[HN Gopher] America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
___________________________________________________________________
America desperately needs more air traffic controllers
Author : mooreds
Score : 100 points
Date : 2025-02-04 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Then start paying them
| Ekaros wrote:
| Or cut down on flights. You could easily ban private flights
| until there is enough capacity.
| jmount wrote:
| 1000 times this. Fly as much as one can safely, not more.
| eterm wrote:
| 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.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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.
| _jss wrote:
| 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.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Newsflash: "planes are rich people's toys" has been
| killing general aviation already for a generation if not
| two.
| ang_cire wrote:
| 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.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| Having 85k of purely discretionary income (adjusting for
| inflation) is still pretty "rich people toy". That's
| about 105% median household income.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| ang_cire wrote:
| 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.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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.
| novemp wrote:
| I fear this would only exacerbate the problem of carriers
| selling more tickets than there are seats.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| 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.
| adrr wrote:
| 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.
| cj wrote:
| 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.
| JSteph22 wrote:
| Exactly. The article enumerates all the ways to improve hiring,
| except for compensation.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| With so many billionaires, the country certainly can afford
| paying more to people whose tasks are crucial for others'
| lives.
| runako wrote:
| 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.
| taeric wrote:
| I'd be interested to see the daily staffing levels over the
| past couple of weeks. If anyone knows where that could be
| found.
| RationPhantoms wrote:
| 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...
| taeric wrote:
| 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. :(
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > 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.
| robert_foss wrote:
| Reagan taking away collective bargaining rights for ATCs
| seems to be what have led to the shortage and the helicopter
| accident last week.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Indeed. Wouldn't want people doing a safety-critical job
| being fairly compensated, after all.
| legitster wrote:
| 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).
| dttze wrote:
| Police are the state's manifestation of the monopoly on
| violence. Comparing that to civilian safety orgs makes no
| sense.
| legitster wrote:
| 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.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > 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.
| slt2021 wrote:
| 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
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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?
| slt2021 wrote:
| 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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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.
| wahern wrote:
| > 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.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Did reagan do anything good in hindsight? Everytime I hear
| about him he seems like the worst president until trump
| came along
| latentcall wrote:
| Depends, were you rich in the 80's? If so he was amazing
| at making you even richer.
| garciasn wrote:
| 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.
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/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.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| 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.
| wbl wrote:
| Who ran ICE for the next 6 years?
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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.
| gosub100 wrote:
| 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?
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| 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.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| 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...
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 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.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| 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.
| csa wrote:
| > 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).
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| 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.
| csa wrote:
| > 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.
| runako wrote:
| > 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.
| csa wrote:
| > 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.
| runako wrote:
| 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.
| csa wrote:
| > 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.
| runako wrote:
| > 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.
| runako wrote:
| 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.
| randerson wrote:
| 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.
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| > 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 :)
| ianburrell wrote:
| The US air space is civilian ATC. Air Force One couldn't go
| anywhere if the area control and destination airport were
| down.
| mayneack wrote:
| It seems they clawed back the offer or never gave it in the
| first place.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-exempt...
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| runako wrote:
| They have nonetheless signaled that a subset of the staff is
| marked for firing.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936406
| lesuorac wrote:
| 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.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| It never was a buy out, and everyone should stop referring to
| it as such.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| 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.
| CYR1X wrote:
| 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
| Apreche wrote:
| 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?
| 7speter wrote:
| From what I understand, if they are over 30 and have less than
| 20/20 vision, they aren't qualified.
| wry_discontent wrote:
| 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.
| dgfitz wrote:
| 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.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| AIUI that requirement can be met with vision _corrected
| to_ 20 /20 by glasses.
| nkurz wrote:
| 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...
| dgfitz wrote:
| I made no claims at all, I linked reference material.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Aaah, the good old "I'm just saying" defense.
