's video), ATC immediately acts on it, again reaching out to the helo, the helo again confirms they have the aircraft in sight, and moments later we can hear on the ATC transcripts the crash occur as people in the room witness it and react in horror.
To my armchair commenting self, the ATC controllers seem to be exonerated by the transcript, and I'm going to otherwise wait until an NTSB report tells me why I'm wrong to break out the pitch forks on them.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0
Like, perhaps there is merit in arguing for more controllers or more pay for controllers, and perhaps that would lead to a safer airspace, but the attempts to implicitly tie the fatal crash to ATC in this case seems pretty poor form, here. What we know from the ATC transcripts[1] already tells us that ATC was aware the helicopter & the plane would be near each other well in advance of the crash; ATC informed the helo, the helo responded that he had the aircraft in sight. Time passed, the ATC gets a proximity warning (labelled as "[Conflict Alert Warning]" in VASAviation's video), ATC immediately acts on it, again reaching out to the helo, the helo again confirms they have the aircraft in sight, and moments later we can hear on the ATC transcripts the crash occur as people in the room witness it and react in horror.
To my armchair commenting self, the ATC controllers seem to be exonerated by the transcript, and I'm going to otherwise wait until an NTSB report tells me why I'm wrong to break out the pitch forks on them.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gD_lnBNu0
I’ll bet the final NTSB report lists as a contributing factor that there was only one controller that night; a second controller might have had the time to notice the altitude was too close, or vector the helicopter behind.
No. There are also rules on who can do what.
Put another way, military aircraft, especially certain military aircraft, can do things that civilian aircraft can't.
If I were piloting a helicopter in that airspace, that ATC transcript would have been significantly different.
We should be looking at root causes. Which means we should ask the uncomfortable questions about the deference given to some military/government aircraft. But we don't want to ask those questions. So we keep quibbling around the edges by talking about ATC or Reagan firing everyone or even the ridiculous suggestion that maybe the civilian airliners could be in a hold pattern at certain times.
It would be humorous if it wasn't so tragic.
Put another way, military aircraft, especially certain military aircraft, can do things that civilian aircraft can't.
If I were piloting a helicopter in that airspace, that ATC transcript would have been significantly different.
We should be looking at root causes. Which means we should ask the uncomfortable questions about the deference given to some military/government aircraft. But we don't want to ask those questions. So we keep quibbling around the edges by talking about ATC or Reagan firing everyone or even the ridiculous suggestion that maybe the civilian airliners could be in a hold pattern at certain times.
It would be humorous if it wasn't so tragic.
>Staffing at air traffic control tower ‘not normal’ during Washington plane crash, FAA report reveals
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dc-plane-c...
>on Wednesday evening was also monitoring planes taking off and landing, according to the FAA report reviewed by The New York Times. These jobs are typically assigned to two different people, the outlet reported
But:
>However, the National Transportation Safety Board said they will not speculate on the causes of the crash and will release a preliminary report on the incident within 30 days.
So perhaps its not staffing. Although I don't really know what world the report is going to be going out into in 30 days.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dc-plane-c...
>on Wednesday evening was also monitoring planes taking off and landing, according to the FAA report reviewed by The New York Times. These jobs are typically assigned to two different people, the outlet reported
But:
>However, the National Transportation Safety Board said they will not speculate on the causes of the crash and will release a preliminary report on the incident within 30 days.
So perhaps its not staffing. Although I don't really know what world the report is going to be going out into in 30 days.
Ultimately, I would expect the report to lay blame on both ATC and the helicopter pilot. The degree to which that blame should be allocated will be determined by the investigation. A less likely factor that could conceivably be uncovered would be some sort of controls failure that should have alerted one or all of the impacted pilots and controllers.
[deleted]
The entire point of Human ATC is that those rules are breached regularly in normal operations and we still expect traffic to be routed safely despite that
One complaint I've seen is that the ATC should not have let the helicopter do visual spacing in that regime, that it was somewhat careless and unsafe and possibly discouraged. If the ATC operator was overloaded with work, they would be incentivized to "outsource" the spacing management to the helicopter who would then be able to screw it up by "seeing" the wrong plane. I can see the merits of the argument but it would take the NTSB to have the right knowledge to confirm or deny it.
One complaint I've seen is that the ATC should not have let the helicopter do visual spacing in that regime, that it was somewhat careless and unsafe and possibly discouraged. If the ATC operator was overloaded with work, they would be incentivized to "outsource" the spacing management to the helicopter who would then be able to screw it up by "seeing" the wrong plane. I can see the merits of the argument but it would take the NTSB to have the right knowledge to confirm or deny it.
that it was somewhat careless and unsafe and possibly discouraged
This is what I mean. Clearly, people are unfamiliar with what actions certain military/government pilots are able to take in that airspace. It's rules. It's not about being encouraged or discouraged or overworked or underworked or rainbow farting unicorns. That's not how ATC works.
I would want to change the rules that allow military pilots to do this sort of thing. Or at least, have a reasoned conversation about why it's necessary to allow them to do this sort of thing. But that sort of conversation is difficult. So everyone wants to talk about everything else instead. The issue being that everything else is very likely not the root problem.
I hope when the reports do come out we can stop this nonsense about ATC, or Reagan being a moron, or civilian airliner holding patterns or whatever else and actually have the hard sit down on that issue.
This is what I mean. Clearly, people are unfamiliar with what actions certain military/government pilots are able to take in that airspace. It's rules. It's not about being encouraged or discouraged or overworked or underworked or rainbow farting unicorns. That's not how ATC works.
I would want to change the rules that allow military pilots to do this sort of thing. Or at least, have a reasoned conversation about why it's necessary to allow them to do this sort of thing. But that sort of conversation is difficult. So everyone wants to talk about everything else instead. The issue being that everything else is very likely not the root problem.
I hope when the reports do come out we can stop this nonsense about ATC, or Reagan being a moron, or civilian airliner holding patterns or whatever else and actually have the hard sit down on that issue.
The real problem is that the problem could happen. Even if the helicopter ATC guy was present, and HAD vectored them behind and they HAD complied, or X or Y or Z or whatever had prevented this accident, it would have happened eventually.
The problem isn't that the controller didn't notice they were too close; it is that less than 1000 feet of separation is considered fine and normal and commonplace. It's too close and leaves no room for error.
The problem isn't that the controller didn't notice they were too close; it is that less than 1000 feet of separation is considered fine and normal and commonplace. It's too close and leaves no room for error.
You're just highlighting a different aspect of parent's concern: there shouldn't be special-casing for military aircraft in shared airspace.
Do you have a description of or citation for the rules you’re mentioning? I’m curious what they are.
How could this be anything to do with Reagan firing them? The Reagan thing was 1981. Air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56. Anyone under the age of 56 in 2025 would have been under the age of 12 in 1981.
> How could this be anything to do with Reagan firing them?
Echoes.
The fired workers were replaced as rapidly as possible. That would result in massive change in the age distribution of controllers. It takes a few years to train a new controller so lets assume the youngest new hires were 22. New controllers have to be 31 and under.
Let's take the best case and assume all the new controllers are 22 through 31 and are evenly distributed in that range, and started in 1982. The group will start reaching 56 in 2007 and finish reaching 56 in 2016. That's over 11000 controllers retiring over a 10 year span.
I haven't been able to find data on the actual distribution of ages for the replacements. I'd guess that it was skewed younger, which could make that echo narrower. Maybe 11000 controllers retiring over 5 years.
If they hired enough people to replace those that group too will show up as another echo, but more spread out.
Echoes.
The fired workers were replaced as rapidly as possible. That would result in massive change in the age distribution of controllers. It takes a few years to train a new controller so lets assume the youngest new hires were 22. New controllers have to be 31 and under.
Let's take the best case and assume all the new controllers are 22 through 31 and are evenly distributed in that range, and started in 1982. The group will start reaching 56 in 2007 and finish reaching 56 in 2016. That's over 11000 controllers retiring over a 10 year span.
I haven't been able to find data on the actual distribution of ages for the replacements. I'd guess that it was skewed younger, which could make that echo narrower. Maybe 11000 controllers retiring over 5 years.
If they hired enough people to replace those that group too will show up as another echo, but more spread out.
Also you know... seeing a job get absolutely decimated by a labor hating President might make future candidates less likely apply to a hostile job where asking for better conditions mean you will lose your livelihood.
They rehired anyone willing to go back to work. No one was required to lose their livelihood.
The union's problem was that they assumed air traffic control was so important they could dictate terms and then they got called on it and lost. Public sector unions don't really work because the other side of the table is the government (and by extension the public), so the two possible outcomes are that the union gets screwed by the government or the public gets screwed by the union.
The union's problem was that they assumed air traffic control was so important they could dictate terms and then they got called on it and lost. Public sector unions don't really work because the other side of the table is the government (and by extension the public), so the two possible outcomes are that the union gets screwed by the government or the public gets screwed by the union.
That theory assumes you can train >10,000 new air traffic controllers all at once in 1982 but then can't train their replacements over a period of ten years as they retire.
For that to be the case there would have to be some more proximate problem compromising the ability to replace air traffic controllers at the rate it was possible to in the 1980s. Like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42939941
For that to be the case there would have to be some more proximate problem compromising the ability to replace air traffic controllers at the rate it was possible to in the 1980s. Like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42939941
I would bet on "Normalization of deviance", such a close altitude separation should probably just not exists (default is 1000ft).
If it had become a norm then a second controller would probably not change anything.
If it had become a norm then a second controller would probably not change anything.
I think the ATC is “exonerated” in the sense of it not being their fault, however that does not necessarily mean a fully staffed and more attentive ATC team wouldn’t have prevented the disaster.
Noticing aircraft flying off assigned course is exactly the type of thing that a resource constrained ATC would be guiltless in NOT noticing, but that a non-constrained ATC probably would notice.
Obviously if ATC were fully staffed and this happened, it wouldn’t be worth seriously looking into, but there’s a reason the intended staffing levels are what they are, which can basically be summed up as “cognitive burden.”
Noticing aircraft flying off assigned course is exactly the type of thing that a resource constrained ATC would be guiltless in NOT noticing, but that a non-constrained ATC probably would notice.
Obviously if ATC were fully staffed and this happened, it wouldn’t be worth seriously looking into, but there’s a reason the intended staffing levels are what they are, which can basically be summed up as “cognitive burden.”
This is pretty much right, by the book. It seems clear that there were multiple confounding factors: a high risk, under-resourced training mission performed by relatively inexperience pilots operating as a normal transport mission as far as the controllers were aware.
I think we're going to wind up talking about SOP and whether visual separation is permissible in this class of airspace when using NVGs or under other conditions present in this mishap, e.g., on nighttime training. There are companies (lufty for instance) that, by policy, prohibit visual separation at night.
There might be some scrutiny on the controller for approving visual separation in the first place, and I think that'll get into weeds of how he should have known the risk factors for the helo. Still, as Juan notes, it didn't sound like thoughtful consideration, but like rote call and response.
This would have been prevented if the helo had to take vectors. There would be no talk of visual separation. The controller was aware of how tight it was, and if it were simply a rule, he would have told the helo to hold present position, waited for an appropriate place in the sequencing, and then given a clearance.
I think we're going to wind up talking about SOP and whether visual separation is permissible in this class of airspace when using NVGs or under other conditions present in this mishap, e.g., on nighttime training. There are companies (lufty for instance) that, by policy, prohibit visual separation at night.
There might be some scrutiny on the controller for approving visual separation in the first place, and I think that'll get into weeds of how he should have known the risk factors for the helo. Still, as Juan notes, it didn't sound like thoughtful consideration, but like rote call and response.
This would have been prevented if the helo had to take vectors. There would be no talk of visual separation. The controller was aware of how tight it was, and if it were simply a rule, he would have told the helo to hold present position, waited for an appropriate place in the sequencing, and then given a clearance.
There's a lawsuit going on:
>FAA embroiled in lawsuit alleging it turned away 1,000 applicants based on race — that contributed to staffing woes https://nypost.com/2025/01/31/us-news/faa-embroiled-in-lawsu...
The guy behind it is quite interesting. Got 100% on his exams but told they were only hiring 'diverse' folk https://archive.ph/ixmFB
>FAA embroiled in lawsuit alleging it turned away 1,000 applicants based on race — that contributed to staffing woes https://nypost.com/2025/01/31/us-news/faa-embroiled-in-lawsu...
The guy behind it is quite interesting. Got 100% on his exams but told they were only hiring 'diverse' folk https://archive.ph/ixmFB
> When Mr Brigida tried again to become an air traffic controller under the new tests, he said he failed the biographical questionnaire because he “didn’t fit the preferred ethnic profile”.
This dude leading the lawsuit is incredibly unreliable. The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire: https://123atc.com/biographical-assessment
It was a questionable assessment, but the idea that he failed it for being white is peak self-victimization.
The risk of DEI was fast-passing under-qualified candidates, or that they were misplacing their recruitment efforts. But the idea that they would not be filling necessary positions with qualified white people continues to be something of a polemic myth.
This dude leading the lawsuit is incredibly unreliable. The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire: https://123atc.com/biographical-assessment
It was a questionable assessment, but the idea that he failed it for being white is peak self-victimization.
The risk of DEI was fast-passing under-qualified candidates, or that they were misplacing their recruitment efforts. But the idea that they would not be filling necessary positions with qualified white people continues to be something of a polemic myth.
Indeed, it didn't have race-based questions, which I don't think anyone claimed. Rather it had totally arbitrary questions, not related to merit in any plausible way, and a score cutoff that made it highly likely you'd fail if you hadn't been tipped off with the correct answers.
For instance, there is a 15-point question for which you have to answer that your worst grade in high school was in Science, and a separate 15-point question where you have to answer that your worst grade in college was in History/Political Science; picking any of the other options (each question has 5 possible answers) means 0 marks for that question. Collectively, these two questions alone account for one eighth of all the available points. (Many questions were red herrings that were actually worth nothing.)
But then the same blacks-only group that had lobbied internally to get the questionairre instituted (the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees) leaked the "correct" answers to the arbitrary questions to its members, allowing them to get full marks. Effectively this was a race-based hiring cartel. Non-blacks couldn't pass; blacks unwilling to join segregated racial affinity groups or unwilling to cheat the test couldn't pass; but corrupt blacks just needed to cheat when invited to and they would pass easily, entering the merit-based stage of hiring with the competition already eliminated by the biographical questionairre.
(A sad injustice is that blacks who wouldn't join the NBCFAE or cheat the test, and so suffered the same unfair disadvantage as whites, are excluded from the class in the class-action lawsuit over this whole mess. Since the legal argument is that it was discrimination against non-blacks, blacks don't get to sue - they lost out because of their integrity, not their race, and they have no recourse at law for that.)
See the questions at https://github.com/kaisoapbox/kaisoapbox.github.io/blob/main... or read an account of the story at either https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-... (short) or https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa... (long).
For instance, there is a 15-point question for which you have to answer that your worst grade in high school was in Science, and a separate 15-point question where you have to answer that your worst grade in college was in History/Political Science; picking any of the other options (each question has 5 possible answers) means 0 marks for that question. Collectively, these two questions alone account for one eighth of all the available points. (Many questions were red herrings that were actually worth nothing.)
But then the same blacks-only group that had lobbied internally to get the questionairre instituted (the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees) leaked the "correct" answers to the arbitrary questions to its members, allowing them to get full marks. Effectively this was a race-based hiring cartel. Non-blacks couldn't pass; blacks unwilling to join segregated racial affinity groups or unwilling to cheat the test couldn't pass; but corrupt blacks just needed to cheat when invited to and they would pass easily, entering the merit-based stage of hiring with the competition already eliminated by the biographical questionairre.
(A sad injustice is that blacks who wouldn't join the NBCFAE or cheat the test, and so suffered the same unfair disadvantage as whites, are excluded from the class in the class-action lawsuit over this whole mess. Since the legal argument is that it was discrimination against non-blacks, blacks don't get to sue - they lost out because of their integrity, not their race, and they have no recourse at law for that.)
See the questions at https://github.com/kaisoapbox/kaisoapbox.github.io/blob/main... or read an account of the story at either https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-... (short) or https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa... (long).
