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The salary varies from 60k to a middle-of-nowhere tower to $150k in New York or California which is not enough to live on comfortably. Of course we are going to burn out and make mistakes when we have to drive an hour plus to and from the city six days a week because we can't afford to live any closer and staffing isn't better because people quit because of the pay.

It's not a supply problem with staffing, it's a pay problem. Over 50,000 people apply every year, but people are quiting because quality of life sucks, and the biggest thing the FAA can do to change it, is to increase pay, and they aren't doing that.

Given your username, I have to ask. Do you ever meow on guard?

On a serious note, what are your views on privatization of ATC? The one airport in my region that I know is privatized has a horrible reputation among pilots and DPEs alike.

That would be an unauthorized transmission and I would never do that :-)

No comment on the other question, sorry.

> The one airport in my region that I know is privatized has a horrible reputation among pilots and DPEs alike.

KSQL?

Affirmative.

https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/15r15e2/the_absolut...

Is there no union?

There is but the last time they went on strike it didn’t go well.

The last time the union asked for bathroom breaks Ronald Reagan shut down the nation's airspace for weeks and partially militarized that function in order to fire nearly all of the workforce.

It is regarded as a historic, symbolic landmark act, shorthand for a turning point wherein the US collectively rejected unions.

Pretending they were just asking for bathroom breaks is total BS.

I was an air traffic controller, emphasis on was. You absolutely dont want to be one.

I met a kindergarten teacher who left an ATC job for American public education because the pay was higher.

Let that sink in.

They probably quit before getting certified - once you're certified you make $70k minimum and that's at a shitty little tower in the midwest

Money isn't even the factor. It's just an impossible job not worth the stress/trauma associated.

> Must be age 30 or under

I wonder what legal exception allows this to be a requirement. This would never fly on a tech job posting.

I assume it the same that also allows for age cut off for military. If I remember correctly, I enlisted young, got out and no plan to go back. 32 is the age cut off to enlisting. Prior service gets like a 2-3 year extension. What is surprising is that the cut off doesn't match the military's cut off.

> 32 is the age cut off to enlisting.

For the audience at home: Marines 28, Army 35, Air/Space forces 39, Navy 41, Coast Guard 42.

ref:https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/military-age-limits/

Wow, 41 for the Navy. Just looked it up and they bumped it in 2022. Thats insane. Looking at the article it must have had a previous bump or my memory isn't recalling right. When I enlisted in 2012, the age limit was 32-ish with 35 for returning prior enlisted. I couldn't imagine being 40 and being almost 20 years older than other recruits. [1]

[1] https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/11/07/facing-d...

I looked it up because I would have sworn it was 39 for the Army. Someone I know had (unexpectedly) joined during his last possible year. Also about 2012 or so.

Can sort of understand for military, totally don't understand for ATC.

Do other countries with substantial densities of planes in the air have the same age prerequisite, and in the ones that don't are their planes colliding any worse than in the States?

>Can sort of understand for military, totally don't understand for ATC

Seems rather obvious. You'll be trained on the job for some time, and then be expected to have a career at ATC for a decade or so at least. They don't want 40+ or 50+ year olds with slower responses and the gradual appearance of physical and medical issues starting to work there...

It's not like it's a job about thinking in an office without major consequences of a responce delayed 30 seconds...

ATC here.

We have to hold a medical certificate that is close to a Class 2. There are lots of medical conditions that if we are diagnosed with, or drugs that if we report taking, we cannot be controllers.

We are forced to retire when we turn 56. The 31 age cutoff is to accommodate that. We can retire at any age with 25 years of ATC service. By law we also cannot work more than six consecutive days, and no more than 10 hours a day. There are some facilities that schedule everyone for that maximum.

There is no stigma with calling in sick unless there's a pattern, even if it's just because something is bothering you and you don't think you'll be able to focus that day. However just like every other federal employee, we only accrue 1 sick day a month.

On r/ATC2, there is some saying we should get more sick leave than that, which I won't disagree with, but it wouldn't be sick leave, it would have to be called something else. I believe the nature of our job necessitates that we get more "sick" leave. I know other federal jobs can acrue other types of leave.

"Why do air traffic controllers have to be under 31 years old? The reasoning behind this is that FAA safety regulations require controllers to stop working traffic at age 56, and to receive a federal pension, you need to have worked at least 25 years.

By making the maximum starting age cutoff 30, all new hire controllers have the potential to do their 25 years and earn a pension prior to reaching retirement age.

Pro Tip: The one publicly stated exception to the 30-year starting age cut off is for former military air traffic controllers. These candidates may apply even if they are older than 30."

>The one publicly stated exception to the 30-year starting age cut off is for former military air traffic controllers.

This makes me wonder: what portion of America's ATCs are former military ATCs? I'm guessing it's fairly substantial, and without this convenient source of recruits (because someone who spent time in the military doing ATC now has a very convenient pipeline into a civilian job), the FAA might be forced into making changes.