|
| Why wouldn't you take a stand on such an important topic,
| or at least get your facts right, or at less than the
| least read the article you're linking to, unless your
| stance is indefensible, or you have no idea what you're
| talking about, and are just a concern troll?
| dgfitz wrote:
| What are you on about? I was trying to aid the discussion
| of "requirements to be an ATC" and you're pissed I don't
| give a fuck about what those requirements are? Don't have
| strong opinions on them? What the fuck?
|
| I don't give a fuck, and have ZERO opinions on them.
| simplicio wrote:
| 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.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Seems like a problem to me; nearsightedness is becoming more
| and more common.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| The irony of someone on THIS site of all of them scoffing at
| other people for being nerds . . .
| schmookeeg wrote:
| 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.
| fatbird wrote:
| 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.
| hansvm wrote:
| 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.
| wry_discontent wrote:
| The ruling class makes the rules, though. That's their whole
| deal. That's why nothing works right.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| 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?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| _jss wrote:
| 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.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| > 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.
| sc68cal wrote:
| 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
| GiorgioG wrote:
| A friend of mine is a pilot for these types of folks
| (founders of non-tech household names), unless they're
| going to an event (say the Super Bowl), they fly into
| smaller airports.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even the super bowl they are flying into smaller airports
| in the region.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| 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.
| toast0 wrote:
| 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.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| This is childish.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| No, it's making the people who have influence feel the pain
| of the problem so that maybe they'll fix it.
| legitster wrote:
| 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.
| wry_discontent wrote:
| 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.
| fatbird wrote:
| 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?
| toast0 wrote:
| 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.
| kccqzy wrote:
| What if you divide the work by time? Give each person a
| two-hour workday. Would that reduce stress?
| ArlenBales wrote:
| 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.
| xnx wrote:
| Wrong! He'll push to use Grok. /s
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| 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".
| butterlettuce wrote:
| Fellas, I got a question.
|
| Is it really safe to fly these days if this is now a national
| discussion?
| psunavy03 wrote:
| 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.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| But is it as safe today as it was a year ago today?
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Statistically, yes.
| jjk166 wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| Which is statistically the same number.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| 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?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| How many crashes do the statistics allow before they
| start reflecting a different answer to my question?
| kaikai wrote:
| 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_.
| ..
| jgwil2 wrote:
| 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.
| kaikai wrote:
| 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."
| mplanchard wrote:
| The 2009 fact is commercial US airlines, specifically
| sho_hn wrote:
| There are fatal plane crashes in the US every year - in
| General Aviation (which often may not talk to ATC at all).
| Important to make the distinction :-)
| psunavy03 wrote:
| I meant airliner crash.
| almosthere wrote:
| whats the current miles driven vs miles flown vs death rates
| of both? Not taking a side, I'm just curious here.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > 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.
| gtsop wrote:
| > 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?
| mooreds wrote:
| 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...
| bloopernova wrote:
| 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.
| foxyv wrote:
| 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.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I don't think there can be a single simple answer to that
| question.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| 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/
| trunnell wrote:
| To those who know more about ATC: is there any hope of
| automation?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| 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.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| 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.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| 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
| c-cube wrote:
| 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?
| parliament32 wrote:
| I would not want a text generator to "handle" anything
| responsible for human lives.
| opoolaka wrote:
| 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.
| Grevling wrote:
| 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.
| paraboli wrote:
| 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.
| harimau777 wrote:
| How much do they get paid?
| mooreds wrote:
| 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.
| duxup wrote:
| Seems like reasonable pay for what is a very important job.
| Wouldn't object to paying much much more.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| 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.
