U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced a new set of initiatives on Thursday aimed at accelerating the hiring and retention of air traffic controllers across the nation.
Wellā¦ sh*t! This FAA announcement isnāt bold reform, itās damage control. DOGE didnāt axe controllers, but they fired nearly 400 critical support staffā mechanics, safety assistants, and other behind-the-scenes roles the system depends on. A federal judge later forced the FAA to reinstate about a third of them, ruling the mass firings illegal. But thereās still no plan to fully restore the rest. Now the FAAās tossing bonuses like duct tape, hoping we forget the mess. āSuperchargedā? Please, this is spin trying to cover a self-inflicted wound.
Ah, one more thing. Hiring 2,000 new controllers is meaningless if the support scaffolding is still missing. The FAA is building a workforce on a hollow foundation unless it restores the essential roles DOGE cut. Without that backing, from techs, safety assistants, and info specialists, new hires face more stress, more inefficiency, and likely more attrition. The very thing this initiative claims to fix could end up worse.
Great idea. Itās a great career already and boosting with an incentive might help.wish I was 40 years younger. Unfortunately the union and others within will try to make this negative.
Put me in coach! I can carry the water bottles.
Great plan - this will strongly encourage current employee retention along with boosting interest in an ATC career. As long as this is 100% meritocracy based, this will enhance aviation safety and efficiency.
There will have to be thought as to how the incentives will be paid out. And Iām thinking over a several year period, maybe two years after some accomplishment at their newly assigned facility. And the earliest I see any of this effort showing productivity would be two years. That would be hiring process, initial screening/training and then facility training and certification, longer by one or two years at the busiest facilities. Anything is better than nothing I guess, but this isnāt a magic and instant cure. My last year at ORD, we were given a 10% incentive pay on top of base pay. It actually caused some interest in us from controllers at other quality level facilities, enough for a few to bid over to ORD.
I recently read that some police forces in NW US/SW Canada find that a significant number of officers attracted from other forces return at the end of the period of bonus retention, sometimes their original force is now offering a bonus.
Competition?
The āhard to staff facilitiesā list is curious, to say the least. Some 100% staffed facilities there. That incentive should probably go to facilities that are too short to release controllers that bid other ATC jobs.
Thanks for supplying context.
I thought it was odd news, given the bold pronouncement that the tech bro geniuses would be ārewriting the ATC codebaseā to effect a wholesale efficiency improvement.
Yup, $15B dangling on ATC renovation and watch the ātech brosā show up thinking an app can fix it all.
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