I don't understand how this isn't a giant public scandal. Is there something I'm missing here?
The test wasn't explicitly discriminatory, just the way that it was used. And the way that it was used is disputed. The facts are still being litigated. All the coverage is from opinion pieces or right-of-center newspapers.
https://archive.is/lDyOB
https://archive.is/lDyOB
It would also be damning of recruitment patterns across American institutions. Getting ahold of prestigious or lucrative opportunities often requires pressing unfair advantages that other applicants don't even know exist, by design. My personal anecdote: my SAT score was higher than yours (statistically-speaking, this statement is correct 9 times out of 10, maybe slightly less considering the audience); my alma mater's ranking is lower than yours. I was not privy to he means required to capitalize on my performance. No one bats an eye at this; if the guidance of the adults in my life and my own ambition didn't drive me to a better school, that's tough luck. Never mind that the incidence of this sort of situation has a likewise racially-biased bent.
Perhaps if these sorts of tactics, or even just circumstances, weren't so prevalent, then they wouldn't seem like such a good idea to purposely replicate.
No one is gullible enough to believe that, if the alleged is true, it would be the first time that unscrupulous methods were used to advantage a particular group in recruitment for jobs or education, right? Or that, when it has happened, it has been primarily used to advantage black applicants?
Perhaps if these sorts of tactics, or even just circumstances, weren't so prevalent, then they wouldn't seem like such a good idea to purposely replicate.
No one is gullible enough to believe that, if the alleged is true, it would be the first time that unscrupulous methods were used to advantage a particular group in recruitment for jobs or education, right? Or that, when it has happened, it has been primarily used to advantage black applicants?
I don't think the WSJ was the only place reporting on it, and I don't think the fact that you consider them to be "right of center" means their coverage might be anything but factual here.
I’m not saying the WSJ was the only place reporting on it, and indeed my link isn’t even an example. That’s an opinion piece.
It was a public scandal, which is why Congress passed a law in 2016.
Comments moved to:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42944203
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42944203
Whose interests would it serve for it to be a giant public scandal? Which of those groups have the resources to make it one?
I’m amazed that no one seems to have been indicted. Was this not fraud?
could equally likely be misrepresentation of the facts given the current climate, judicial courts are important because you have to prove your claims in a rigorous fact finding and disputing session, rather than the court of public opinion
>> The ATC biographical assessment didn't have any race-based questions - it was just a decision making questionnaire
Looks like this is the case, https://casetext.com/case/brigida-v-buttigieg-1.
"Though not at issue in this motion, the Plaintiffs allege that the FAA failed to 'validate' the Biographical Questionnaire, and that the Biographical Questionnaire awarded points to applicants in a fashion untethered to the qualifications necessary to be an air traffic controller. For instance, applicants could be awarded fifteen points, the highest possible for any question, if they indicated their lowest grade in high school was in a science class. But applicants received only two points if they had a pilot's certificate, and no points at all if they had a Control Tower Operator rating, even though historic research data indicated that those criteria had 'a positive relationship with ATCS training outcomes'. Further, if applicants answered that they had not been employed at all in the prior three years, they received 10 points, the most awarded for that question."
Can you explain to me why it was more important for air traffic controller candidates to be bad at science and unemployed than it was for them to be pilots or trained in air traffic control?
Looks like this is the case, https://casetext.com/case/brigida-v-buttigieg-1.
"Though not at issue in this motion, the Plaintiffs allege that the FAA failed to 'validate' the Biographical Questionnaire, and that the Biographical Questionnaire awarded points to applicants in a fashion untethered to the qualifications necessary to be an air traffic controller. For instance, applicants could be awarded fifteen points, the highest possible for any question, if they indicated their lowest grade in high school was in a science class. But applicants received only two points if they had a pilot's certificate, and no points at all if they had a Control Tower Operator rating, even though historic research data indicated that those criteria had 'a positive relationship with ATCS training outcomes'. Further, if applicants answered that they had not been employed at all in the prior three years, they received 10 points, the most awarded for that question."
Can you explain to me why it was more important for air traffic controller candidates to be bad at science and unemployed than it was for them to be pilots or trained in air traffic control?
I don't know anything about the lawsuit, but I do know that someone leaked the "answers" to members of a group representing people of a specific race.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
I literally linked to a study website for test, I don't think you had to be a member of a secret racial kabal to get answers.
Furthermore, the bias was literally baked into the test - certain minority candidates got to skip the test altogether. Although it's still not evidence that qualified white people were prevented from filling in vacancies.
Furthermore, the bias was literally baked into the test - certain minority candidates got to skip the test altogether. Although it's still not evidence that qualified white people were prevented from filling in vacancies.
> I literally linked to a study website for test
It looks like you did not read what you linked to.
That's not a study guide for the biographical questionaire. There was never a study guide for biographical questionaire.
> certain minority candidates got to skip the test altogether.
Source?
> I don't think...
That's okay. I know the answers were leaked. However you can speculate all you want about ridiculous "secret racial kabals".
It looks like you did not read what you linked to.
That's not a study guide for the biographical questionaire. There was never a study guide for biographical questionaire.
> certain minority candidates got to skip the test altogether.
Source?
> I don't think...
That's okay. I know the answers were leaked. However you can speculate all you want about ridiculous "secret racial kabals".
Wow.
There's people who actually believe this stuff?
Hopefully these people are not allowed to infect the NTSB with their idiocy. We have to keep focused on safety. Which means we don't ignore the root cause of helo pilots losing, (or maybe never even having), situational awareness.
How can we make the space safe even if helo pilots lose situational awareness?
All this DEI nonsense has to take a back seat to answering those primary safety related questions. This is not a game, or political rally, or whatever. We have to fix this.
There's people who actually believe this stuff?
Hopefully these people are not allowed to infect the NTSB with their idiocy. We have to keep focused on safety. Which means we don't ignore the root cause of helo pilots losing, (or maybe never even having), situational awareness.
How can we make the space safe even if helo pilots lose situational awareness?
All this DEI nonsense has to take a back seat to answering those primary safety related questions. This is not a game, or political rally, or whatever. We have to fix this.
[deleted]
NY Post and The Telegraph are sensationalist rags. Overstating the claims by the plaintiff and not even bothering to go through the actual court case
NY Post and The Telegraph are indeed sensationalist. On the other hand as the blog article puts it
>... investigative reporting from outlets like the New York Times has failed to consider the role of the hiring scandal at all
>... investigative reporting from outlets like the New York Times has failed to consider the role of the hiring scandal at all
Seems like a colossal error to have asked them all to quit.
I wonder -- if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B? The deadline they have been given to decide is Thursday; I have not seen any communication as to whether ATC (and TSA, etc.) will be operational Friday.
I wonder -- if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B? The deadline they have been given to decide is Thursday; I have not seen any communication as to whether ATC (and TSA, etc.) will be operational Friday.
It seems they clawed back the offer or never gave it in the first place.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-exempt...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-exempt...
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.
In a country with the rule of law, employers can't generally take away these kind of things when they've promised them - this got Musk in to trouble when he made a generous severance offer in Europe and had to actually follow through on it.
In America? Who knows.
In America? Who knows.
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...
It's all a twisted yarn:
https://wlos.com/news/nation-world/no-evidence-trump-fired-t...
They have nonetheless signaled that a subset of the staff is marked for firing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936406
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936406
> if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B?
In theory you could do what Reagan did and tell the military to do ATC.
Whether or not this is a good idea is another matter.
In theory you could do what Reagan did and tell the military to do ATC.
Whether or not this is a good idea is another matter.
Reagan taking away collective bargaining rights for ATCs seems to be what have led to the shortage and the helicopter accident last week.
The official investigation report is of course going to take a bit, but the ATC audio is public, and the helicopter was warned twice about the plane, and said they had a visual of the plane.
Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
That's a system failure if there's no way to verify just what plane the helicopter had in its sights. If continuing with visual separation in the same place, ATC may very well adjust their language. It would help to identify where in the sky the plane is. Or, if there's a potential for cutting it close, just getting the helicopter to hold back until the plane lands? We wouldn't let a plant fly 200ft above another plane in any other situation
Well, I mean, if we can blame DEI?
That's part of the problem here, everyone is just taking political potshots. Which is to be expected. But the danger is you lose sight of the real issue. As you mentioned, the helo pilot's loss of situational awareness. (Did they ever even have situational awareness?)
We can't be getting into these situations where every crisis is met by this typical American emotional reactionism. We can't be blaming the "left", or the "right", or the most ridiculous one which was "it was the black guys somehow". We gotta stop letting that crap distract us.
That's part of the problem here, everyone is just taking political potshots. Which is to be expected. But the danger is you lose sight of the real issue. As you mentioned, the helo pilot's loss of situational awareness. (Did they ever even have situational awareness?)
We can't be getting into these situations where every crisis is met by this typical American emotional reactionism. We can't be blaming the "left", or the "right", or the most ridiculous one which was "it was the black guys somehow". We gotta stop letting that crap distract us.
I think the underlying problem was the irresponsible amount of air traffic that has been allowed in that space. It sounds like the pilot made a mistake any pilot might've made and truly it was just a matter of time until something like this happened given the overcrowded nature of the air traffic in the area.
Operator error is only the first 'why' in the 5 whys for this incident.
Operator error is only the first 'why' in the 5 whys for this incident.
Can I just admit how insane it feels that in the Year of our Lord Automation 2025, air safety basically amounts to:
"Yo watch out for that big plane on your left" and then hope for the best.
"Yo watch out for that big plane on your left" and then hope for the best.
> Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
Congress keeps approving more flights into DCA over the in hindsight, clear objections by those in charge of safety at DCA, the FAA and several congress people in the minority. Congress people use it as their personal transit hub.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights...
Kinda. Collective bargaining rights are great for employees but they do not automatically lead to better outcomes for customers/citizens/etc.
A good counter-example of ATC would be police. Police have strong collective bargaining rights, but mostly came at the expense of accountability and citizen oversight. (And also police departments are still chronically understaffed).
A good counter-example of ATC would be police. Police have strong collective bargaining rights, but mostly came at the expense of accountability and citizen oversight. (And also police departments are still chronically understaffed).
Police are the state's manifestation of the monopoly on violence. Comparing that to civilian safety orgs makes no sense.
Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance.
Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality.
I'm not saying there's not a strong argument for unionization, but an improvement in quality is not one backed by any sort of evidence and it's a really weak argument. To put it another way, it would be hard for a unionized employee to outperform a Foxconn employee with no human rights on output quality - but it's not at all the kind of argument we should be making.
Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality.
I'm not saying there's not a strong argument for unionization, but an improvement in quality is not one backed by any sort of evidence and it's a really weak argument. To put it another way, it would be hard for a unionized employee to outperform a Foxconn employee with no human rights on output quality - but it's not at all the kind of argument we should be making.
> Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance.
I'm going to guess that there are far stronger correlations with household wealth when it comes to student performance than there are whether the students are taught by teachers who are employed under a CBA.
> Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality.
That could very well be because of how the cars are engineered and made versus the union representation for the people who make them.
GM, for example, tends to build cars in a way as to make them as cheap as possible to build. That lets them compete on price versus quality. You need the car now, after all; what happens in 40k miles isn't as important to you now. Of course, that comes with the risk, like when some essential component on my college girlfriend's Pontiac's shat the bed, and they'd had to take the entire front of the car apart to replace it because it was cheaper to build that way. They've just taken the price of having a functioning vehicle and charged you for it at the mechanic, not the dealership.
Toyota and Honda used to do the opposite, of course. You were going to pay more (depending on exchange rate) upon purchase of the vehicle but the result was that the car wouldn't need as many trips to the mechanic. They've since started doing more value engineering.
There's also a cultural difference between Japanese and American businesses, but that's far more nebulous.
I'm going to guess that there are far stronger correlations with household wealth when it comes to student performance than there are whether the students are taught by teachers who are employed under a CBA.
> Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality.
That could very well be because of how the cars are engineered and made versus the union representation for the people who make them.
GM, for example, tends to build cars in a way as to make them as cheap as possible to build. That lets them compete on price versus quality. You need the car now, after all; what happens in 40k miles isn't as important to you now. Of course, that comes with the risk, like when some essential component on my college girlfriend's Pontiac's shat the bed, and they'd had to take the entire front of the car apart to replace it because it was cheaper to build that way. They've just taken the price of having a functioning vehicle and charged you for it at the mechanic, not the dealership.
Toyota and Honda used to do the opposite, of course. You were going to pay more (depending on exchange rate) upon purchase of the vehicle but the result was that the car wouldn't need as many trips to the mechanic. They've since started doing more value engineering.
There's also a cultural difference between Japanese and American businesses, but that's far more nebulous.
> There's also a cultural difference between Japanese and American businesses, but that's far more nebulous.
The abstract cultural differences might be difficult to articulate, but many of the effects are concrete: Toyota still maintains lifetime employment for Japanese factory employees. And Toyota factory workers in Japan are represented by a union, AFAIU, though like Germany the relationship between unions and management is less adversarial in Japan.
Interestingly, the change in union employment in Japan seems to have tracked the US, from a high of over 50% mid-century to 16% today versus ~35% and ~10%, respectively, in the U.S.
The abstract cultural differences might be difficult to articulate, but many of the effects are concrete: Toyota still maintains lifetime employment for Japanese factory employees. And Toyota factory workers in Japan are represented by a union, AFAIU, though like Germany the relationship between unions and management is less adversarial in Japan.
Interestingly, the change in union employment in Japan seems to have tracked the US, from a high of over 50% mid-century to 16% today versus ~35% and ~10%, respectively, in the U.S.
not true, it is better for the brand long-term to build good cars.
but unionized workforce makes it economically unfeasible.
GM makes crappy because, if they tried to make high quality cars, they would be priced like Cadillacs
GM makes crappy because, if they tried to make high quality cars, they would be priced like Cadillacs
Wait is the joke that Cadillacs are GM cars?
It's interesting that other car companies have backed off from the multiple brands/badges. We don't have plymouth, Oldsmobile, mercury, Pontiac.
It's interesting that other car companies have backed off from the multiple brands/badges. We don't have plymouth, Oldsmobile, mercury, Pontiac.
We have an apples to apples comparison with Mexican-made vehicles, though, since both GM and Toyota build there.
What's the excuse for the shoddy non-union Mexican GM vehicles?
What's the excuse for the shoddy non-union Mexican GM vehicles?
Mexico is an assembly operation to arbitrage cheap low skill labor and preferential NAFTA-like agreements.
Vehicle designs, powertrains, critical components are all made by the HQ or its suppliers.
Vehicle designs, powertrains, critical components are all made by the HQ or its suppliers.
Citation needed, because just a cursory check is showing me plenty of powertrain manufacturing happening in Mexico. Meanwhile if by critical components you mean chips, I don't think there's a big semiconductor manufacturing union that's kneecapping GM. Design is also an apples to apples comparison, it's not a union job.
It was 44 years ago. We have had 6 presidents since then. Every single ATC controller from 1981 is retired, most for over a decade. You probably should be looking at a more proximate cause.
Did reagan do anything good in hindsight? Everytime I hear about him he seems like the worst president until trump came along
He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control...
which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.
which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.
The idea back then was a one-time amnesty in exchange for a secure border, which didn't happen.
That's why Republicans are unwilling to budge a second time.
That's why Republicans are unwilling to budge a second time.
The idea was actually that employers would start to bear some responsibility for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and thus creating an economic incentive for the migration.
That didn't really happen. You see plenty of roundups of illegal immigrants, many/most are employed. What you don't see ever are roundups of their employers.
If you want to actually see this problem solved immediately all you need to do is show a daily perp walk of the employers on the evening news for a few months.
That didn't really happen. You see plenty of roundups of illegal immigrants, many/most are employed. What you don't see ever are roundups of their employers.
If you want to actually see this problem solved immediately all you need to do is show a daily perp walk of the employers on the evening news for a few months.
Several years ago, there was a big immigration raid on a bunch of Tyson Chicken facilities.
They found about 900 undocumented workers.
Many of them gave evidence to officials, including written instructions from Tyson that advised them how to fill out employment, banking, taxation paperwork if they "didn't have documentation" and how to stay under the radar, i.e. Tyson didn't just know they might have undocumented workers, they were facilitating and actively enabling it.
