Originally published at: FAA Extends Northeast ATC Staffing Relief
Controller staffing shortages continue to affect operations at several major airports.
No information here on why the federal government is failing to fully staff our air traffic control system but the reason is political, specifically Barack Obama and his administration wanted more “diversity and inclusion” in the towers and TRACONs. So many white guys who had already passed the challenging controller selection testing and had qualified for controller academy were dumped. Then a new group of candidates were selected with priority given to their race and gender, and it didn’t go well.
As a retired professional pilot and aviation business owner I know there are plenty of top notch women and minority controllers, but to put race and gender at the top of the selection criteria was insanity. Fortunately this disastrous policy has been changed but it takes years of training and experience for a controller to reach “full performance level”. So if you’re stuck in an airliner waiting on a ground hold you can thank massive federal mismanagement and attempted social engineering for the favor, but take comfort in knowing that ATC personnel are now being hired for merit and ability only.
Another issue in current staffing is plaguing all the trades - younger people just don’t want to work. Not all, but many. Ask almost any tradesman and you’ll get the same answer. And, although of a different nature, ATC is a trade requiring commitment, dedication, and a skill set. The worker shortage is everywhere, skilled and not so skilled. Even higher wages is failing to attract them. Apparently, life in Mom’s basement is too easy!
Recently retired ATC here.
The perspective from the new hires (and myself) is that the job is just not worth the money for all the sacrifices you have to make in most of the facilities.
60 hour 6 day weeks, working every single holiday, rotating “rattler shifts” with only 9 hours to sleep between each shift, absolutely horrible management, dozens of shutdowns with months of no pay, and only being able to bid two weeks of leave per year and have it guaranteed by the contract.
These are just some of the many reasons why I don’t recommend this job to anyone anymore.
Only real remaining perk is the early retirement/pension at age 50 and mandatory at 56. But being a short career you don’t get much of a chance to build up a 401k.
We recently had 6 controllers at my facility quit before retirement which NEVER happened in the past. And every single one that made it to the minimum 49-50 year old retirement age punched out ASAP.
When you don’t pay enough to attract the best, you dont get quality applicants. Or really ANY qualified applicants.
Don’t just blame it on one president or the other (Trump x 2, Biden x 1, Obama x 2 Dubya x 2)…. Congress is what has failed primarily. Sure the executive branch all failed as well but if Congress would have taken the FAA out of the shutdown cycle this wouldn’t be an issue.
If you have to blame a President or two look to the training shutdown during COVID started by Trump and not shut down quickly enough by Biden.
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