It's similar for pilots: a lot of them are former military pilots, so they got all their training at government expense, and the industries that hire them don't have to pay for that. Pilots without a military (or police) background generally have to pay for their own training, which is extremely expensive, so not that many people do it, because these jobs don't pay that well to begin with. Without the military giving free training to all these people, a lot of industries in America wouldn't have such a cheap source of readily-trained labor and things would look very different.

I don't know how many actually did it. But a lot of the ATC Navy I knew planned that after their service they would just go civilian side. So I imagine it is substantial. Although, there is no telling, at least anecdotally from my experience how many actually follow through, or did 10 years of ATC in the Navy and decided to say 'screw that.'

The federal government is not beholden to federal employment laws, ironically

also, and this is affecting a lot of other federal jobs or jobs requiring federal licensing like CDLs, you can't smoke weed.

given how popular weed has become in legalized states, this is quickly becoming a major issue for all of these lines of work

Personally, I think safety-critical roles like ATC should be restricted to those who don’t take recreational psychoactives of any kind, alcohol included. This includes in their off hours.

> recreational psychoactives of any kind

I’d prefer my ATC has a cup of coffee if they want it.

Aside from that, what does what happens in their off hours matter provided they’re coming to work sober?

Many psychoactives have medium term effects on the brain. Regular marijuana consumption causes memory and attention deficits even when not stoned. That matters.

There is even an argument that caffeine should be restricted in such roles. I certainly wouldn’t want ATC operating on too many energy drinks or coffee.

If we are banning people who take antidepressants, we should also be banning people who take edibles on their day off.

If we are going purely performance-based, then there should be a mandatory cognitive function test before the start of every shift, testing working memory, reaction times, coordination, etc. “sober” is a wide spectrum and encompasses “ate tons of edibles 48 hours ago and came to work on 3 hours of sleep and a five hour energy shot on the way in”.

>given how popular weed has become in legalized states, this is quickly becoming a major issue for all of these lines of work

I'd rather my ATC is not smoking weed before arriving at the job (or worse, between breaks)...

Lots of studies of how it impairs reaction times, executive function, and motor control

(Of course the same goes for medicinally subscribeb anything that functions like that, including all kinds of pills)

Who said anything about being/getting high at the job site? ATCs can drink alcohol but they sure as hell can't get drunk during their break or before they drive in.

>Who said anything about being/getting high at the job site?

Nobody said it, but their habbit of casual weed use hinted at it...

Yet we do not apply the same standard to alcohol.

The way the law and testing works now, you cannot have had any weed of any kind in the last three months.

How does casual use hint at going to work intoxicated?

Also from startup land. I only have points 1 and 3. The salary is laughable unless you have no other option. I can make more or less a personality test seem however I want it to seem so they're about as useful as Rorschach tests and polygraphy. The no ADHD or depression requirements: well fuck me, I'll stick to failing at foolish things rather than bother with an antiquated, potentially dangerous, soon to be automated orchestration process rife with opportunities for human error, and instead take a train or ship. It's arguably safer and definitely greener.

>and instead take a train or ship. It's arguably safer and definitely greener.

I'm pretty sure that cruise ships are definitely NOT greener than airplanes for intercontinental travel. (And trains are useless for such.)

Some kind of ocean-going passenger ship optimized for per-passenger fuel economy probably could beat jumbo jets, but we don't have those kinds of ships. And they wouldn't be very nice: they wouldn't have swimming pools, spas, nice restaurants, etc., and instead would put people into 3-high bunk beds in shared dormitory rooms.

>The salary is laughable unless you have no other option.

If it was just 100K would place one in the 77th percentile in the US.

The 135K mentioned is 87 percentile.

So hardly "laughable unless you have no other option".

Maybe "laughable unless you can have a job in software engineering" or in some similar bubble.

>The no ADHD or depression requirements: well fuck me, I'll stick to failing at foolish things rather than bother with an antiquated, potentially dangerous, soon to be automated orchestration process rife with opportunities for human error, and instead take a train or ship

Yeah, commercial flying isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Neither is ATC personnel.

And good luck getting to Europe or Latin America with a ship from the US. At least you'll have enough time to learn new hobbies.

> Coming from startup land, it’s so clear the lack of available and qualified controllers is directly down line of this thorny problem.

Am I wrong to feel personally that lowering the hiring standards for ATC controllers is a step in the wrong direction?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjoDn8zQgb8

One of the top comments:

> The controllers I know are PISSED about this because this was grossly ATC’s fault.

I'm personally terrified every-time I get on a plane. If you go to a restauraunt, your order coming out right and not making you sick depends on like, 3-4 systems/employees/supply chains/whatever. I'd say it's like 80% fine most of the time.

How many supply chains does a plane go through? 80% fine most cuts it for like... mild tech production incidents, screwed up food orders

How does it work out for airplanes/ATC?

Commercial air travel is the safest form of transportation in the history of the planet. If you’re terrified every time you get on a plane, you shouldn’t be using that intuition as a guide to policy.

The industry is currently very safe, so lowering hiring standards will not affect overall safety rates (much)? Is that the argument?

I mean exactly what I said: anyone who has this fear, which is untethered from reality, should not trust their intuition about what mechanisms are important for safety.