In press conferences, when journalists asked "Are there any plans to investigate the company or issue fines or charges?", the response? "We are not considering that at this time." (And they never did.)
What it ended up looking like was that Tyson had been getting in some trouble, getting bad press for OSHA safety issues and perhaps had decided their undocumented workers were getting a little too angry about poor safety standards, making waves.
It would be entirely unsurprising to me if Tyson made a sweetheart deal with ICE that said "Hey, if you come to these plants, you'll get to make this big stink about undocumented workers" (and this was during the Trump administration), "but in return, can you leave us out of it?", very much shades of "Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"
They found about 900 undocumented workers.
Many of them gave evidence to officials, including written instructions from Tyson that advised them how to fill out employment, banking, taxation paperwork if they "didn't have documentation" and how to stay under the radar, i.e. Tyson didn't just know they might have undocumented workers, they were facilitating and actively enabling it.
In press conferences, when journalists asked "Are there any plans to investigate the company or issue fines or charges?", the response? "We are not considering that at this time." (And they never did.)
What it ended up looking like was that Tyson had been getting in some trouble, getting bad press for OSHA safety issues and perhaps had decided their undocumented workers were getting a little too angry about poor safety standards, making waves.
It would be entirely unsurprising to me if Tyson made a sweetheart deal with ICE that said "Hey, if you come to these plants, you'll get to make this big stink about undocumented workers" (and this was during the Trump administration), "but in return, can you leave us out of it?", very much shades of "Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"
Who ran ICE for the next 6 years?
ICE wasn't created until 2003, so no one.
Good point, but there was an agency tasked with security.
True, and I’m sorry for the snarky reply even though I knew what you meant.
But regardless of if this was the fault of Reagan or the largely Democratic-controlled Congress, Republicans in government since then have soured on any idea giving an ounce of amnesty because of it.
But regardless of if this was the fault of Reagan or the largely Democratic-controlled Congress, Republicans in government since then have soured on any idea giving an ounce of amnesty because of it.
Nominated the first female to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, and using his bully pulpit to pressure the Soviet Union about East Germany and the eventual dissolution of the USSR.
The challenger/teacher in space thing was under his watch. It was a great idea. It just got screwed by NASA failures.
Also, his handling of the disaster was pretty good.
Also, his handling of the disaster was pretty good.
[deleted]
Depends, were you rich in the 80’s? If so he was amazing at making you even richer.
He became very popular to hate on in the past midterms because his position that "government IS the problem" is more popular than ever given the last administration. It was a vain effort to preempt what they knew was coming.
Seriously, why else would the name of a president who hasn't served in 40 years suddenly be brought up all the time?
Seriously, why else would the name of a president who hasn't served in 40 years suddenly be brought up all the time?
Indeed. Wouldn't want people doing a safety-critical job being fairly compensated, after all.
The number that I've heard that accepted that offer across the government is in line with normal attrition rates with federal employees - the only people who bit were already planning on quitting. It appears that most or all else was wise to how shady this deal was.
Part all of this BS is sure at twitter if you pull this you might get a decent attrition rate but isn't the federal government known for people never quitting? If they quit, it's quiet quitting coming in every day and doing nothing. Isn't that generally the purpose behind this too? Like...good luck get a real amount of people to quit they are going to hold on for dear life
> they quit, it's quiet quitting coming in every day and doing nothing
You think air traffic controllers are “doing nothing”? What VA staff, park rangers, food inspectors, etc.? I realize this stereotype is something a lot of people spend money reinforcing but you should consider why you believe it to be true of a nationwide group doing a huge range of jobs and what evidence that’s based on.
You think air traffic controllers are “doing nothing”? What VA staff, park rangers, food inspectors, etc.? I realize this stereotype is something a lot of people spend money reinforcing but you should consider why you believe it to be true of a nationwide group doing a huge range of jobs and what evidence that’s based on.
I'm convinced a lot of people who espouse this view have never worked at any large[1] private sector organization. My last stint working at a big company included seeing people routinely taking naps at work and generally behaving in the ways people associate with government employees. Smaller organizations are more efficient, but are limited in possible scope of impact.
[1] "large" here generally meaning over 100k employees, relatively concentrated (so a hypothetical org with 5k employees in each of 20 countries likely does not fit). For scale, the US has any number of domestic bases where personnel count exceeds Meta's total staffing, with a couple being roughly the size as Microsoft's US employment.
[1] "large" here generally meaning over 100k employees, relatively concentrated (so a hypothetical org with 5k employees in each of 20 countries likely does not fit). For scale, the US has any number of domestic bases where personnel count exceeds Meta's total staffing, with a couple being roughly the size as Microsoft's US employment.
That matches my experience, too. I’ve worked in .com, .edu, and .gov and people are the same everywhere. The main thing I notice is that there tends to be a lot of selection bias when people talk about the private sector where the most successful companies are used to represent the whole concept, when almost everyone has had to interact with, say, a cable or health insurance company (my local DMV is sooo much better than Comcast).
I thought the buyout offer went along with the cancellation of remote work. Like, if you are thinking about quitting because you don’t want to come in, here have an extra incentive to do that and take some time to find another job.
ATC already couldn’t work remotely. The only people who would take a deal like this would be people who were thinking about quitting or retiring anyway. I suspect ATC will not be substantially affected by people taking that deal.
ATC already couldn’t work remotely. The only people who would take a deal like this would be people who were thinking about quitting or retiring anyway. I suspect ATC will not be substantially affected by people taking that deal.
> I thought the buyout offer went along with the cancellation of remote work.
Your sentiment is a result of their incredibly vague first attempt at messaging.
The offer was (or ended up being) a full buyout offer. The “offer” is probably genuine, but it’s not a clean offer, as many edge cases are unclear (e.g., can they terminate you if they accept the offer… currently there is nothing stopping them from doing that, how can someone of retirement age accept the offer and then retire, etc.).
Iirc, ATCs can accept the buy out if they so chose. I’m guessing most won’t, as the ATC deal is good to stick with until you retire.
Edit: Per the article, the status of the offer is unclear. It wasn’t cleared with the union before the letter was released, and it hasn’t been officially rescinded either (despite comments that it has from DoT).
Your sentiment is a result of their incredibly vague first attempt at messaging.
The offer was (or ended up being) a full buyout offer. The “offer” is probably genuine, but it’s not a clean offer, as many edge cases are unclear (e.g., can they terminate you if they accept the offer… currently there is nothing stopping them from doing that, how can someone of retirement age accept the offer and then retire, etc.).
Iirc, ATCs can accept the buy out if they so chose. I’m guessing most won’t, as the ATC deal is good to stick with until you retire.
Edit: Per the article, the status of the offer is unclear. It wasn’t cleared with the union before the letter was released, and it hasn’t been officially rescinded either (despite comments that it has from DoT).
Sorry to be unclear, I didn’t mean that only people transitioning from remote to in person can take the buyout. I meant that that is what the deal seemed to be targeting based on the timing, like a release valve for people who would be angry about switching back to in person.
> I meant that that is what the deal seemed to be targeting based on the timing, like a release valve for people who would be angry about switching back to in person.
That’s a reasonable take.
I don’t think anyone involved is actually on the same page about targeting or intent. It’s a complete shit show.
I have many fed gov friends, and I’m getting some incredible insider takes.
Interestingly, I think that the idea of reducing the federal work force size has a lot of supporters from both sides of the aisle, but this implementation has been haphazard (at best).
A “good” implementation would remove a lot of “build headcount” positions while also adding/filling positions that are still lacking. ATCs and contracting (to name two) fall under the latter.
That’s a reasonable take.
I don’t think anyone involved is actually on the same page about targeting or intent. It’s a complete shit show.
I have many fed gov friends, and I’m getting some incredible insider takes.
Interestingly, I think that the idea of reducing the federal work force size has a lot of supporters from both sides of the aisle, but this implementation has been haphazard (at best).
A “good” implementation would remove a lot of “build headcount” positions while also adding/filling positions that are still lacking. ATCs and contracting (to name two) fall under the latter.
> but this implementation has been haphazard (at best).
Also, this doesn't save us any money at all. Congress allocates money and in many cases specifies employment levels. But like the OMB memo says -- taxpayers still have to spend the money for these employees whether they do any work or not.
The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress.
Also, this doesn't save us any money at all. Congress allocates money and in many cases specifies employment levels. But like the OMB memo says -- taxpayers still have to spend the money for these employees whether they do any work or not.
The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress.
> Also, this doesn't save us any money at all. Congress allocates money and in many cases specifies employment levels.
Hmmm… this is short-term correct (at a minimum), but may not be correct long term. Time will tell.
Yes, the money for current jobs has been allocated/budgeted for the fiscal year, and the folks who resign will actually be paid for not working until the end of the fiscal year.
This is standard buyout stuff, and the government does this every year on a smaller scale, usually targeting high-paid, low productivity employees who are eligible to retire.
That said, what happens next fiscal year? The speculation is that the default will be that the positions vacated will basically be lost — as in, the slot/allocation will no longer exist and will not get funded. I imagine exceptions will exist, but this will create a noticeable reduction in the federal workforce if it ends up this way.
Said another way, paying 8 months for no work is cheaper than paying for 5-10 years of unneeded/inefficient work (at least that’s the theory).
> The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress.
As I mentioned above, I think there is broad support on both sides for cutting and/or right-sizing the federal workforce.
Anyone who has worked in or with the federal government knows about instances of gratuitous headcount growth and substantial underemployment in some areas. There exist grifters who maybe put in 10 hours a week on average of very mediocre work for a salary that they absolutely could not earn outside of the government.
These same people also know about areas of the government that are grossly understaffed, seemingly in perpetuity (ATCs, contracting, etc.) and/or extremely underpaid (e.g., anything in tech).
I think it would be trivially easy to get broad support in Congress to implement changes that fix these problems, but that fix doesn’t start with a hastily written “fork you” all-hands e-mail.
All that said, all of this gratuitous motion is basically a drop in the bucket compared to modest and reasonable changes that could be made in social security, Medicare/medicaid, and/or defense spending.
Hmmm… this is short-term correct (at a minimum), but may not be correct long term. Time will tell.
Yes, the money for current jobs has been allocated/budgeted for the fiscal year, and the folks who resign will actually be paid for not working until the end of the fiscal year.
This is standard buyout stuff, and the government does this every year on a smaller scale, usually targeting high-paid, low productivity employees who are eligible to retire.
That said, what happens next fiscal year? The speculation is that the default will be that the positions vacated will basically be lost — as in, the slot/allocation will no longer exist and will not get funded. I imagine exceptions will exist, but this will create a noticeable reduction in the federal workforce if it ends up this way.
Said another way, paying 8 months for no work is cheaper than paying for 5-10 years of unneeded/inefficient work (at least that’s the theory).
> The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress.
As I mentioned above, I think there is broad support on both sides for cutting and/or right-sizing the federal workforce.
Anyone who has worked in or with the federal government knows about instances of gratuitous headcount growth and substantial underemployment in some areas. There exist grifters who maybe put in 10 hours a week on average of very mediocre work for a salary that they absolutely could not earn outside of the government.
These same people also know about areas of the government that are grossly understaffed, seemingly in perpetuity (ATCs, contracting, etc.) and/or extremely underpaid (e.g., anything in tech).
I think it would be trivially easy to get broad support in Congress to implement changes that fix these problems, but that fix doesn’t start with a hastily written “fork you” all-hands e-mail.
All that said, all of this gratuitous motion is basically a drop in the bucket compared to modest and reasonable changes that could be made in social security, Medicare/medicaid, and/or defense spending.
You are correct that done deliberately, this could show the lack of need for some roles. But as it is structured, it is designed to get the best folks to leave, and from unpredictable parts of the org and thus is unlikely to show that result.
I think both sides are aligned in the desire to reduce the size of government. (Which has been steadily declining relative to the size of the population/economy for something like 4 decades.)
However, the administration is not pushing for right-sizing the workforce. They are proposing deeply unpopular cuts to things Americans actually value, without any debate or discussion of tradeoffs.
I think both sides are aligned in the desire to reduce the size of government. (Which has been steadily declining relative to the size of the population/economy for something like 4 decades.)
However, the administration is not pushing for right-sizing the workforce. They are proposing deeply unpopular cuts to things Americans actually value, without any debate or discussion of tradeoffs.
> But as it is structured, it is designed to get the best folks to leave, and from unpredictable parts of the org and thus is unlikely to show that result.
I believe that this is largely how this round will turn out. The numbers look very low so far (20k?).
> the administration is not pushing for right-sizing the workforce. They are proposing deeply unpopular cuts to things Americans actually value, without any debate or discussion of tradeoffs.
Just to be clear, I agree with all of this.
As I mentioned above, this is an absolute shit show. If chaos ensues, I think that will be seen as a success by those making the top-level decisions.
Our system of checks and balances is completely broken right now, and the limits are being tested by a group of folks who have no concept of noblesse oblige.
The results will be interesting.
I believe that this is largely how this round will turn out. The numbers look very low so far (20k?).
> the administration is not pushing for right-sizing the workforce. They are proposing deeply unpopular cuts to things Americans actually value, without any debate or discussion of tradeoffs.
Just to be clear, I agree with all of this.
As I mentioned above, this is an absolute shit show. If chaos ensues, I think that will be seen as a success by those making the top-level decisions.
Our system of checks and balances is completely broken right now, and the limits are being tested by a group of folks who have no concept of noblesse oblige.
The results will be interesting.
> The numbers look very low so far (20k?).
I saw that, and it immediately made me realize that it's sort of not a useful number without context. Are those 20k spread roughly evenly across the government, or are there places where everyone quit? I am sure there are parts of government that will cease to function if the wrong 500 people suddenly quit.
I saw that, and it immediately made me realize that it's sort of not a useful number without context. Are those 20k spread roughly evenly across the government, or are there places where everyone quit? I am sure there are parts of government that will cease to function if the wrong 500 people suddenly quit.
> I am sure there are parts of government that will cease to function if the wrong 500 people suddenly quit.
As I mentioned before, I think the folks doing this would be fine with a “cease to function” outcome.
Next steps would be to blame it on the democrats, and then probably privatize it for a song to one of their cronies.
As I mentioned before, I think the folks doing this would be fine with a “cease to function” outcome.
Next steps would be to blame it on the democrats, and then probably privatize it for a song to one of their cronies.
The other set of people who might take the deal are people who are concerned that the new administration will consider them "DEI hires"[1] and fire them later in the year. This is not an unreasonable fear given that the administration has already blamed the DC crash on "DEI" and pledged to root out "DEI" everywhere.
If you expect to be fired ~ in the fall, it is not unreasonable to be interested in the offer to keep getting paid from your federal job while you look for alternate employment.
1 - I am not going to get into who fits this category. The point is which employees might think they fit into this category.
If you expect to be fired ~ in the fall, it is not unreasonable to be interested in the offer to keep getting paid from your federal job while you look for alternate employment.
1 - I am not going to get into who fits this category. The point is which employees might think they fit into this category.
Wait, why can't ATC work remotely? Serious question. They're looking at data on a screen and communicating via radio. Would the latency of any radio-digital relay be too high?
Sure it's feeling like one step closer to Ender's game. But it could be possible in theory?
I'm an Air Traffic Controlling working at a "Center" (ARTCC). It's not the latency - it's that we have backups for the backups. I wish my house had the same level of redundancy my workplace does.
Edit: except for the asbestos. I'm glad my house doesn't have that. (IIRC they were all built in the 1960s.)
Edit: except for the asbestos. I'm glad my house doesn't have that. (IIRC they were all built in the 1960s.)
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.
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.
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I'd be interested to see the daily staffing levels over the past couple of weeks. If anyone knows where that could be found.
I couldn't find anything immediately definitive but this 2023 survey of federal workers was quite eye-opening: https://ourpublicservice.org/fed-figures/a-profile-of-the-20...
Good find. I'm curious what facets were eye opening for you? This is a ton of data that I find hard to 1-shot learn anything from. :(
It's a colossal error to accept. The government isn't authorized to do a buy-out by congress so you're just quitting and won't receive the payment.