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| silisili wrote:
| 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.
| francisofascii wrote:
| 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.
| bloopernova wrote:
| (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!
| perihelions wrote:
| They have fascinatingly ancient UX:
|
| https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tfdm/efs (Image
| caption: _" Paper flight strips currently in use_")
| everybodyknows wrote:
| [delayed]
| joshuaheard wrote:
| Seems ripe for disruption with AI.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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...
| schmookeeg wrote:
| I still don't understand why KSQL is a contract tower and not a
| full FAA-managed tower.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Did the call sign go to KSQL because of Oracle being right
| there?
| kccqzy wrote:
| No it predates Oracle, including when it was still called
| Software Development Laboratories.
| ceedan wrote:
| Honestly surprised that airlines don't have options to tip the
| air traffic control crew, with how tipping culture is these days
| RandomBacon wrote:
| 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.
| tim333 wrote:
| 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
| legitster wrote:
| > 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.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| 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.)
| legitster wrote:
| 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.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| > 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".
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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 even 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.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> 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?
| XCabbage wrote:
| 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).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I don't understand how this isn't a giant public scandal.
| Is there something I'm missing here?
| legitster wrote:
| It was a public scandal, which is why Congress passed a
| law in 2016.
| legitster wrote:
| Everyone is going to make this about money or unions or etc, but
| my employer briefly worked with some ATC employee groups and I
| can tell you exactly why they are short staffed:
|
| - The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally
| and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10%
| of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-
| traffic-controller-qualifications
|
| - The 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.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| > 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.)
| legitster wrote:
| > 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.
| bbarnett wrote:
| 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.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| 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...
| nine_k wrote:
| 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.
| grotted wrote:
| I work closely with transportation dispatchers, and this
| applies almost word for word
| ryandrake wrote:
| > 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)
| bbarnett wrote:
| 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.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| 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.
| stevage wrote:
| 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.
| avn2109 wrote:
| 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.
| kccqzy wrote:
| 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.
| pbalau wrote:
| 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?
| nine_k wrote:
| Look at how much a senior airline pilot makes, compared to
| a junior.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| 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.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| There is a maximum age for atc applicants (31) that
| unfortunately makes this infeasible.
| sombrero_john wrote:
| You must be younger than 31 to qualify for training as an
| ATC: https://www.faa.gov/faq/what-are-age-requirements-
| individual...
| Melatonic wrote:
| Does seem odd to me - why restrict it this low? People are
| living longer and healthier than ever into older years (and
| better vision)
| AutistiCoder wrote:
| 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)
| paulproteus wrote:
| 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.
| jaredwiener wrote:
| 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.)
| calmbonsai wrote:
| It's fiction, but for some sense of ATC stress, watch "Pushing
| Tin": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Tin
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| 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.
| Melatonic wrote:
| 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.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| jasondigitized wrote:
| 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.
| stevage wrote:
| Fortnite is a closed system, everything controlled by one
| company. ATC is not.
|
| But yes, presumably there is scope for improved tools.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > 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.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| 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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > 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.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| 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?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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.
| tw04 wrote:
| 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.
| crmd wrote:
| I respectfully disagree - there's always money in the banana
| stand.
| adolph wrote:
| > 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...
| rdtsc wrote:
| 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 certain is automation involved, but not at the level
| where we can just let the all the people go home and have it
| take over.
| deathanatos wrote:
| "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
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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.
| intended wrote:
| >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.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| 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.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _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.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| 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.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| 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)
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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.
| dickfickling wrote:
| 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.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >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.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > and assume they'll follow them to a T if acknowledged
|
| That's not how ATC works.
| CYR1X wrote:
| Welcome to aviation. Where we last innovated 50 years ago.
| contingencies wrote:
| 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.
| ketralnis wrote:
| 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.)
| cj wrote:
| Sometimes having humans in the loop is a feature, not a bug.
| ketralnis wrote:
| In that case the pilot would still be able to override
| controls
| deadbabe wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| nimbius wrote:
| 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.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| 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)
| 10000truths wrote:
| > 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.
| nimish wrote:
| 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.
| ConanRus wrote:
| Oh noes, what happened?
| Khaine wrote:
| 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/
| Graziano_M wrote:
| https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
| gtsop wrote:
| If you don't have air traffic controllers, the air traffic won't
| be controlled... who knew?
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