American aviation is near collapse?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
somehow I feel like conditions may have changed since that data was collected. just a hunch.
"Rigor cleans the window through which intuition shines" - Ellis Cooper
Uh? Maybe you could explain what you mean by this a bit more.
2. "System collapse" would be unexplored territory, so how would statistical analysis be able to infer when it occurs?
2. See above.
If the argument is "deadly accidents are up over the past decade", then yes, of course, we must point to data.
If the argument is, "the aviation industry might be on the verge of a steep decline in availability and/or safety due to recent political/financial problems", then what do you mean "show the data"? That doesn't make sense. It's a concern based on observation, which is fine if it's not presented as a fact.
And if it turns out that a specific accident is due to said forces - what, we don't address those forces, because "data"?
> Fatal crashes, overstressed controllers, and endless security lines reveal a system teetering on the brink of failure.
I have not read the entire article (paywalled), but the introduction sure seems to strongly imply that we're already seeing an unusually high rate of crashes.
There is currently a shortage of ~3k controllers (as of this comment), and the time to train and put new controllers into service is significant. Excess retirements reduces time to system failure due to labor shortages. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
> Entry-level applicants must complete required training courses and spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Applicants are paid while in training. After graduating the academy, individuals are placed in locations across the country and must gain 2-3 years additional training, both classroom and on-the-job experience, before becoming a certified professional controller. This rigorous training includes close supervision and evaluation by senior controllers that ensures controllers are competent, professional, know their airspace environment and can deal with the pressures and high pace of the job.
Controllers in training quit due to a lack of pay whenever a government shutdown occurs. This impairs the talent pipeline to improve system performance anytime a shutdown occurs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newyorkcity/comments/1s1eh14/i_mess...
US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860865 - November 2025 (365 comments)
Flights to Los Angeles Airport halted due to air traffic controller shortage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45715771 - October 2025 (11 comments)
> The shutdown is having real consequences, as some students at the controller academy have already decided to abandon the profession because they don’t want to work in a job they won’t be paid for, Duffy said. That will only make it harder for the FAA to hire enough controllers to eliminate the shortage, since training takes years. He said that the government is only a week or two away from running out of money to pay students at the academy.
Air traffic controller shortages cause widespread flight delays amid government shutdown - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/air-traffic-controller-... - November 1st, 2025
> “Currently nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are experiencing staffing shortages, and nearly 90 percent of air traffic controllers are out at New York–area facilities,” the FAA said in a statement posted on X on Friday evening.
Do you feel lucky?
I take exceptional issue with the fact that their pay is not considered essential. There should be no way for this critical infrastructure to be not considered essential. ATC pay should flow regardless of actions of any branch of the federal government, and there should be robust systems in place to ensure these workers are not pushed beyond reasonable work limits. Fix the system or break the system forcing a fix. If it continues to work "good enough" without a fix, no changes will be made.
It would make an interesting reality TV show to have a group of 60-70 year olds attempt to perform a simulated 8 hour ATC shift under "live fire" conditions.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260323212332/https://www.crisi...
https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/media/Fatigue_Report.pdf
https://news.siu.edu/2025/07/072225-siu-research-focuses-on-...
They were given 200 hours community service. I think this happened today.
https://people.com/family-four-killed-bus-stop-outrage-drive...
https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/news/sfpd-arrests-driver-...
(SFPD Case #240-160-569)
"Failure" is really a matter of opinion rather than some objective tipping point. The air system is unlikely to ever actually "fail", and at worst will just become some arbitrary level of degraded that some people will loudly label "failed".
There are plenty of examples around the world of countries with variously degraded air systems, that are far worse than the US status quo but still are not "failed".
There's Egypt, which has labeled crashes caused by bad design as "someone used a bomb and blew it up" for political reasons: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/07/fire-not-bomb-...
Yemen, in the midst of a perennial civil war, still runs commercial flights: https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/653181-yemenia-expat...
Russia, with airplane parts sacntioned for years, still runs commercial flights.