It never was a buy out, and everyone should stop referring to it as such.
Yep. It was a pinky swear to maybe pay for 8 months that might be able to be spent on leave, but none of it was guaranteed.
The employee's agency determines if they spend it on leave, not OPM. Congress will determine if there's even money after March 14th available to pay for 8 months of anything, let alone 8 months of admin leave.
The employee's agency determines if they spend it on leave, not OPM. Congress will determine if there's even money after March 14th available to pay for 8 months of anything, let alone 8 months of admin leave.
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 quit, and for others refuse to work there, so that Trump and Musk feel the consequences for their actions directly. Wouldn't it be great if Air Force One was stranded because of this.
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 quit, and for others refuse to work there, so that Trump and Musk feel the consequences for their actions directly. Wouldn't it be great if Air Force One was stranded because of this.
> 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 :)
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 :)
The US air space is civilian ATC. Air Force One couldn't go anywhere if the area control and destination airport were down.
Thank you for the info, TIL!
The first problem is that everybody who wants to do the job needs to go through the FAA academy in Oklahoma, which is seriously limited by physical & instructor capacity. So only a couple thousand people a year can work their way through there, no matter how many are willing to do the job.
So first we need more training capacity, and they already have trouble hiring and retaining instructors. This is a more direct place you can throw more money at now.
A start would be moving some of the primary training to the control centers. There's more than one of them, spread around the country, and they already have their own significant training departments.
A significant fraction of people who get into the academy end up not making the cut. Then another good fraction "wash out" during extensive training for the specific airport/center they end up in.
It's a very difficult job and nothing they've tried before is very good at predicting who's going to be successful at it quickly/cheaply.
So first we need more training capacity, and they already have trouble hiring and retaining instructors. This is a more direct place you can throw more money at now.
A start would be moving some of the primary training to the control centers. There's more than one of them, spread around the country, and they already have their own significant training departments.
A significant fraction of people who get into the academy end up not making the cut. Then another good fraction "wash out" during extensive training for the specific airport/center they end up in.
It's a very difficult job and nothing they've tried before is very good at predicting who's going to be successful at it quickly/cheaply.
Would StarCraft ladder rank be a good predictor of suitability?
So, you're saying the FAA is struggling because we don't fund them enough to hire instructors? Seems like a Republican problem.
This has been a snowballing problem since Reagan fired 11,000 controllers for striking in 1981... so sort of, but not the one you're thinking of, and there's been plenty of both sides of the aisle doing nothing to solve the problem in the meantime.
Only one party has been drooling about cutting taxes for the rich and defunding the government since the 80s. Guess which one.
Realistically, because standing up a new academy isn't fast, and everyone wants fast solutions and won't invest long term. That isn't a party line thing, both parties have that issue.
If you live in the Bay Area on the Peninsula, you'll be excited to know that the San Carlos airport and the FAA are in a pissing match over their air traffic controllers' pay, threatening to un-staff the control tower and leave that very busy airspace without tower control. The tower was set to go dark on Feb 1st[1] but it looks like there is now a temporary extension[2] keeping it staffed. Why these guys need to play a game of chicken when lives are at stake, I have no idea.
1: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/bay-area-airport-losing-...
2: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/san-carlos-airport-reach...
1: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/bay-area-airport-losing-...
2: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/san-carlos-airport-reach...
I don't get why lives are at stake here. Surely the consequence of reduced ATC coverage means less flights moving through the area, not the same amount of flights being managed by fewer people?
There's only additional risk if you treat the amount of planes in an area as some kind of inevitable force of nature. If an area isn't safe because of a lack of staff, flights can be canceled to reduce the load on remaining staff without impacting safety.
Sucks for the people who bought a ticket, but a canceled flight is a lot better than dying in a plane crash.
There's only additional risk if you treat the amount of planes in an area as some kind of inevitable force of nature. If an area isn't safe because of a lack of staff, flights can be canceled to reduce the load on remaining staff without impacting safety.
Sucks for the people who bought a ticket, but a canceled flight is a lot better than dying in a plane crash.
From what I heard the San Carlos controller were pissed that their pay was being drastically reduced - especially considering its not a cheap area to live in.
I still don't understand why KSQL is a contract tower and not a full FAA-managed tower.
Did the call sign go to KSQL because of Oracle being right there?
No it predates Oracle, including when it was still called Software Development Laboratories.
Contract towers in general are a terrible idea. The level of service is consistently lower than FAA towers.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
It should be noted that the FAA is facing a lawsuit alleging it discriminated against capable candidates[1]. If this is true, this surely must factor into the shortage of air traffic controllers.
Admittedly, its a big if, and second even if it is true it is not clear to me how much of a factor this is in the shortage.
[1] https://mslegal.org/cases/brigida-v-faa/
Admittedly, its a big if, and second even if it is true it is not clear to me how much of a factor this is in the shortage.
[1] https://mslegal.org/cases/brigida-v-faa/
It truly boggles my mind that Trump may have a legitimate basis for alleging that DEI policies have contributed to issues with ATC staffing.
> First, to liberals:
> I dislike Trump as much as anyone. Maybe I’m not supposed to play my hand like that while reporting a news article, but it’s true. I’ve wanted him out of politics since he entered the scene a decade ago, I voted against him three elections in a row, and I think he’s had a uniquely destructive effect within US politics. So I understand—please believe, I understand—just how disquieting it is to watch him stand up and blame DEI after a major tragedy.
> But Democrats did not handle it. The scandal occurred under the Obama administration. The FAA minimized it, obscured it, fought FOIA requests through multiple lawsuits, and stonewalled the public for years as the class action lawsuit rolled forward. The Trump administration missed it, too, for a term, and it’s likely most officials simply didn’t hear about it through the first few years of the Biden administration. No outlets left of Fox Business bothered to provide more than a cursory examination of it, and it never made much of a dent on the official record. Even when the New York Times ran a thoroughly reported article on air traffic controller shortages late last year, it never touched the scandal. It was possible to miss it.
> First, to liberals:
> I dislike Trump as much as anyone. Maybe I’m not supposed to play my hand like that while reporting a news article, but it’s true. I’ve wanted him out of politics since he entered the scene a decade ago, I voted against him three elections in a row, and I think he’s had a uniquely destructive effect within US politics. So I understand—please believe, I understand—just how disquieting it is to watch him stand up and blame DEI after a major tragedy.
> But Democrats did not handle it. The scandal occurred under the Obama administration. The FAA minimized it, obscured it, fought FOIA requests through multiple lawsuits, and stonewalled the public for years as the class action lawsuit rolled forward. The Trump administration missed it, too, for a term, and it’s likely most officials simply didn’t hear about it through the first few years of the Biden administration. No outlets left of Fox Business bothered to provide more than a cursory examination of it, and it never made much of a dent on the official record. Even when the New York Times ran a thoroughly reported article on air traffic controller shortages late last year, it never touched the scandal. It was possible to miss it.
Either he's a broken clock that's right twice a day, or a Stallman equivalent who was just dismissed as crazy until the truth was too big to ignore.
Seems like bad news for minorities either way. Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, who would want to take on one of the most stressful jobs now knowing that if something goes wrong, millions of racist white people (including the president) will feel emboldened to blame you because of your skin color?
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.
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.
"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.
The article does not imply that they reduced standards in order to let DEI student pass.
Rather they added an insane biographical test that only DEI students could pass, with the net effect of dramatically reducing the availability of ATC's.
i.e. a minority ATC is just as qualified, but there are far fewer white ATC than there should be.
Rather they added an insane biographical test that only DEI students could pass, with the net effect of dramatically reducing the availability of ATC's.
i.e. a minority ATC is just as qualified, but there are far fewer white ATC than there should be.
They did indeed reduce standards. From the article:
> Throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s, the FAA faced pressure to diversify its field of air traffic controllers, historically a profession that has been primarily white men, notably from the NBCFAE.4 In the early 2000s, this pressure focused on the newly developed air traffic control qualification test, the AT-SAT, which the NBCFAE hired Dr. Outtz to critique from an adverse impact standpoint. As originally scored, the test was intended to pass 60% of applicants, but predictions suggested only 3% of black applicants would pass.5 In response, the FAA reweighted the scoring to make the test easier to pass, reducing its correlation with job performance as they did so.6 In its final form, some 95% of applicants passed the test.7
> This was a bit of a shell game. In practice, they divided it into a “well qualified” band (with scores between 85 and 100 on the test, met by around 60% of applicants) and a “qualified” band (with scores between 70 and 84), and drew some 87% of selections from that “well qualified” band.8 Large racial disparities remained in the “well qualified” band. As a result, facing continued pressure, the FAA began to investigate ways to deprioritize the test.
> Why not ditch it altogether? Simple: the test worked. It had “strong predictive validity,” outperforming “most other strategies in predicting mean performance,” and it was low cost and low time commitment. On average, people who performed better on the test actually did perform better as air traffic controllers, and this was never really in dispute. When they tested alternative measures like biographical data, they found that the test scores predicted 27% of variance in performance, while the “biodata” predicted only 2%. It just didn’t do much.9
> The NBCFAE continued to pressure the FAA to diversify, with its members meeting with the DOT, FAA, Congressional Black Caucus, and others to push for increased diversity among ATCs. After years of fiddling with the research and years of pressure from the NBCFAE, the FAA landed on a strategy: by using a multistage process starting with non-cognitive factors, they could strike “an acceptable balance between minority hiring and expected performance”—a process they said would carry a “relatively small” performance loss.10 They openly discussed this tension in meetings, pointing to “a trade-off between diversity (adverse impact) and predicted job performance/outcomes,” asking, “How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?” There is a trade-off between diversity (adverse impact) and predicted job performance/outcomes. How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?
> Throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s, the FAA faced pressure to diversify its field of air traffic controllers, historically a profession that has been primarily white men, notably from the NBCFAE.4 In the early 2000s, this pressure focused on the newly developed air traffic control qualification test, the AT-SAT, which the NBCFAE hired Dr. Outtz to critique from an adverse impact standpoint. As originally scored, the test was intended to pass 60% of applicants, but predictions suggested only 3% of black applicants would pass.5 In response, the FAA reweighted the scoring to make the test easier to pass, reducing its correlation with job performance as they did so.6 In its final form, some 95% of applicants passed the test.7
> This was a bit of a shell game. In practice, they divided it into a “well qualified” band (with scores between 85 and 100 on the test, met by around 60% of applicants) and a “qualified” band (with scores between 70 and 84), and drew some 87% of selections from that “well qualified” band.8 Large racial disparities remained in the “well qualified” band. As a result, facing continued pressure, the FAA began to investigate ways to deprioritize the test.
> Why not ditch it altogether? Simple: the test worked. It had “strong predictive validity,” outperforming “most other strategies in predicting mean performance,” and it was low cost and low time commitment. On average, people who performed better on the test actually did perform better as air traffic controllers, and this was never really in dispute. When they tested alternative measures like biographical data, they found that the test scores predicted 27% of variance in performance, while the “biodata” predicted only 2%. It just didn’t do much.9
> The NBCFAE continued to pressure the FAA to diversify, with its members meeting with the DOT, FAA, Congressional Black Caucus, and others to push for increased diversity among ATCs. After years of fiddling with the research and years of pressure from the NBCFAE, the FAA landed on a strategy: by using a multistage process starting with non-cognitive factors, they could strike “an acceptable balance between minority hiring and expected performance”—a process they said would carry a “relatively small” performance loss.10 They openly discussed this tension in meetings, pointing to “a trade-off between diversity (adverse impact) and predicted job performance/outcomes,” asking, “How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?” There is a trade-off between diversity (adverse impact) and predicted job performance/outcomes. How much of a change in job performance is acceptable to achieve what diversity goals?
The relevant question is whether this issue affected the absolute number of filled ATC positions, not just who got them.
Though the facts on the latter are Not Great, and nuance is not exactly abundant right now.
Though the facts on the latter are Not Great, and nuance is not exactly abundant right now.
They mention that extended offers declined year-over-year after the policy. The implication to me (though it is left unsaid) is that the treatment of students, colleges, etc. by the FAA led to fewer people interested in spending their own time and money for ATC training since the FAA fucked them over so badly.
> Per Fischer, applicants declined year-over-year from 2014 onward. In 2016, hiring was divided into two pools: Pool 1, veterans and CTI students (4021 applicants, 1451 offer letters) and Pool 2, for general population (25,156 applicants, 6799 who passed the biographical questionnaire, 1500 offer letters). By 2019, only 9265 applied, with 6419 (923 from Pool 1, 5496 from Pool 2), with 234 Pool 1 offer letters and 680 in Pool 2.16
> Per Fischer, applicants declined year-over-year from 2014 onward. In 2016, hiring was divided into two pools: Pool 1, veterans and CTI students (4021 applicants, 1451 offer letters) and Pool 2, for general population (25,156 applicants, 6799 who passed the biographical questionnaire, 1500 offer letters). By 2019, only 9265 applied, with 6419 (923 from Pool 1, 5496 from Pool 2), with 234 Pool 1 offer letters and 680 in Pool 2.16
Both of those questions are relevant.
How is the composition of the ATC workforce independently relevant, except as mediated through staffing levels?
It's relevant that people were told they'd be a shoe-in for the job if they spent time and money on education and training and passed the relevant aptitude tests, but were instead denied on the basis of race. That also likely had the knock-on effect of reducing the number of people willing to take an educational track to become an ATC, because e.g. colleges could no longer tell their students it was a viable path for them.
"Like 85% of their fellow CTI students, Brigida and Reilly found themselves faced with a red exclamation point and a dismissal notice: “Based upon your responses to the Biographical Assessment, we have determined that you are NOT eligible for this position."
The article also mentions that there were fewer applicants and fewer offers extended from 2014 onward.
"Like 85% of their fellow CTI students, Brigida and Reilly found themselves faced with a red exclamation point and a dismissal notice: “Based upon your responses to the Biographical Assessment, we have determined that you are NOT eligible for this position."
The article also mentions that there were fewer applicants and fewer offers extended from 2014 onward.
The Brigida case has been the subtext of recent news stories:
Trump was likely referencing it with his DEI comments about the FAA.
Pete Buttigieg's tweet response (acting as if Trump's accusation was coming completely out of left field, when there's literally a case named "Brigida v. Buttigieg"): https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1885013865676562491
Trump was likely referencing it with his DEI comments about the FAA.
Pete Buttigieg's tweet response (acting as if Trump's accusation was coming completely out of left field, when there's literally a case named "Brigida v. Buttigieg"): https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1885013865676562491
Today, hacker news solves air traffic control with either:
a) More money
b) Video game technology
To truly get this problem, you really need to be in it. Either as a pilot or as a controller.
Watching threads like this reminds me that I have expertise within a couple of specialized domains and that’s it. Beyond those, I’m a tourist.
a) More money
b) Video game technology
To truly get this problem, you really need to be in it. Either as a pilot or as a controller.
Watching threads like this reminds me that I have expertise within a couple of specialized domains and that’s it. Beyond those, I’m a tourist.
If you were to design a modern way to solve this problem, you wouldn't end up with a pile of nineteen sixties era equipment and some very stressed ATC people and pilots trying to communicate over a noisy VHF radio channel.
The challenge:
- electrical planes are coming and are going to cause an influx of pilots who can now afford to own and fly their planes. Teslas with wings basically. Cheap to buy, cheap to fly, lower noise, no emissions, what's not to like? It will take some time but early versions of these things are being certified right now. The 100$ hamburger run becomes a 5$ coffee run. It's going to have obvious effects: more people will want to get in on the fun. Way more people.
- a lot of those things will be used to fly medium distances for work in bad weather; which creates an obvious need for some level of ATC interaction.
- Likewise, cheaper/sustainable commercial short hops are going to increase traffic movements.
- Autonomous drones and planes are going to be part of the mix of traffic ATC has to factor in. Autonomous operation is key to operating safely. Especially in low visibility situations. Shuttle flights between city centers and terminals, short local hops, package deliveries, aerial surveillance, etc. On top of regular planes with way smarter auto pilots than today. The volume of this traffic will be orders of magnitudes of what ATC deals with today.
