FAA offering more incentives as air traffic controller shortage worsens

So nearly every org in our government has been decimated twice over, including many critical ones, under staffed ones, and efficient ones. Is it far fetched that people would now be incredulous about the well being of the few departments not yet decimated twice over?

These generally are not positions that people compete for across the nation. Once in a particular airspace, controllers will generally stay in that airspace. An outsider unfamiliar with an airspace would be at significant disadvantage to any local.

Our union is a joke. They send emails saying they're "monitoring the situation" instead of talking with the media stating our case for better working conditions.

Our salaries have not kept up with the industry. Do not use this to try to push an anti-union agenda.

He stated he stressed things like answering questions like an air traffic control "and we’re alpha personalities, we’re dominating, we don’t take no for an answer." He also mentions that he got calls, from multiple people, saying they failed the behavioral test.

So it seems that while he did coach answers, they weren't the literal test answers, but rather advice one could have gotten from public sources with enough research or presumably, talking to some FAA air traffic controllers.

In the end, the report stated the findings in the investigation did not warrant a referral to a federal prosecutor.

Is it really unreasonable to say that pushing for diversity was a notable goal of the Obama administration?

... which is personality.

Not trying to defend or not defend what actually happened, but there's growing use of personality measures in various vocations for this very reason.

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...

Until an emergency or a conflict suddenly occurs. There's often very little you can do here other than quickly and clearly provide the necessary information and instructions to aid pilots in averting the disaster. The pilot is in full control during emergencies and you're simply there to give them anything they need. In a severe emergency and in an ATC center they're going to dedicate you to the emergency and bring another controller on to manage other planes in that airspace.

As the technology became available to give planes the ability to see and avoid each other with Traffic Advisories and automated Conflict Resolutions we made it mandatory equipment for passenger transports. We made it mandatory for pilots to obey this system with _higher priority_ than any prior or new instructions from ATC.

So you want people who think ahead, constantly prepare for conflicts, and have a reliable level of vigilance. So when the emergency happens they're situationally well prepared and capable of managing all available resources that their stress levels barely increase. A bad weather day with lots of cancelled flights and closed airports should be the highest stress factor they face in their careers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-ai...

If managers could set arbitrary salaries, the employees could just agree to cut their manager in on 10% of their raise.

This probably happens outside of government, but it's just the private org who loses money, so it's up to them to stop it. But in the case of the government, it's the taxpayers who lose.

Then it’s, “how do we quantify success without the profit motive for something society needs, but doesn’t earn a profit”?

Then I would conclude, the solution is a small government with a hyper-competitive process for providing public services, with actual democratic feedback on the success of such provided services with teeth to remove bad private sector contractors.

And to add on what others have said: yes CCTs represent a pool of proven ATC candidates, but depleting that pool just to knee-jerk a short term-ish solution creates an equal problem for the military -- and it's a hell of a lot harder to recruit adequate candidates for CCT. For example, they have to do like, lots of pushups...