Even if the US undergoes a USSR-style sudden collapse, the aviation system is not going to "fail" in the sense of completely breaking and stopping.
Not any more, they don't:
> The General Director of Sanaa International Airport, Khaled al-Shaief, said in a post on his X account that the strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-it-has...
LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47503965 - March 2026
Yes, there is universal data out there. But those events are so rare that you almost never can differentiate a normal year from an abnormal one.
[0]: https://www.buckycountry.com/2025/09/22/runway-close-calls-u...
What statistical conclusion are you taking from it?
The article is not just about safety, or some other singular topic with clear statistics.
Just because this sentiment will get some cheap upvotes from people who didn't engage with the article doesn't be that the author should have searched for keys under streetlights to provide a false appearance of rigor.
This is an essay from the Atlantic Daily, which is responding, in real time, to the events of the day. It's a minor work of commentary, it is not supposed to be in-depth reporting, and it's bit odd to feel ought to have been a work of investigative reporting, which the Atlantic also does, seperately.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_and_supply
The paralysis of the political system in the US is either a feature or a bug depending on your point of view i suppose, but no question that it is entirely dysfunctional that a government can continue existing if it can't pass a budget.
> The ICE deployment is a particularly extreme example of what the political scientist Steven M. Teles has dubbed “kludgeocracy,” in which the government reaches for short-term, improvised solutions while resisting real reform. “‘Clumsy but temporarily effective,’” Teles has written, “also describes much of American public policy. For any particular problem we have arrived at the most gerry-rigged, opaque and complicated response.” The U.S. aviation system has been held together by such patches for years, but the kludges may finally be failing.
Policy around this type of thing is important.
My post is more about the general dysfunction and solution schemes we see in some governments. I think having the ICE example might bring about some bots and trolls, though. I don't care for the ICE example, it's just a part of the quote.
The reason we have this loophole is because many industries, particularly in the South, rely directly on immigrant labor. The republicans cannot risk alienating their consistency or further hurting the already brittle economy of Red states. That's why we get a constant flow of completely ineffective and performative solutions, like ICE.
Just start locking up executives who have employees that are undocumented, and the problem would disappear before your very eyes. But, building a wall is easier, and you can see a wall.
The companies are doing this "unknowingly". Of course they're not stupid, they're fully aware they're hiring a lot of undocumented people. But nobody, on record, knows that. To them, all their employees have documents which appear valid. It is pretty easy to forge I-9 documents.
Part of this is because the US has incredibly poor identification infrastructure. Often, not even US citizens can be reliably identified, as seen in commercial banking. The other part is that companies cannot choose to not hire people because they think they are undocumented. You can't hire someone because they're too brown and not American sounding enough.
That's not to say that I think the solution is universal identification or legalization of racism in hiring practices.
But, what about this one?
18 U.S.C. § 1546
This says, "having reason to know." So, you actually don't have to really know, you just have to have reason to know, to be incarcerated. That really seems like I should check, if only to cover my own ass. Like if the picture wasn't clear but you accepted it anyway, you had reason to know? Seems pretty loose for anyone that wants to enforce it.
I'm clearly not an attorney, so if you are, please correct me.
One example of this playing out was when the Florida state senate (Republican supermajority) shot down a bill that would have required businesses to use E-Verify to validate the authenticity of their employees' documentation. https://www.cfpublic.org/politics/2025-05-05/bill-to-expand-...
> Bill Herrle, state executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, said the bill would have made the state’s labor shortage worse and dampened productivity and entrepreneurship in the state. He said his group was relieved that it didn’t pass.
> “When I talk to small business owners now, I’m finding them busy doing a job they’d like to hire someone to do’’ Herrle said. “They’re working the line. They’re working in the kitchen. They’re working the register. And when a small business owner is doing that, guess what they’re not doing? They’re not being an entrepreneur. They’re not spending time trying to find ways to build and grow their business.’’