There's some time to prepare for this. Certification processes move slowly. But a lot of this stuff is being experimented with right now at small scale or stuck in the certification pipeline already. We're long past the "will it work" moment for most of this stuff. Technically, this would be happening right now if the FAA would allow it. They'll be fighting a losing battle to slow this down and delay the inevitable here. But the end result is that ATC needs to be ready for orders of magnitude more movement in their controlled air spaces. And right now they clearly aren't.
In short, all this requires new, modern tools. It's obvious. Training more ATC people to do things the way we have been doing them for the last 50 years is not a good plan for the next 50. It's a stop gap solution at best. With a very short shelf life.
The challenge:
- electrical planes are coming and are going to cause an influx of pilots who can now afford to own and fly their planes. Teslas with wings basically. Cheap to buy, cheap to fly, lower noise, no emissions, what's not to like? It will take some time but early versions of these things are being certified right now. The 100$ hamburger run becomes a 5$ coffee run. It's going to have obvious effects: more people will want to get in on the fun. Way more people.
- a lot of those things will be used to fly medium distances for work in bad weather; which creates an obvious need for some level of ATC interaction.
- Likewise, cheaper/sustainable commercial short hops are going to increase traffic movements.
- Autonomous drones and planes are going to be part of the mix of traffic ATC has to factor in. Autonomous operation is key to operating safely. Especially in low visibility situations. Shuttle flights between city centers and terminals, short local hops, package deliveries, aerial surveillance, etc. On top of regular planes with way smarter auto pilots than today. The volume of this traffic will be orders of magnitudes of what ATC deals with today.
There's some time to prepare for this. Certification processes move slowly. But a lot of this stuff is being experimented with right now at small scale or stuck in the certification pipeline already. We're long past the "will it work" moment for most of this stuff. Technically, this would be happening right now if the FAA would allow it. They'll be fighting a losing battle to slow this down and delay the inevitable here. But the end result is that ATC needs to be ready for orders of magnitude more movement in their controlled air spaces. And right now they clearly aren't.
In short, all this requires new, modern tools. It's obvious. Training more ATC people to do things the way we have been doing them for the last 50 years is not a good plan for the next 50. It's a stop gap solution at best. With a very short shelf life.
US doesn't innovate anymore. Looking forward to seeing what Comac and China bring to the table before 2030.
I am in the sector, I develop ATC software. It is not rocket science (which was also solved with money actually) you can actually solve ATC with more money.
It's refreshing to see someone say it.
As a (non-commercial) pilot it's honestly infuriating watching people who have never tried to fly a plane, never tried to locate and identify another aircraft from the air, and never controlled (or even sat with a controller or toured a tower, tracon, or center) make these claims and statements about how easy these problems they don't understand are to fix as if they're experts on the topic.
As a (non-commercial) pilot it's honestly infuriating watching people who have never tried to fly a plane, never tried to locate and identify another aircraft from the air, and never controlled (or even sat with a controller or toured a tower, tracon, or center) make these claims and statements about how easy these problems they don't understand are to fix as if they're experts on the topic.
Welcome to hacker news! The confidence is strong amongst the readership here and often confidently wrong at that!
A lot of naive uninformed people who had no expertise and were told by experts how they could never contribute to a problem or field have successfully built businesses funded by the very people who created this community.
We have planes moving hundreds of miles an hour being managed exclusively by audio channels.
Does this not blow anyone else's minds? This seems like a clear case of 'because we've always done it that way'. There's no way if a system was being developed today they'd say to hell with screens, lets just give them instructions over audio and assume they'll follow them to a T if acknowledged.
Does this not blow anyone else's minds? This seems like a clear case of 'because we've always done it that way'. There's no way if a system was being developed today they'd say to hell with screens, lets just give them instructions over audio and assume they'll follow them to a T if acknowledged.
there are already a lot of screens and things to look at in a cockpit. and in emergency situations, screens can fail. audio has the advantage of being highly backwards compatible and extremely reliable, so long as the pilots are alive and conscious (and if they're not, the plane is most likely SOL anyways: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)
Also, you can process and respond to audio without taking your eyes off of whatever they are on, and without taking your hand off the stick/yoke.
I hear in my headset "Clear for the option runway two-five-right, number two behind a cessna, two mile final, on the go make right traffic" and I know exactly what is expected of me without having to look at a screen. A digital display would be a step backwards.
I hear in my headset "Clear for the option runway two-five-right, number two behind a cessna, two mile final, on the go make right traffic" and I know exactly what is expected of me without having to look at a screen. A digital display would be a step backwards.
It doesn't sound like GP is saying we have to do away with audio, just that it's absurd to stick to _just_ audio. Great to have a screen that shows "Clear for option 25R etc etc". I think I saw the latest Cirrus planes have something like that, doing live transcription of tower/ATC calls.
EDIT: I will add I get that adding something like that to a general aviation cockpit is much easier than putting it on a commercial 787, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
EDIT: I will add I get that adding something like that to a general aviation cockpit is much easier than putting it on a commercial 787, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
it isn't really just audio though. The pilot is staring at things while talking, and there are automated systems like TCAS that provide alarms and visual indications as well. And a lot of commercial airliners have HUDs.
If anything, the helicopter needed more avoidance technology from the sounds of it. And that has more to do with the lack of integration the military does with civilian systems.
If anything, the helicopter needed more avoidance technology from the sounds of it. And that has more to do with the lack of integration the military does with civilian systems.
This was a perfect example where audio fell short. The ATC couldn't know if the heli was referencing the same aircraft. Some sort of digital display + highlighting would fit here.
It's really sort of the opposite. You don't see 727s or MD-80s at the terminal anymore (freight somewhat excepted). Airliners are used constantly, wear out and get replaced/sent to other countries. Buying another computer is a negligible cost in a new 787 or retrofit into anything an airline currently flies.
But there are tons of flying general aviation planes that are from the 50s/60's, and a long tail going back even further than that. Some of them don't even have a radio to talk on. Or an electrical system to run it.
Mandating ADSB took many years, and still has exceptions carved out. And that's a fairly simple technology. There are companies that build it all into a replacement tail light LED "bulb" to provide compliance for ~$2000.
Still that might be 5-10% of the value of your 1977 Cessna 152. If you take the cheap airframes out of the sky, that makes new pilots getting their 1500 hours more expensive before they can go get a job on the big boy planes.
But there are tons of flying general aviation planes that are from the 50s/60's, and a long tail going back even further than that. Some of them don't even have a radio to talk on. Or an electrical system to run it.
Mandating ADSB took many years, and still has exceptions carved out. And that's a fairly simple technology. There are companies that build it all into a replacement tail light LED "bulb" to provide compliance for ~$2000.
Still that might be 5-10% of the value of your 1977 Cessna 152. If you take the cheap airframes out of the sky, that makes new pilots getting their 1500 hours more expensive before they can go get a job on the big boy planes.
>and in emergency situations, screens can fail.
Audio makes perfect sense as a backup, but 99.99% of flights would benefit from having a screen showing object and current planned route.
In this particular case, simply having that information available would have allowed an onboard computer to predict a collision.
Audio makes perfect sense as a backup, but 99.99% of flights would benefit from having a screen showing object and current planned route.
In this particular case, simply having that information available would have allowed an onboard computer to predict a collision.
such a system did exist on the American airlines jet, but it does not autocorrect or advise below 1000 feet, since an automated correction in such a busy, low area could make things worse. https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1idrsl6/...
Take a fly on an airliner in MS flight simulator sometime or watch any of the YouTubers that show this stuff. CitationMax is a good one. The screens tell the flight plan, altitudes, traffic, weather, terrain and more. The audio part is, as mentioned above, extremely efficient and shared. The audio is used for clearances from one step to another ( very loosely speaking) This improves everyone’s situational awareness. This may have been an issue at DCA where the commercial flight was on VHF and the chopper was on UHF.
If a plane loses comms there are well defined procedures and everyone knows exactly what that plane will do as they proceed to their destination.
If a plane loses comms there are well defined procedures and everyone knows exactly what that plane will do as they proceed to their destination.
Onboard computers did predict the collision
There are some technical issues in moving beyond that. For example I was talking to a pilot in Africa and apparently for long haul between Europe and South Africa the local controller in the various countries en route were considered a bit useless go they had a particular frequency where they would occasionally say this if flight x over country y heading so and so direction and altitude and other planes on that frequency could here where they were - the radio range is ~200 miles. I'm not sure how you'd replace that other than with something like starlink which is quite recent.
That there is a computer at ATC that a human looks at, reads what it says with their eyes, speaks those instructions over the radio in a specific protocol, another human listens to it (and confirms within that protocol), and inputs those control signals into the airplane.
Computer -> human -> radio(spoken protocol) -> human -> plane.
There aren't a lot of practical reasons it can't just be
Computer -> radio(digital protocol) -> plane
(There are nonzero reasons, such as the presence of weird situations, VFR aircraft, etc., but it's not a lot.)
Computer -> human -> radio(spoken protocol) -> human -> plane.
There aren't a lot of practical reasons it can't just be
Computer -> radio(digital protocol) -> plane
(There are nonzero reasons, such as the presence of weird situations, VFR aircraft, etc., but it's not a lot.)
In the latest crash, the heli was on VFR, and that situation happens often at DCA since it also serves general aviation.
Fun napkin-view ADS-C ("control"-capable successor to broadcast-only ADS-B).
Reporting integrates approach and flight tunnel envelopes. Envelopes are specified with coordinates, not just sequential points + altitude.
Cryptographic authentication in subsequent position broadcast from plane flight systems efficiently confirms receipt and acceptance of prior control messages.
Flight systems warn on countdown to envelope exception not only actual envelope exception or altitude exception.
For passenger planes, ability of ground control to command autonomous landing with blessing of federal government in an emergency (eg. no pilots conscious, interface borked), and to send urgent, cryptographically authenticated ATC command requests (change altitude or heading immediately, etc.) for pilot consideration in the event of ATC-detected potential emergent danger conditions.
Reporting integrates approach and flight tunnel envelopes. Envelopes are specified with coordinates, not just sequential points + altitude.
Cryptographic authentication in subsequent position broadcast from plane flight systems efficiently confirms receipt and acceptance of prior control messages.
Flight systems warn on countdown to envelope exception not only actual envelope exception or altitude exception.
For passenger planes, ability of ground control to command autonomous landing with blessing of federal government in an emergency (eg. no pilots conscious, interface borked), and to send urgent, cryptographically authenticated ATC command requests (change altitude or heading immediately, etc.) for pilot consideration in the event of ATC-detected potential emergent danger conditions.
> and assume they'll follow them to a T if acknowledged
That's not how ATC works.
That's not how ATC works.
Welcome to aviation. Where we last innovated 50 years ago.
Is this a US ONLY problem? I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm genuinely wondering for example: European air travel doesn't seem any less safe than the US so whatever they are doing seems to work just as well. Do they have trouble hiring and keeping ATCs? Is their comp/work life/training/etc very different than ours? Would appreciate any insight from folks that know.
It looks like Europe also has staffing issues, but they're more likely to cancel/delay flights rather than overwork their ATC https://skift.com/2023/08/22/europes-air-traffic-controller-...
Yes — it reached a point where Ryanair made a website on the issue: https://www.atcruinedourholiday.com/
There was a mass firing in the early 1980s (~90%) which led to the development of a bathtub curve in ATC staffing. By the 2010s this had become a critical issue but was met with a hiring freeze (not the first). Now we're seeing the outcome of those poor decisions paired with the slow hiring/training process to fill the roles.
This is a worldwide problem. ATC staff under 35 would be a rapid visa approval for Australia, if trained to world-class standards.
The Canadian system is much better.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada#History
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada#History
I have seen job listings for ATC's in australia that sounded much like begging.
And yeah, my understanding is we have much the same physical, mental and technical requirements as other countries.
And yeah, my understanding is we have much the same physical, mental and technical requirements as other countries.
My dad was an air traffic controller until the mid 10's and this has been a problem easily since like 2005.
They struggled to recruit people who could do the job at all, and when people got into the building to be trained (after an initial training) most of them would quit because they couldn't do it.
They struggled to recruit people who could do the job at all, and when people got into the building to be trained (after an initial training) most of them would quit because they couldn't do it.
Is there no way to restructure the job to be less onerous to the individual? I don't mean software that automates things, I mean things like more staff, shorter hours, etc. Or is there an irreducible complexity to it that mandates a single person handle everything in a given sector?
I'm not an ATC, but I think there's a clear need for awareness of potentially conflicting traffic. If you divide that traffic over more people, you need to add communication between the controllers in a way that you don't when it's all handled by a single person.
That's not to say there's not ways to divide it up, but it's not always easily divisible. Well implemented technology can help, but poorly implemented technology can hurt, so everything needs to be done slowly and carefully.
That's not to say there's not ways to divide it up, but it's not always easily divisible. Well implemented technology can help, but poorly implemented technology can hurt, so everything needs to be done slowly and carefully.
What if you divide the work by time? Give each person a two-hour workday. Would that reduce stress?
That works in theory. Again, I'm not an ATC, but might be better to have reasonable length workdays (maybe two hours is a reasonable shift though) and more time off between workdays. Similar to shift work in hospitals, where more hand offs means more opportunities to fail to hand off successfully. But I suspect it may be easier to hand off an airplane than to hand off an ICU patient.
I know nothing about this field, but if the main claim is personnel shortages, it seems like reducing your workforces hours by 75% would not be optimal.
Is the personnel shortage is because most people can't handle 8 hour shifts, then it's plausible that you'd have more than 4 times as many people that can handle 2 hour shifts
If 1 in 100k can handle 8 hours, and 1 in 10k can handle 2 hours, then the solution is to employ 4 times as many people for 2 hours.
If 1 in 100k can handle 8 hours, and 1 in 10k can handle 2 hours, then the solution is to employ 4 times as many people for 2 hours.
Of course there is a way to make it less burdensome, exactly everything you listed. It's just that it is cheaper to take the risk to crash a few people here and there than do all that.
You can take the biographical assessment that rejected scores of applicants because reasons like they did well in Science in High School: https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/
I failed the assessment, RIP
Too bad that we have some 2,000+ already-qualified FAA ATC of certain persuasion that are "just sitting" around waiting for their stress-free class-action money in the Brigida vs FAA 2015 reverse discrimination lawsuit.
Think they'll now work as ATC after they win?
Doesn't help to tie up 900+ more potential qualified ATC (again of certain persuadion) when FAA tried reverse discrimination AGAIN in 2021 in Brigida vs Buttigieg lawsuit.
Will they ever learn?
Source
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
https://casetext.com/case/brigida-v-buttigieg-1
Think they'll now work as ATC after they win?
Doesn't help to tie up 900+ more potential qualified ATC (again of certain persuadion) when FAA tried reverse discrimination AGAIN in 2021 in Brigida vs Buttigieg lawsuit.
Will they ever learn?
Source
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
https://casetext.com/case/brigida-v-buttigieg-1
The kind of person who can do ATC can make much more in tech and have a much better lifestyle.
Market problem requires a market solution.
Market problem requires a market solution.
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 coordinated system for handling baggage. And, if the ticketing were consolidated. The bus is never delayed by weather.
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 travel and could be used to fund recruiting/retention programs for ATCs. Or call it a public transit fee and use it to subsidize high speed rail and other mass transit.
With apologies to Captain Corcoran, "Well, hardly ever."
The Netherlands has a shortage too. But they just cancel flights or even entire airports if they are understaffed.
As an employee it is your duty to refuse orders that potentially risk lives.
As an employee it is your duty to refuse orders that potentially risk lives.
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 airport was already at max number of flights that it could handle safely and yet they still increased the number of flights in pure selfishness.
> 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 airport was already at max number of flights that it could handle safely and yet they still increased the number of flights in pure selfishness.
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?
Pentagon to Dulles Airport is 20 miles in direct distance.
It takes 1 hour by subway as there is no direct connection and the lines have a lot of stops.
The real solution would be a direct subway with no stop between Dulles and Pentagon. 20 miles using a fast subway should be no more than 25 minutes in travel time. The subway could then continue making a loop in central DC, serving all the offices next to the White House etc.
But that would be good public transportation and that is outside of Congress' Overton Window.
It takes 1 hour by subway as there is no direct connection and the lines have a lot of stops.
