On Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced that the Trump Administration is actively working to address the air traffic controller staffing shortage by exploring a 30% pay increase for new recruits.
How can the average ATC pay be $160,000 when the base pay of a level 12 facility (the highest level of an ATC facility) is $130,000?
As usual, the writer/media failed to due their research.
With the way DOGE is treating gov employees, I’m not exactly sure anyone is going to jump on the gov job bandwagon anytime soon. Good luck filling any vacancies with new hires. Do you think i will recommend ANY gov job as a career at this point? Mr DOT living in a dream world.
I think a few of the 1000 candidates who were cast aside in favor of DEI hires will be interested in coming back.
Who’s to say they were any better than the DEI candidate? They’re both unproven trainees.
If you read the article, it says “…the starting wage for air traffic controller trainees would increase from $17.61 to $22.84 per hour.” And that after three years this means they could earn up to $160,000 a year.
In other words, give them a ~30% increase in starting pay and they would end up earning more than current controllers.
As a retired controller with 36 years of ATC experience at a busy TRACON facility as a controller, supervisor, and facility manager, I know a little something about this subject. I have commented for years about how important it is to screen for, and then hire, only the applicants showing the highest skill for this job through standardized testing. For 25 years FAA senior management believed that anyone could do this job with enough training, and it resulted in a revolving door of training failures. It was never about DEI. Either you could do this job or you couldn’t, regardless of race or gender. And wasting two years training someone only to find out they couldn’t do the job was a big waste of time as more controllers retired. Lastly, it’s Congress who budgets the money to hire, train, and pay controllers. The longer I worked for the FAA the tighter Congress got with the budget. If you want the best you need to select only the best and spend the money needed to hire, train, and keep them.
We could raise the pay of Controllers or Pilots to any amount imaginable. We can hire only the absolute most highly qualified and still . . . humans get tired, confused, distracted and will never be 100% perfect, 100% of the time. Turn by turn instructions over a simplex VHF communication system. Stepped on transmissions, static, non-native English speech patterns. It’s the system. We need a completely revamped, AI based system. But, the bureaucracy and unions will resist. Their only answer is more Band-Aids on the existing system and more controllers.
Yes and No. The starting pay is going to increase but contract keeps the pay the same/in-line with everyone.
Favoritism and Nepotism,
Favoring someone not because he or she is doing a great job, but for reasons outside of the job performance.
How can you fix your broken airplane or appliance when you know nothing about how it works ?
Wrecking ball “fixing” is all around us right now.
FAFO is not a fix for anything.
Focusing only on the Controllers is an intentional destruction.
Sensible aviators know the facts, we all depend on each other for safety while we take responsibility for our actions and compliment each other’s work in real time. Read back correctly and comply 100% of the time, look for errors and help the controllers. They are there for our safety but the “human element” exists, let us eliminate safety issues with cooperation. All accidents have more than one broken link, listen and speak up for safety.
It’s called “Positive Safety Culture” and includes all involved.
In conclusion:
Regardless of how S.D. got there, I want him to succeed for the sake of Safety !!
Fly Safe !!!
I’d add that a complete overhaul of physical facilities is desperately needed. That can has been kicked down the road forever by several administrations for over two decades.
Money is not everything. Add to the high government pay the value of job security, unbelievable benefits, a short career length leading to a generous pension and health care that are unheard of in the private sector. A friend of mine was a Reagan hire when he rightfully fired the striking controllers. He retired at a young age (for those of us toiling in the private sector to pay crushing taxes), bought a farm, started an MRO, buought multiple planes, built a nice hangar home and otherwise has lived a very comfortable life on his Controller pension. I am not at all envious, just pointing out there is far more to this subject than pay, which is the same for all government employees, in uniform or not. And don’t tell me there are no jobs in the private sector with the stress levels typical of a controller’s job.
Why don’t you face facts for once? Let’s see a single fact that supports your nonsense Chump claim that 1,000 DEI candidates even exist. And at what point is ANYONE in ATC who isn’t completely qualified to be there?
“As usual, the writer/media failed to due their research.” No reason to shoot the messenger. They are reporting what Transportation Secretary Duffy said. And nowadays the media “fact checking” administration officials can be career ending.
Average pay is different from salary. Controllers tend to put in a lot of overtime due to staff shortages.
However, starting pay of $17.61 is near or even below minimum wage in some places.
This isn’t stocking shelves a Sam’s Club. You don’t wave a magic wand and put qualified “replacement” controllers in towers. Unqualified ATC doesn’t exist. And promising pay above mandated levels within a pay structure is not possible.
Blanket firing plus promising money you don’t have to repair the wrong problem is claiming credit for putting out a fire you started.
Okay, the sky is falling. Let’s hear your solutions.
3 key items.
-IMPROVE (instead of threating and eliminating) pay, quality-of-life issues, and benefits.
-Improve infrastructure. Both airports and ATC facilities need major overhauls.
-Upgrade ATC equipment. I kid you not, there are ATC facilities that still use computer mice from the 1980s and many programs run on DOS and will only work with internet explorer.
But as you can see, those are most expensive, complicated, and sensitive “solutions” that nobody wants to deal with.
I personally know highly qualified military ATC’s that were passed over for off the street hires that have no experience. Yes it was DEI, and yes that too is discrimination as is affirmative action. In any origination, if you want a high functioning team you put the right people in the right positions. In this skilled profession, choosing someone without experience over someone with is wrong…period