Your statistics are a tough pitch when we're hearing about chronic deficiencies like bolts missing from doors and whatnot. I don't have a fear of flying, but my intuition tells me the effects of Boeing mismanagement will take years to peter out and I don't think it's unreasonable I'm avoiding their newer planes even if it causes me some inconvenience.

I can’t tell if you’re arguing (a) that the old statistics aren’t a reliable guide to the future because of recent events or (b) you can’t/won’t listen to the data because of strong emotions induced by the Boeing stories.

If (a), then you’re wrong. It’s exactly because this has been going on at Boeing for years (and because planes are so outrageously same that they can get 10x more dangerous without it much affecting the assessment) that we can upper bound how much new risk there is at a quite small level.

If (b), at least you’re being honest.

You know about the missing bolts and whatnot because there is a process for uncovering them. Do you want to guess how many missing bolts auto mechanics leave out when they do car repairs? Nobody knows because nobody is keeping track.

You accused OP of letting his opinions be molded by “feels”/fears but you’re doing the same thing just in the opposite direction.

We know about the bolts because a door blew off a plane mid-flight, do I need to tell you how we know about MCAS?

Air travel is the safest but thanks to the exact opposite mentality you are presenting.

Science&technology is not a God and engineers are not the patron saints.

> We know about the bolts because a door blew off a plane mid-flight

We know about the bolts because a door blew off a plane mid-flight and there are reporting requirements when that happens. Then there is an investigation.

When a door falls off a car driving down the road, the driver picks it up and puts it in the trunk and has it reattached or replaced. Whether they even file an insurance claim depends on their deductible and either way nobody is doing a root cause analysis to prevent it from happening again.

It shouldn't take an incident like a panel detaching mid-flight to discover the missing bolts. The processes clearly aren't working very well at Boeing.

> Commercial air travel is the safest form of transportation in the history of the planet.

Until it's not, right?

Historically, it has been.

If there was a 1/1,000,000,000 chance you were going to die on a plane ride, would you voluntarily choose to take it? Ok, what about 1/1,000,000?

Arnold Barnett, a statistician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied airline safety, tells NPR that from 2018 to 2022, the chances of a passenger being killed on a flight anywhere in the world was 1 in 13.4 million. Between 1968 to 1977, the chance was 1 in 350,000.

"Worldwide flying is extremely safe, but in the United States, it's extraordinarily so," Barnett said.

In the U.S., there has not been a fatal plane crash involving a major American airline since February 2009, though there have been a handful of fatalities since then.

Brickhouse, who has studied aviation safety for over 25 years, often tells people that the biggest risk of any air journey tends to be driving to the airport.

More than 40,000 people are killed on U.S. roads each year.

"Aviation remains the safest mode of transportation," he says.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/12/1237262132/why-flying-safe-un....

Forget how many people are killed, because when you get to that point, then things have already gotten really bad. Look at the leading indicators first: how many near-misses and other incidents (like mechanical failures) have happened in the US over the last 25 years, and is the trend up or down?

The incident with the 737 door falling off is a good example here: this would have been a fatal incident if this had been a full flight. Thankfully, the seat next to the door was empty that day, so no one got seriously hurt, but it could have been much worse.

It's hard to tell for sure without a reliable source of unbiased data rather than various news stories, but it sure seems that the frequency of incidents (in the US) is rising lately, not falling, and that's not good, it's like the canary in the coal mine. Things need to be fixed before planes start falling out of the sky with spectacularly fatal results because too many deep systemic problems have come together to destroy the safety record that existed before. Instead, too many people want to rest on past successes, saying "look! It's so safe compared to driving!" and do nothing.

Crackheads jumping in front of buses has nothing to do with whether motor vehicle travel is safe. An intellectually honest comparison would be to compare the incidence of fatalities while being driven around in a recent model sedan by a professional driver

Safety ratings for travel are based on passenger miles, so your example is moot.

So... drunk 15 year olds on motorcycles doing drive-bys. Got it.

The odds to die in a car ride are about 4000 higher than in an airplane flight [1]. Knowing that, would you willingly ride a car?

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/15thhsh/...

This isn’t the conundrum you think it is. My estimated statistical value of life (revealed preference) is ~$30M, so I would get on a flight with a 10^-9 risk without thinking twice, but would value the 10^-6 risk at about $30. That is, I would choose to fly in a plane that had an additional 10^-6 risk of death if it was $50 cheaper, but not if it was only $5 cheaper.

You have about a 1 in 1 billion chance of dying for every 750 feet or so that you drive.

I take risks far in excess of 1 in a billion every day.

I see and hear about the mistakes that my coworkers make that don't make the news, and I still have no problem flying. There are many layers of safety including the systems and pilots onboard the planes, and statistics still show it is still safer than driving.

Lowering standards is definitely the wrong way to go. Increasing pay to attract and keep good controllers is the better route.

You are going to the wrong places to eat if your food isn't even "fine" 20% of the time.

How many supply chains does your gallon of milk go through? Are 20% of gallons of milk spoiled, rotten, undrinkable, causing illness?

Nope.

Your entire arguments flies in the face of a mountain of empirical evidence of the safety of modern scale systems.