The real solution would be a direct subway with no stop between Dulles and Pentagon. 20 miles using a fast subway should be no more than 25 minutes in travel time. The subway could then continue making a loop in central DC, serving all the offices next to the White House etc.
But that would be good public transportation and that is outside of Congress' Overton Window.
As part of my student pilot training, our class was taken to the air traffic tower, to meat and see the air traffic controllers at work and build some trust as in many emergency situations fir a pilot, its ATC who can save your sorry lost ass.
There were a bunch of them working,handling local and international flights,multi screen work stations. One guy stood out, he was directing several flights during the landing phase, while talking to us, then it became clear that he was also directing planes on the ground, a collegue of his came up to confer, he started telling us a joke, but of couse had to pause here and there while he attended to these other trifles
but his timing was so impecable, that the joke was still funny.
So thats who you want, and you cant train THAT, whatever it is, but perhapps can identify and foster those that have...IT.
The controll tower itself is strait out of a sci fi movie, with a glass walkway ,the only way in, to find a completely blank stainless wall, that then opens to reveal a completly blank elevator
Fellas, I got a question.
Is it really safe to fly these days if this is now a national discussion?
Is it really safe to fly these days if this is now a national discussion?
It has always been and will continue to be more safe than driving to the airport. The fact that something extraordinarily safe is potentially less safe is a topic for discussion, but not at the expense of realizing the relative risks of everything else.
Prior to the midair at DCA, there had not been a fatal (edit) airliner crash in this country since 2009, and there had not been a midair collision involving an airliner since the 1970s. The fact that some people have an irrational fear of flying does not justify that irrational fear dictating policy any more than people who have an irrational fear of clowns wanting them banned.
Prior to the midair at DCA, there had not been a fatal (edit) airliner crash in this country since 2009, and there had not been a midair collision involving an airliner since the 1970s. The fact that some people have an irrational fear of flying does not justify that irrational fear dictating policy any more than people who have an irrational fear of clowns wanting them banned.
Where are your dates from? According to the Wikipedia page, there have been multiple fatal plane crashes in the US since 2009, including a midair collision in 2019 (although not an airliner).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_...
The parent commenter misspoke; they meant there was not a fatal accident involving a commercial airliner from 2009 to 2025. Commercial aviation is much more highly regulated, and much safer, than general aviation.
Nope, sorry, that page describes multiple commercial accidents resulting in fatalities, since 2009.
The Asiana crash at SFO had multiple fatalities, and was in 2013.
From the Wikipedia page:
“This is a list of fatal commercial aviation accidents and incidents in or in the vicinity of the United States or its territories. It comprises a subset of both the list of accidents and incidents involving airliners in the United States and the list of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft. It does not include fatalities due to accidents and incidents solely involving private aircraft or military aircraft.”
The Asiana crash at SFO had multiple fatalities, and was in 2013.
From the Wikipedia page:
“This is a list of fatal commercial aviation accidents and incidents in or in the vicinity of the United States or its territories. It comprises a subset of both the list of accidents and incidents involving airliners in the United States and the list of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft. It does not include fatalities due to accidents and incidents solely involving private aircraft or military aircraft.”
The 2009 fact is commercial US airlines, specifically
But is it as safe today as it was a year ago today?
Statistically, yes.
Based on what data? In 2024 there were 0 domestic airline collisions in 16 million flights, in 2025 there was 1 in 1.3 million.
Which is statistically the same number.
Then we are looking at the wrong (meaningless) statistics. The while point of stats is to turn data into meaningful distillatios of trends so that we can act upon them. If plane crash deaths are increasing and its not shown in the stats, then we need better stats no?
Are you trying to "lie with statistics" or find a truth. Right now there is not data showing things are getting worse - this looks like random rare events. If things are slightly worse is will take a while to figure that out.
How many crashes do the statistics allow before they start reflecting a different answer to my question?
whats the current miles driven vs miles flown vs death rates of both? Not taking a side, I'm just curious here.
> The fact that something extraordinarily safe is potentially less safe is a topic for discussion, but not at the expense of realizing the relative risks of everything else.
Given the leadership, I don't trust it to not get less safe, fast. We're not in statistically normal times. I highly doubt it's a coincidence that Trump fires various controllers and less than a week later we get that first midair collision in 16 years.
You can talk statistics, but the physics are another magnitude. I get in a really bad wreck and car safety standards may let me walk away without a scratch. No amount of safety can protect against a multi thousand foot droop from freefall.
Given the leadership, I don't trust it to not get less safe, fast. We're not in statistically normal times. I highly doubt it's a coincidence that Trump fires various controllers and less than a week later we get that first midair collision in 16 years.
You can talk statistics, but the physics are another magnitude. I get in a really bad wreck and car safety standards may let me walk away without a scratch. No amount of safety can protect against a multi thousand foot droop from freefall.
> The fact that some people have an irrational fear of flying does not justify that irrational fear dictating policy
Go tell that to the casualties. Oh wait, you can't. Which part of them being dead is irrational exactly?
Go tell that to the casualties. Oh wait, you can't. Which part of them being dead is irrational exactly?
As with all things in current news: yes.
The reason this (and Boeing before it) are in the news is because the US air system is incredibly safe.
For perspective, there are ~27,000 US passenger flights per day. [0]
I think the last commercial US passenger carrier midair collision was in 1990? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mid-air_collisions
[0] https://www.airlines.org/impact/
The reason this (and Boeing before it) are in the news is because the US air system is incredibly safe.
For perspective, there are ~27,000 US passenger flights per day. [0]
I think the last commercial US passenger carrier midair collision was in 1990? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mid-air_collisions
[0] https://www.airlines.org/impact/
Here's a study[0] looking at data from 2022 that says flying keeps getting safer. The press release[1] has some nice quotes:
> “You might think there is some irreducible risk level we can’t get below,” adds Barnett, a leading expert in air travel safety and operations. “And yet, the chance of dying during an air journey keeps dropping by about 7 percent annually, and continues to go down by a factor of two every decade.”
0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09696...
1: https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-flying-keeps-getting-safer-0...
> “You might think there is some irreducible risk level we can’t get below,” adds Barnett, a leading expert in air travel safety and operations. “And yet, the chance of dying during an air journey keeps dropping by about 7 percent annually, and continues to go down by a factor of two every decade.”
0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09696...
1: https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-flying-keeps-getting-safer-0...
I think the grandparent comment is asking within the context of the past couple of weeks.
Not saying that your sources aren't useful or anything.
Not saying that your sources aren't useful or anything.
USA Air Traffic deaths spiked back in 2018 during the Boeing 737 Max debacle. They have declined since then. With the introduction of ADS-B things are only getting safer for commercial air travel. A lack of ATC personnel will probably just mean airport delays and cancelled flights. They can't get any more tired and burnt out than they are now.
No, the 737 Max didn't cause any fatalities in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302
Ahh, you're right, I was looking at international data. Thank you! This is the USA data:
https://www.bts.gov/content/us-air-carrier-safety-data
https://www.bts.gov/content/us-air-carrier-safety-data
Define safe. A fully loaded 747 could crash in the US every day and you’d still have a 99.98% chance of being fine when you fly.
(Approximate numbers: 3M US passengers per day, 600 people on a 747).
(Approximate numbers: 3M US passengers per day, 600 people on a 747).
I don't think there can be a single simple answer to that question.
THE PAY SUCKS...
Head over to https://www.reddit.com/r/ATC/ and have a look.
Entry level ATC salaries are about $50,000 (~$23 an hour).
And you do not get to "choose" where you land on your first assignment.
Try living on $23 an hour in a HCOL area.
Head over to https://www.reddit.com/r/ATC/ and have a look.
Entry level ATC salaries are about $50,000 (~$23 an hour).
And you do not get to "choose" where you land on your first assignment.
Try living on $23 an hour in a HCOL area.
To those who know more about ATC: is there any hope of automation?
I was in ATC training in the 90s and this was discussed among teachers and ATC personell. The common saying was that pilots would disappear from cockpits before ATC personell were removed, at least from tower control. There are typically three kinds of ATC: Tower control, approach/departure control and area control for controlling planes when cruising. I haven't followed this in years but my impression is that better monitoring equipment allows for fewer area controllers to control bigger areas. I believe area control is the most likely to get automated but this is quite a guess. Approach control is about using radar (or no radar, procedural approach control is a thing) lining up planes to land on a runway. The planes are handed over from approach to tower control when the plane is on final approach. There is also ground control for taxiing on larger airports. But, not least. Do not underestimate the value of having trained personell using radio to great effect. Any belief that modern touch gadgets are better than radio is silly. Humans are also very capable at speaking while performing advanced tasks.
Ton of people are working on it,
but forget the focus on automating air traffic control, datalink, complex ground IT, remote controls.. That is way to costly and difficult to do in the context of a collection of decentralized legacy systems.
Instead most people are trying to get rid of paper strips (notes used by ATC), and sell complex system that try to automate conflict management.
The hard thing is to improve the UX, the ATC has to communicate with humans (hard even with the highly codified language used), and DO NOT want to solve technical issues, the system has to indicate potential conflicts well in advance but not nag for it at a bad time. They are a lot of human factors to take in consideration and a system well designed with the air traffic controller at the center of it could help a lot.
but forget the focus on automating air traffic control, datalink, complex ground IT, remote controls.. That is way to costly and difficult to do in the context of a collection of decentralized legacy systems.
Instead most people are trying to get rid of paper strips (notes used by ATC), and sell complex system that try to automate conflict management.
The hard thing is to improve the UX, the ATC has to communicate with humans (hard even with the highly codified language used), and DO NOT want to solve technical issues, the system has to indicate potential conflicts well in advance but not nag for it at a bad time. They are a lot of human factors to take in consideration and a system well designed with the air traffic controller at the center of it could help a lot.
It's been reported that the elevation of the helicopter was reported as hundreds of feet off. It's unlikely it was just an issue at the specific tower the crash occurred at. If they can't even get accurate elevation data there's no way they'll be able to automate.
I don't know more about ATC, but it looks like a field ripe for disruption and innovation. AI should be able to handle the coordination of flights without the downside of the delays and limitations of the human training pipeline, worker fatigue, and stress - all for less expense. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I could have something tangible at the end of a weekend or two - at least a prototype.
I sincerely hope this is satire (it sure is very HN in nature). "AI" in its current generative incarnation is prone to hallucinations/confabulations that cannot be avoided. In what world is that compatible with a job where a mistake can kill hundreds of people a few minutes or seconds later?
one that you would trust the lives of thousands of humans to every day? It seems unlikely we are anywhere close to a point where we can ensure that any AI won't hallucinate and cause an issue.
Sure, AI can spit out nonsense, and that’s a real concern. But in engineering, we deal with imperfect tradeoffs every day - it’s baked into the job. If we insist on a flawless solution before shipping anything, we’ll never ship. There’s always an optimum where we uphold safety standards without sacrificing forward progress
Yes, however, we need to hold different bars depending on the consequences of the failure. AI in a game that randomly spins around and breaks emersion for a player is fine, an AI that crashes a plane is not fine.
I have zero issues with research into AI research into those areas, but I think it does a major disservice to claim that a weekend is all it takes to get something close to ready for life or death decisions.
I have zero issues with research into AI research into those areas, but I think it does a major disservice to claim that a weekend is all it takes to get something close to ready for life or death decisions.
Any solution would have to be better than the current one. The last 30 years of the computer industry tells me that is not going to happen.
I would not want a text generator to "handle" anything responsible for human lives.
Could Congress support AI research and innovation by asking AI company CEOs found guilty of overpromising to prove the reliability of their latest technology by flying in AI-controlled airplanes and relying on AI-managed air traffic, instead of using private jets with human pilots and air traffic controllers? /s
Just waiting for this atc thing to become overly politicized like every other aspect of life in America. I swear over politicization and polarization is going to strangle this country and destroy it if it hasn’t already.
RE ".... America desperately needs more air traffic controllers ....." or THE TRAFFIC at some airports NEEDS TO BE LIMITED to SAFER levels ....
I'm looking at the recent airport crash of the Helicopter and plane as an example of where traffic should be limited. Must be other over busy airports too...
I'm looking at the recent airport crash of the Helicopter and plane as an example of where traffic should be limited. Must be other over busy airports too...
(this is going to sound like I think this can be fixed with a technical solution. I don't)
I wonder what the software UX is like for ATC, and if there's room for improvement? Is the software/hardware ancient? I'd hope that it is absolutely rock solid but knowing big custom projects I'm not very hopeful!
I wonder what the software UX is like for ATC, and if there's room for improvement? Is the software/hardware ancient? I'd hope that it is absolutely rock solid but knowing big custom projects I'm not very hopeful!
They have fascinatingly ancient UX:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/efs (Image caption: "Paper flight strips currently in use")
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/efs (Image caption: "Paper flight strips currently in use")
Look up deployment date of upgraded tech at your local airport here:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/implementati...
Notable entry:
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington, D.C.
July 2028
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/implementati...
Notable entry:
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington, D.C.
July 2028
> this is going to sound like I think this can be fixed with a technical solution. I don't)
Why? It's seems ripe for technical solution. Technical solutions have solved tons of things in the past. What's special about air traffic controlling?
Why? It's seems ripe for technical solution. Technical solutions have solved tons of things in the past. What's special about air traffic controlling?
The time to certify life-or-death changes to systems exceeds the time to train more people, or pay better to retain existing staff.
"do both" is actually a good answer. The Manhatten project did this. Thermal diffusion and other forms of concentration were initially put head-to-head in competition. It took a while for people to realise both worked, and should be run in parallel or even enriching feedstock. A competitive A or B not both position would not have worked out better.
So yes. research tech replacement, but expect it to be a 15-20 year project with the same costs as other 15-20 year projects. At the same time, don't assume tech will solve social issues, and pay ATC better and increase richness of training programmes by cloning the schools.
"do both" is actually a good answer. The Manhatten project did this. Thermal diffusion and other forms of concentration were initially put head-to-head in competition. It took a while for people to realise both worked, and should be run in parallel or even enriching feedstock. A competitive A or B not both position would not have worked out better.
So yes. research tech replacement, but expect it to be a 15-20 year project with the same costs as other 15-20 year projects. At the same time, don't assume tech will solve social issues, and pay ATC better and increase richness of training programmes by cloning the schools.
Oh I just don't like the tendency of tech folks to reach for technological solutions before they consider social/organizational ones.
ATC people are surprisingly resistant to change. They eat up whatever bullshit of a UI they are fed by the few companies producing that specialized software and when the time comes for a change they are too used to the old systems they want an exact replica. My current project is literally a huge ATC system and the more we try to bring in actual controllers for feedback the more we realize they just constantly yap about how they are doing it CURRENTLY in their ancient systems and ask of us that we make it the same. THEY ARE USING MICE WITH 3 buttons!
I might have missed this in the article - how is the pay level set for ATC staff? In a free market economy price is the magical signal that is supposed to increase supply when there is unmet demand.
There is a formula that is negotiated with the union. See Appendix A in the collective bargaining agreement:
https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016NATCACB...
https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016NATCACB...
Ah interesting - a formula. To me it seems that makes it not a free market. Ie the formula is producing numbers that are too low, than what the current demand supply imbalance would otherwise produce.
How much do they get paid?
Found this helpful site. https://123atc.com/salary
Assuming it is accurate, the pay scale at an airport like DCA is $137K - $185K. SFO $180K-237K. Smaller airports are a lot less. Lancing, MI: $70 - 94K.
> Assuming it is accurate...
Why assume with some random .com TLD source when authoritative data is both public[1] and direct from the cow's mouth?
[1] https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits#collapse5386
Why assume with some random .com TLD source when authoritative data is both public[1] and direct from the cow's mouth?
[1] https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits#collapse5386
From https://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers :
> The approximate median annual wage for air traffic control specialists is $127,805. The salaries for entry-level air traffic control specialists increase as they complete each new training phase.
> The approximate median annual wage for air traffic control specialists is $127,805. The salaries for entry-level air traffic control specialists increase as they complete each new training phase.
Seems like reasonable pay for what is a very important job. Wouldn't object to paying much much more.
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 my previous job.