I can see why they don't want to go above and beyond federal law on this, if I'm interpreting correctly. It looks like a person, not the company, can already serve 5 years if they even mistakenly hire without work authorization. What additional deterrents do you really need?
Whether that's enforced is another thing. Most probably it's not because federal attorneys are paid in peanuts so no one wants to be one unless they are doing it to be noticed by a big firm.
But, I'm not an attorney. So if you are, let us know what I've missed.
When I read that it looks like you're not only allowed to check, you're required to, and you can serve time in federal prison if you get it wrong.
Again, I'm not an attorney, so I might be wrong. But it doesn't seem like a loophole despite the many claims I'm seeing.
I'd like to look into it. Is the loophole idea coming from an article written by an attorney? Can you link to it if so?
While I don't disagree, and while I firmly believe in UBI (which is the natural conclusion to your logic), without a comprehensive plan in place, just "paying people more" will be a bit of a death spiral since that is a core contributor to inflation on a large scale.
Because it’s economically insignificant. Total CEO pay across the Russell 1000 excluding Musk is in the tens of billions. Paying a few people more isn’t inflationary. (It’s other kinds of problematic.)
There seem to be social consequenes to that sort of income inequality. There are solid arguments for enabling founders to become fabulously wealthy. The argument seems a bit more stretched for managers.
So like instead of hiring by merit doing it via DEI?
You see this in education, infrastructure, public health, scientific research, housing, and energy. All foundational systems of a society, which compound the value of everything else, but they aren't immediate profit centers so kick the ball down the road.
It is an attitude problem first and foremost; and I'm not sure how you fix that.
PS - This also impacts private enterprise, like corporations. Enshittify their current offerings for the next quarter bump but ruin their brand reputation/long-term viability.
Simultaneously, plenty of non publicly listed businesses make decisions that benefit in the short term at the expense of the long term.
Reducing quarterly reporting requirements does reduce transparency, however,
The richest folk in this country have bought out every single media apparatus it can get its hands on and have spread decades of propaganda. The 'philanthropic' billionaire that spent wealth so that they could have a building or initiative named after them have vanished and gave their wealth to the methhead billionaires that rip up the wiring of the country to sell for pennies.
From a certain perspective, it should be easy: That balance is the norm that has persisted through centuries; the current situation is relativley very new.
I think the important question is, why has this attitude shifted - despite having obviously bad consequences - and how is that shift being sustained?
This is quite amazing
Denver does, however, so I wonder why there is no wait at DEN and hundreds of minutes at Houston/Atlanta/JFK ?
From memory: on the human side airports are understaffed, there are no young controllers in the pipeline, attrition is high, and the less people are available the higher the burnout rate, which creates a vicious cycle. On the technical side, airports are unmaintained, systems are obsolete and crumbling.
John Oliver makes the case that most of the issue is that the FAA is financed through discretionary spending so e.g. it's subject to shut downs and can't do long term planning.
- deregulation of airlines in the 1980s led to rampant consolidation of routes and SPOF hubs that only work for revenue purposes and offer no real resilience in traffic planning. over-subscription of flights and lack of any real competition compounds this issue.
- climate change and global warming increasingly exacerbate severe weather conditions that ground aircraft and incur delays or cancellations in an already fragile system
- reagan-era policy hostile toward air traffic control labor unions that once checked the excesses of capital resulted in understaffing issues for more than two decades later. poor regulation of working hours, outmoded systems, and wage stagnation has further stressed the ATC system.
- the partial government shutdown has caused massive delays and cancellations of flights as the artifice of security theater begins to break down under its own political morass.
the solution is reform and regulation through policy change and investment. this is not possible in late stage capitalism (Streeck, 2016.)
These same people are commonly off by orders of magnitude when predicting the magnitude of these same events.
The author of this article won the "Toner Prize for Excellence in National Political Reporting". I'm going to infer from this, that he's better at political reporting, than he is at predicting the future of an entire industry.
And if he is truly convinced of this outcome, he should be shorting the airlines. (I'm gonna guess he hasn't done that).
(edit: syntax)