With regards to stress, other controllers have told me about how they arrive at home after work not remembering their drive home, or driving slowly in silence. I remember trying to open my apartment door with my car fob/remote one time wondering why it wasn't working.
And that pay is on par with M-F 9-5 desk jobs that don't kill you mentally and physically. ATC is 24/7 and is notorious for leading to drinking problems, suicide, etc. Entry-level pilots for major airlines make more per hour than us, and we're pay-capped by law and will never make as much as their captains.
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 my previous job.
With regards to stress, other controllers have told me about how they arrive at home after work not remembering their drive home, or driving slowly in silence. I remember trying to open my apartment door with my car fob/remote one time wondering why it wasn't working.
And that pay is on par with M-F 9-5 desk jobs that don't kill you mentally and physically. ATC is 24/7 and is notorious for leading to drinking problems, suicide, etc. Entry-level pilots for major airlines make more per hour than us, and we're pay-capped by law and will never make as much as their captains.
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 base payscale starts very low, $47K base for an ATC-4 in 'No locality' [1], right?
[0]: https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits
[1]: https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits/pay/atspp_pay...
> At my first facility, to live within 45 minutes of work, my whole paycheck went to rent...
That's because your federal base payscale starts very low, $47K base for an ATC-4 in 'No locality' [1], right?
[0]: https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits
[1]: https://www.faa.gov/jobs/working_here/benefits/pay/atspp_pay...
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.
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.
> on a particular day I won't know if my shift starts at noon or 3pm until the schedule is posted.
Why? What's the rationale to that? Presumably that doesn't work if you have small kids or dependents, or a commute with a bad rush-hour.
What I'm trying to get at is now that the situation at ATC has the full attention of the public, in a bipartisan way, time to tell us if you could wave a magic wand at the whole setup, what things would you improve?
Why? What's the rationale to that? Presumably that doesn't work if you have small kids or dependents, or a commute with a bad rush-hour.
What I'm trying to get at is now that the situation at ATC has the full attention of the public, in a bipartisan way, time to tell us if you could wave a magic wand at the whole setup, what things would you improve?
Answer to first question:
Some days people don't have any leave bid, some days maybe one person who works on the morning shift and one person who works on the evening shift both have the day bid off, some days everyone who works the evening shift has the day bid off.
Whomever is making the schedule has to balance the controller availability with the minimum-required staffing numbers for that time of day.
Some facilities will let you flex in early, so you could just plan to arrive half an hour early (and leave half an hour early). If once in a blue moon you are a few minutes late due to unusually bad traffic, most managers are okay with that as long as it isn't a common occurance, in which case you need to leave home earlier.
Answers to second question:
(I have smaller suggestions that are needed, but I figure I'll try to be efficient with people's time and give probably the biggest two issues that I think everyone can get behind.)
1) Fix initial facility assignment. It's currently random and wastes a ton of time and money. If you're from a small town that has an opening in the control tower or you're from a large city that has an approach control or "center", you should be able to choose to go there (or close to there) once you graduate from the FAA academy. As it is now, the spot could go to a random person in a class behind you at the Academy who doesn't want that spot, and you go to some random place where you're miserable, waste everyone's time and FAA money while training there, then apply to transfer (and it's basically impossible to transfer when everywhere is below staffing and they won't release you), and then spend more time and FAA money training again at a new facility (and that other person who got the spot you wanted will also be wasting time and money training at a facility they don't want to be at either). There should be a way to submit a list of preferences and have an algorithm place you close to one of your top 10 choices/areas. If someone in authority asked me to develop a system/algorithm and a fair set of rules that's hard to game, I could probably do it, but it would take some work to come up with and then a lot more work to develop and test, but it would be worth it to the NAS (National Airspace System). Unfortunately such an assignment would probably go to the union for them to hand out to their buddies (Article 114 of the collective bargaining agreement).
Suggestion 1 (above) will save money and be more efficient in the long-run. Suggestion 2 (below) will cost more money initially, but should balance out in the long-run by attracting more qualified people who will be less likely to wash-out (whereas money is wasted on training people who will eventually wash-out, or quit when they realize it's not worth it.
2) Pay us more. Attract more qualified people who will be better controllers, by offering a better salary. The salary used to be better, but it has been eroded away through inflation. Pilots are getting 40% raises (over a couple of years) and we get 2% raises (well, 3.6% or so with the union contract). There are a lot less Air Traffic Controllers than pilots, and we are vital to the nation's security and economy. Qualified people who might be interested in ATC realize they can make just as much money in other industries that don't kill them mentally and physically like ATC does for the same if not more amount of money.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
Some days people don't have any leave bid, some days maybe one person who works on the morning shift and one person who works on the evening shift both have the day bid off, some days everyone who works the evening shift has the day bid off.
Whomever is making the schedule has to balance the controller availability with the minimum-required staffing numbers for that time of day.
Some facilities will let you flex in early, so you could just plan to arrive half an hour early (and leave half an hour early). If once in a blue moon you are a few minutes late due to unusually bad traffic, most managers are okay with that as long as it isn't a common occurance, in which case you need to leave home earlier.
Answers to second question:
(I have smaller suggestions that are needed, but I figure I'll try to be efficient with people's time and give probably the biggest two issues that I think everyone can get behind.)
1) Fix initial facility assignment. It's currently random and wastes a ton of time and money. If you're from a small town that has an opening in the control tower or you're from a large city that has an approach control or "center", you should be able to choose to go there (or close to there) once you graduate from the FAA academy. As it is now, the spot could go to a random person in a class behind you at the Academy who doesn't want that spot, and you go to some random place where you're miserable, waste everyone's time and FAA money while training there, then apply to transfer (and it's basically impossible to transfer when everywhere is below staffing and they won't release you), and then spend more time and FAA money training again at a new facility (and that other person who got the spot you wanted will also be wasting time and money training at a facility they don't want to be at either). There should be a way to submit a list of preferences and have an algorithm place you close to one of your top 10 choices/areas. If someone in authority asked me to develop a system/algorithm and a fair set of rules that's hard to game, I could probably do it, but it would take some work to come up with and then a lot more work to develop and test, but it would be worth it to the NAS (National Airspace System). Unfortunately such an assignment would probably go to the union for them to hand out to their buddies (Article 114 of the collective bargaining agreement).
Suggestion 1 (above) will save money and be more efficient in the long-run. Suggestion 2 (below) will cost more money initially, but should balance out in the long-run by attracting more qualified people who will be less likely to wash-out (whereas money is wasted on training people who will eventually wash-out, or quit when they realize it's not worth it.
2) Pay us more. Attract more qualified people who will be better controllers, by offering a better salary. The salary used to be better, but it has been eroded away through inflation. Pilots are getting 40% raises (over a couple of years) and we get 2% raises (well, 3.6% or so with the union contract). There are a lot less Air Traffic Controllers than pilots, and we are vital to the nation's security and economy. Qualified people who might be interested in ATC realize they can make just as much money in other industries that don't kill them mentally and physically like ATC does for the same if not more amount of money.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
> pay-capped by law
Thanks! What an elusive bit of critical damning evidence.
Thanks! What an elusive bit of critical damning evidence.
Most people don't make that much and live lots of places.
Not sure that "can't afford to" is quite on the nose, but terminology aside I wouldn't object to paying them more.
Not sure that "can't afford to" is quite on the nose, but terminology aside I wouldn't object to paying them more.
How many hours per day?
How many days per week?
Paid vacations?
How many days per week?
Paid vacations?
40 hours per week.
Most people work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Some work 10 hours a day, 4 days a week. A few work 10 hours one day, 6 hours a second day, and 8 hours the third/fourth/fifth days.
Many facilities are 24/7 so we have rotating schedules where people have to work the midnight shifts. Shift work is brutal.
Most controllers also work Saturdays and Sundays. Controllers often miss their kid's activities and other family or social functions.
Standard Federal leave accrual: - 4 hours of sick leave every pay period (two weeks). - Employees with 0-3 years accrue 4 hours of annual leave per pay period. - Employees with 3-15 years accrue 6 hours... - Employees with 15+ years accrue 8 hours...
We bid once a year for our RDOs (Regular Days Off aka "weekend") and annual leave for the following year.
Some controllers advocate that we should accrue more sick leave (and they make good points), and while the 4 hours may be a federal law, they could implement work-arounds such as allowing us to accrue an additional different type of leave.
Opinions are my own and not necessarily of the FAA.
Most people work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Some work 10 hours a day, 4 days a week. A few work 10 hours one day, 6 hours a second day, and 8 hours the third/fourth/fifth days.
Many facilities are 24/7 so we have rotating schedules where people have to work the midnight shifts. Shift work is brutal.
Most controllers also work Saturdays and Sundays. Controllers often miss their kid's activities and other family or social functions.
Standard Federal leave accrual: - 4 hours of sick leave every pay period (two weeks). - Employees with 0-3 years accrue 4 hours of annual leave per pay period. - Employees with 3-15 years accrue 6 hours... - Employees with 15+ years accrue 8 hours...
We bid once a year for our RDOs (Regular Days Off aka "weekend") and annual leave for the following year.
Some controllers advocate that we should accrue more sick leave (and they make good points), and while the 4 hours may be a federal law, they could implement work-arounds such as allowing us to accrue an additional different type of leave.
Opinions are my own and not necessarily of the FAA.
Thanks for the reply. There are a few claiming 12 hours per day, but it looks like it depends on the site.
Sorry for the delay, I wanted to write a long reply about my experience in math/physics. Short version:
After teaching math for 3 hours I get tired, and in some special cases I teach for 6 hours but at the 5 hours mark I was making too many errors. (And it included some pauses in between.) I'd would not try to make a decisions that risk lives after that.
I took some exams that were 3, 5 or even 8 hours long. It's possible but I have to administer the pauses, bathroom and even going to the bar to drink a coffee to survive them and give good answers. And in case of a mistake, I can review it half an hour later and there are no lives at risk.
Sorry for the delay, I wanted to write a long reply about my experience in math/physics. Short version:
After teaching math for 3 hours I get tired, and in some special cases I teach for 6 hours but at the 5 hours mark I was making too many errors. (And it included some pauses in between.) I'd would not try to make a decisions that risk lives after that.
I took some exams that were 3, 5 or even 8 hours long. It's possible but I have to administer the pauses, bathroom and even going to the bar to drink a coffee to survive them and give good answers. And in case of a mistake, I can review it half an hour later and there are no lives at risk.
I think they deserve much more, if for nothing else than because their career is age limited. And it's not like they can go work somewhere else with their career skills at that point. Pensions exist, but it's really a career you have to plan for and dedicate your life to.
That's a significant low ball estimate relative to BLS statistics[1], which pins national median annual wage (circa May 2023 dataset) at $137,380.
For the DC locality specifically, median annual wage is $170,350 with a location quotient of 3.5 (!!)[2].
To be sure, this is just base wage, which explicitly excludes things like holiday premiums, weekend premiums, overtime, shift differentials, bonuses, etc.
This also doesn't include that oh-so-sweet defined benefit pension. The most ambitious civil service employees absolutely love gaming the shit out of this by lateral transfer to a high cost of living locality (e.g. DC metro area) for the last 3 years before retiring (at age 56) and moving to relatively low cost of living areas (e.g. Florida).
[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes532021.htm
[2] The location quotient is the ratio of the area concentration of occupational employment to the national average concentration.
For the DC locality specifically, median annual wage is $170,350 with a location quotient of 3.5 (!!)[2].
To be sure, this is just base wage, which explicitly excludes things like holiday premiums, weekend premiums, overtime, shift differentials, bonuses, etc.
This also doesn't include that oh-so-sweet defined benefit pension. The most ambitious civil service employees absolutely love gaming the shit out of this by lateral transfer to a high cost of living locality (e.g. DC metro area) for the last 3 years before retiring (at age 56) and moving to relatively low cost of living areas (e.g. Florida).
[1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes532021.htm
[2] The location quotient is the ratio of the area concentration of occupational employment to the national average concentration.
Sounds like we need more typists and horses. Will hordes of traffic controllers help, or there is a better way?
Air traffic controller seems like one of the least rewarding job there are out there
Anyone remember the movie Pushing Tin with John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton?
ATC here, I love that documentary :-)
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
I have some wild stories, but unfortunately sharing them would dox me.
The most inaccurate thing though is a transfer CPC (fully-certified controller at their previous facility) plugging in and being able to work without months of training in that area.
(Opinions are my own and not necessarily that of the FAA.)
I have some wild stories, but unfortunately sharing them would dox me.
The most inaccurate thing though is a transfer CPC (fully-certified controller at their previous facility) plugging in and being able to work without months of training in that area.
If that's a documentary, I'm never getting on a plane again :)
The article it was based on is worth a read:
https://web.archive.org/web/20091213233937/http://www.nytime...
Wow. Just, wow.
You can thank Reagan for mess we are in with ATC's...
Reagan was looking for a reason to break up the government unions and the union overplayed their hand. So, Reagan fired all of the striking ATCs -- 11,359 -- and banned them from federal service for life (later lifted by Clinton).
Reagan was looking for a reason to break up the government unions and the union overplayed their hand. So, Reagan fired all of the striking ATCs -- 11,359 -- and banned them from federal service for life (later lifted by Clinton).
disingenuous headline. America desperately needs to reform ATC hiring.
This is the same headline as the professional trucking shortage in the USA and glosses over the real reasons no one will take these jobs. mandatory overtime, low wages, miserable benefits, high stress and a well documented history of retaliation against organized labor.
This is the same headline as the professional trucking shortage in the USA and glosses over the real reasons no one will take these jobs. mandatory overtime, low wages, miserable benefits, high stress and a well documented history of retaliation against organized labor.
Certain immigrants actually seem to excel in trucking and even enjoy it (Punjabi truckers especially in California - I always see the Sikh logos on the back of their trucks between LA and SF!). A quick policy adjust would resolve any shortage in truckers with other people who'd probably also enjoy the work.
However, there isn't a massive pool of people abroad who can handle US airspace demands (which now seems to include helicopters flying in the approach pathways of active runways in VFR while wearing night vision goggles and ignoring their radar altimeters all so some DC asshat doesn't have to sit in a car for 20 minutes, and also includes people like my former college hallmates who take handheld aviation radios, ask for permission to depart, and run on the taxiways with their arms extended, to great dismay of ATC)
However, there isn't a massive pool of people abroad who can handle US airspace demands (which now seems to include helicopters flying in the approach pathways of active runways in VFR while wearing night vision goggles and ignoring their radar altimeters all so some DC asshat doesn't have to sit in a car for 20 minutes, and also includes people like my former college hallmates who take handheld aviation radios, ask for permission to depart, and run on the taxiways with their arms extended, to great dismay of ATC)
> and also includes people like my former college hallmates who take handheld aviation radios, ask for permission to depart, and run on the taxiways with their arms extended, to great dismay of ATC
You can't just drop a tidbit like that without elaborating.
You can't just drop a tidbit like that without elaborating.
The airport was in southwest Virginia and most of the traffic was Cessnas so they got away with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you’ve flown in any capacity you probably owe your life to an ATC, you’ve probably been on a plane that would have suffered a collision if not for the ATC.
Sort of. Without ATC you would still be safe - but airplanes would be much less common as no sane pilot will get anywhere close to other planes without someone in control to watch separations. That means instead of planes landing every 30 seconds they will be once every several minutes to make sure everyone takes turns - this isn't just about the runway, it is also the patterns around the airport, with many airplanes refusing to join the pattern because they are not sure they can fit in that close. Airports with more than one runway (which is nearly all commercial airports) will have issues trying to get patterns to work and so likely some runways won't even be used.
But if you do manage to get in the air you will be safe and get there. You would get used to long waits in hubs and 3 transfers to get there unless you live in a hub and are going to a hub. (Boston to Salt Lake city would be fly to NYC, then to Denver, then to Salt Lake. Even Boston to Atlanta would be a transfer in NYC). Those transfers would also involve long waits, right now airlines plane everyone to arrive at the hub and leave again more in about an hour and then little traffic for several hours. However after airlines will not coordinate schedules as they can't land so layovers will be several hours.
But if you do manage to get in the air you will be safe and get there. You would get used to long waits in hubs and 3 transfers to get there unless you live in a hub and are going to a hub. (Boston to Salt Lake city would be fly to NYC, then to Denver, then to Salt Lake. Even Boston to Atlanta would be a transfer in NYC). Those transfers would also involve long waits, right now airlines plane everyone to arrive at the hub and leave again more in about an hour and then little traffic for several hours. However after airlines will not coordinate schedules as they can't land so layovers will be several hours.
If you don't have air traffic controllers, the air traffic won't be controlled... who knew?
Wait, I thought we had AI.
Oh noes, what happened?
Then start paying them
Or cut down on flights. You could easily ban private flights until there is enough capacity.
Don't ban. Tax. Never ban.
Tax low capacity flights more. That both reduces the number of flights and raises money which can be put toward paying ATCs more and increasing the headcount.
You then have a lever available to dial up and down to further reduce flights / raise money.
Banning is expensive and increases legislative and judicial burden.
Taxing is a much more efficient way to stop people doing things.
You have to be careful not to only lock the poorest in society out while the rich enjoy carrying on regardless, but in the case of low capacity private jets, I don't think that's a significant problem.
If the tax doesn't put off people enough, just raise it more until either it does start to dampen demand or you're raising so much money through it you no longer care and have a new revenue stream to spend on fixing whatever problems they're causing.
Tax low capacity flights more. That both reduces the number of flights and raises money which can be put toward paying ATCs more and increasing the headcount.
You then have a lever available to dial up and down to further reduce flights / raise money.
Banning is expensive and increases legislative and judicial burden.
Taxing is a much more efficient way to stop people doing things.
You have to be careful not to only lock the poorest in society out while the rich enjoy carrying on regardless, but in the case of low capacity private jets, I don't think that's a significant problem.
If the tax doesn't put off people enough, just raise it more until either it does start to dampen demand or you're raising so much money through it you no longer care and have a new revenue stream to spend on fixing whatever problems they're causing.
Careless and hamfisted taxing/banning of "private jets" can have the unintended effect of also killing light piston general aviation, flight instruction, and the whole pipeline of training the next generation of airline pilots. Flight training is almost always low capacity (one-on-one) so uncarefuly-crafted legislation could catch it in the blast radius. Piloting is already one of the more expensive careers to train for.
You can make taxes specific, as in literally saying "a tax on non-commercially operated non-propeller driven aircraft with greater than 8 passenger seats".
The prop exemption alone would clear most gen-av, but this kind of ruleset would also be very easy for the richies to bypass/game.
The prop exemption alone would clear most gen-av, but this kind of ruleset would also be very easy for the richies to bypass/game.
You could use max gross weight and/or number of seats > 6. Not a lot of flight training or hobbyist flying going on in Beechcraft 18s or Cessna 402s. And people who like private jets aren't going to step down to a 6 seater.
Newsflash: "planes are rich people's toys" has been killing general aviation already for a generation if not two.
The rising costs have made that much more true, though. My step-dad had a gorgeous 1940s Luscombe that he paid ~35k for in the 90s. He lived in an airpark where he paid 280k for a nice 3br house with a hangar.
Good luck trying to replicate that now.
Good luck trying to replicate that now.
Having 85k of purely discretionary income (adjusting for inflation) is still pretty "rich people toy". That's about 105% median household income.
He had to get a loan for it, he didn't have that out of pocket.
And an upper-mid car is not by any means beyond the reach of many regular working class people.
And an upper-mid car is not by any means beyond the reach of many regular working class people.
I mean, 85k ain't that much different from a "middle. Luxury" car these days. You can definitely customize a Tesla and come out over 85k easily. Cyber trucks *stsrt" at 80k.
Im sure that person could have paid out of pocket. But I doubt he did.
Im sure that person could have paid out of pocket. But I doubt he did.
Landing fees already have this built into the structure, along with waived fees for fuel purchases, etc.
It probably is reasonable to look at occupancy percentage along with engine type, and adjust landing fees based on that. Two out of 18 souls on board with a turbine? High landing fees, divert some to an ATC fund.
It probably is reasonable to look at occupancy percentage along with engine type, and adjust landing fees based on that. Two out of 18 souls on board with a turbine? High landing fees, divert some to an ATC fund.
> Two out of 18 souls on board with a turbine?
Very common. How do you think pilots train to fly such aircraft? Would you prefer pilots not to be trained, or for this type of aircraft to cease service?
Very common. How do you think pilots train to fly such aircraft? Would you prefer pilots not to be trained, or for this type of aircraft to cease service?
I would expect them to do the bulk of their training flights out of airports with minimal congestion and lower landing fees.
They don’t have to be trained in class B airspace to get their type rating.
They don’t have to be trained in class B airspace to get their type rating.
Instead we allow private jet owners to fully write off the cost of a jet purchase(new or used) in the first year on their taxes. Can't even do that with a normal sized car.
Source: https://nbaa.org/flight-department-administration/tax-issues...
"Bonus depreciation" exists for cars too, but is capped around $20k. From quick reading, seems like the bonus depreciation for planes was a tax break to incentivize people to, well, buy more planes.
"Bonus depreciation" exists for cars too, but is capped around $20k. From quick reading, seems like the bonus depreciation for planes was a tax break to incentivize people to, well, buy more planes.
I fear this would only exacerbate the problem of carriers selling more tickets than there are seats.
I say private flights from the rich should be subsidizing ATC costs... whether that's as a tax or whatever. You could even base it as a percentage of the net worth of the individuals on the flight.
1000 times this. Fly as much as one can safely, not more.
Exactly. The article enumerates all the ways to improve hiring, except for compensation.
With so many billionaires, the country certainly can afford paying more to people whose tasks are crucial for others' lives.
The reason there are so many people worth $1b instead of a poor $100m is because of the tax cuts diverting money from crucial jobs.
Waiting for the first trillionaire, that's when all billionaires will unanimously say "we have enough, let's start paying people more".
In the 1880s, Vanderbilt was worth $230m, or $7b today
1910s Rockerfeller peaked at nearly $1b. That's $33b today, or chump change. He, like Gates after him, gave away a lot of wealth.
Come 1995, Bill Gates took the mantle with a net worth of $15b, or $31b today.
So from 1910 to 1995 there was very little inflation in the super rich.
By 2000 Gates reached $60b ($110b). By 2010 he'd dropped to $56b ($81b today), still nearly 3 times richer than Rockerfeller
By 2015 he'd recovered to $105b in today's money, despite giving away lots of money.
In 2018 Bezos took over with $140b, a 40% real-terms increase on the "richest person" in just 3 years.
2022 Musk took over with $236b, but lost out to Arnault in 2024 when Musk was worth a mere $210b, but today he's nearly doubled his wealth. Maybe Musk is a special case due to the excessive corruption, but Bezos has increased 30% in 12 months.
in the last 30 years, the inflation rate of super-rich-wealth has increased on average 10% a year even ignoring the Musk outlier. Inflation meanwhile was 2.5%
At those rates, in the next 30 years the super-rich will be worth $4.2 trillion, but someone more normal with a net worth of $1m will be worth $2m.
1910s Rockerfeller peaked at nearly $1b. That's $33b today, or chump change. He, like Gates after him, gave away a lot of wealth.
Come 1995, Bill Gates took the mantle with a net worth of $15b, or $31b today.
So from 1910 to 1995 there was very little inflation in the super rich.
By 2000 Gates reached $60b ($110b). By 2010 he'd dropped to $56b ($81b today), still nearly 3 times richer than Rockerfeller
By 2015 he'd recovered to $105b in today's money, despite giving away lots of money.
In 2018 Bezos took over with $140b, a 40% real-terms increase on the "richest person" in just 3 years.
2022 Musk took over with $236b, but lost out to Arnault in 2024 when Musk was worth a mere $210b, but today he's nearly doubled his wealth. Maybe Musk is a special case due to the excessive corruption, but Bezos has increased 30% in 12 months.
in the last 30 years, the inflation rate of super-rich-wealth has increased on average 10% a year even ignoring the Musk outlier. Inflation meanwhile was 2.5%
At those rates, in the next 30 years the super-rich will be worth $4.2 trillion, but someone more normal with a net worth of $1m will be worth $2m.
I fear this will lead to Trump pushing OpenAI to use AI for air traffic controllers, which is going to result in a lot of deaths. Could AI eventually do the job? Maybe, but it will be a bloody road to get there.
If you mean the current fad for LLMs, then yeah it's absolutely the wrong tools for the job.
But "planning what best goes where when" could very much be algorithmic, yes. AI in the sense that A* path finding, and Kuhn's Hungarian algorithm for optimisation are "AI".
But "planning what best goes where when" could very much be algorithmic, yes. AI in the sense that A* path finding, and Kuhn's Hungarian algorithm for optimisation are "AI".
Wrong! He'll push to use Grok. /s
This should be easy enough to solve. Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class. You get bonus points if their jets are also delayed during normal taxiing and clearance requests -- explain that it's for their safety, since they're more important than everyone else and can't slot in to the same sorts of back-to-back landings that the common folk use.
You'd have to change more regulations, because airports don't close when ATC closes, it regresses to an untowered airport environment (and related airspace designation).
ATC is there to provide specific services that increase safety and throughput (mostly by sequencing and separation).
If you did this with the ruling class, they'd likely pass regulations that would benefit themselves disproportionately and hurt general aviation (the small little Cessnas flying around). There is already a bunch of problems with privatized ATC, don't make it worse.
ATC is there to provide specific services that increase safety and throughput (mostly by sequencing and separation).
If you did this with the ruling class, they'd likely pass regulations that would benefit themselves disproportionately and hurt general aviation (the small little Cessnas flying around). There is already a bunch of problems with privatized ATC, don't make it worse.
The ruling class makes the rules, though. That's their whole deal. That's why nothing works right.
It works right for them though. Curious question: Shouldn't those with a bigger stake in the economy have a bigger say in how it's ran?
Not in a representative republic, no. Those with more money don't need the safety net that all us governments spend the majority on the budget on. That's why the current coup is so terrifying.
But yes, it inevitably devolves into that in practice. Because money gives you more time to make your voice heard, or delegate it to someone else representing you. Or simply bribing others.
But yes, it inevitably devolves into that in practice. Because money gives you more time to make your voice heard, or delegate it to someone else representing you. Or simply bribing others.
> Cut the hours back to something sane, and as much as possible time the airport closures in ways that affect the ruling class
The ruling class flies private aircraft and don't have to operate out of large municipal airports.
The ruling class flies private aircraft and don't have to operate out of large municipal airports.
They're not going to want to fly to a tiny airport in the middle of nowhere and then have to drive into the city. That defeats the whole point
There are many airports within easy driving distance of major metropolitan areas, and regardless of what happens, once they get off the plane they get into a car driven by a driver.
I don't think it matters much to them whether they spend the hour in traffic out of JFK, or on a highway from White Plains.
I don't think it matters much to them whether they spend the hour in traffic out of JFK, or on a highway from White Plains.
Most places I've lived, there are tiny airports much more conveniently located than the large commercial airport. I would absolutely fly out of smaller airports, but don't because I fly commercial, and if they even fly out of the smaller airports it usually means more stops.
Depends where you're going though. DCA looks pretty convenient if you're visiting the capital; but lots of big cities have smaller airports that are more convenient if you can land at any airport.
Depends where you're going though. DCA looks pretty convenient if you're visiting the capital; but lots of big cities have smaller airports that are more convenient if you can land at any airport.
This is childish.
No, it's making the people who have influence feel the pain of the problem so that maybe they'll fix it.
The bulk of the pain is going to be felt by normal people and working class. Best case scenario you will only solve the problem at the airports the rich and wealthy use and leave the rest of us out to dry.
this seems a domain that's distinctively suited for AI
With the dismantling of the federal government [1, 2, 5], foreign multi billionaire “special government employee” running amok in US Treasury and other agencies [3], and current administration giving no-confidence signals of FAA/ATCs [4]
Trust in federal gov is vanishing before our eyes folks. And the billionaire class is getting what it wants — no regulations, “network states” (delusional libertarian concept by Balaji and backed by billionaire shitheads like Thiel), limited power to the people and labor force.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/education-department...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/coast-guard-homeland-security-pri...
[3] https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-demands-...
[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-dei-diversity-policies-pl...
[5] https://apnews.com/article/trump-buyout-offer-federal-worker...
Trust in federal gov is vanishing before our eyes folks. And the billionaire class is getting what it wants — no regulations, “network states” (delusional libertarian concept by Balaji and backed by billionaire shitheads like Thiel), limited power to the people and labor force.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/education-department...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/coast-guard-homeland-security-pri...
[3] https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-demands-...
[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-dei-diversity-policies-pl...
[5] https://apnews.com/article/trump-buyout-offer-federal-worker...
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Honestly surprised that airlines don’t have options to tip the air traffic control crew, with how tipping culture is these days
I don't think we're allowed to take bribes. We are not even supposed to own stocks in any of the airline companies. I give everyone "direct" equally, to the best of my ability barring any restrictions.
I would have expected by now that tipping air traffic control would have been seen as a way to boost wages, and create more interest for the job… but I could see how travelers of different airlines might tip more/less which could influence behavior
Seems ripe for disruption with AI.
How many of those nerds who role play as air traffic controllers on flight simulations at home qualified to do it for real? How much extra training would they need?
The irony of someone on THIS site of all of them scoffing at other people for being nerds . . .
[deleted]
It's an interesting thought. I wonder if VATSIM could provide a meaningful "pre-ATC" qualification. The people are already clearly interested/enthusiastic about the job.
I was told by a private pilot that the people on VATSIM are usually real air traffic controllers keeping in practice to do things like ATC the big air shows, which are volunteer ATC.
From what I understand, if they are over 30 and have less than 20/20 vision, they aren’t qualified.
Seems like a problem to me; nearsightedness is becoming more and more common.
Which is basically a problem with how we do school. Turns out that making teenagers stare at screens all the time mints a lot of near sighted 20 year olds who wouldn't have otherwise been.
Kids really need to spend time outside.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40148707
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40148707
Do you have a date when that policy was instituted? I've known a lot of air traffic controllers, and most of them wore glasses.
Think the qualification is to get into the training program, presumably air traffic controllers who develop near nearsightedness later in life aren't summarily fired.
Still, seems like a crazy requirement.
Still, seems like a crazy requirement.
First result in google for "air traffic controller training"
https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
Edit: I didn't take a stance on this topic, if you think I did, you are incorrect. I was simply linking the website that outlines the requirements instead of postulating as to what they were.
https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
Edit: I didn't take a stance on this topic, if you think I did, you are incorrect. I was simply linking the website that outlines the requirements instead of postulating as to what they were.
You didn't say exactly what you believe, but I think you are mistaken if you are claiming that the FAA requires _uncorrected_ 20:20 vision as a qualification.
"With FAA order 3930.3B ATC vision standards were made similar to airman standards. With or without correction air traffic controllers must demonstrate 20/20 distant vision in each eye separately, 20/40 in each eye at 16 inches near vision, and 20/40 in each eye at 32 inches intermediate vision if they are 50 years of age or older. Glasses or contact lenses are permitted."
https://aviationmedicine.com/article/vision-and-faa-standard...
"With FAA order 3930.3B ATC vision standards were made similar to airman standards. With or without correction air traffic controllers must demonstrate 20/20 distant vision in each eye separately, 20/40 in each eye at 16 inches near vision, and 20/40 in each eye at 32 inches intermediate vision if they are 50 years of age or older. Glasses or contact lenses are permitted."
https://aviationmedicine.com/article/vision-and-faa-standard...
I made no claims at all, I linked reference material.
AIUI that requirement can be met with vision corrected to 20/20 by glasses.
DonHopkins(1)
- 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 training and onboarding process is incredibly long, and turnover is high
- The fundamentals and technology of the job have not changed in decades, despite air traffic exploding in recent years
- Most people are just not capable of the amount of stress and risk associated with the job
- Seriously, it's a really freaking stressful job
I would argue an ATC employee is worth every penny, but I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work. These people are already very well compensated, and at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools.
The real need is new and modern technology that automates much of the mistake-prone, human-centric tasks. But nobody wants to risk introducing changes to such a fragile system.