At a House hearing yesterday (March 4), the chairman of the body’s subcommittee on aviation said, “For a country that considers itself the gold standard in aviation safety…we must do better.” Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas referred to 105 of the FAA’s 138 systems that were reported as “unsustainable or potentially unsustainable" – a condition he described as “unacceptable.”
56 is ridiculously too early for a mandatory retirement. It should align with airline pilot retirement age of 65. That would keep the folks that actually know what they’re doing there longer.
USA a ‘Gold Standard’ for aviation safety… what a joke… never been close to it. Lets try AUSTRALIA guys. Even though we have the the 6th busiest air route in the world by numbers of flights daily (Melbourne to Sydney) and ever since the jet age has been in existence Australia has always had a huge percentage of the population flying every year, we have NEVER had a single death in a commercial airline jet crash in at least the last 60 years. In fact other than a couple of minor landing issues including one overrun, a couple of hard landings, and a couple of other issues like the standpipe failure in a Trent in the A380 (beautifully handled), we haven’t even damaged an airframe! USA is not and has never been the ;‘Gold Standard’ and likely never ever will be… sorry guys. p.s. USA doesn’t even rank in the top 10 of the worlds busiest air routes by numbers of flights.
Raising the controllers’ minimum retirement age is problematic at best. The ability begins to sharply decline for most people as they approach their 50s. The FAA has tried to extend controllers in the past, and it has generally not worked out well. Even if the retirement age were raised, it would only be a temporary fix for the FAA’s chronic staffing shortages. The solution is and always has been to hire more controllers. Duffy has very little knowledge on this subject and should get some input from experts within the system before he makes any rash decisions.
And therein lies the real problem: Congress. They need to allocate stable, predictable, permanent funding to the FAA. Unfortunately, this administration and congress are off to a poor start with all of their firings and hiring freeze. Who would even want a job working to upgrade these systems if they can’t be certain they’ll be there for long or even get paid?
Of course, the “answer” to the above is likely to be the same old “just privatize the FAA”. In other words, the aviation equivalent of turning every road into a toll road.
56 really is too low. Most other countries use the combination of licence+rating, currency check, and a medical to assess fitness to operate. If you can pass the medical and pass the check, you can continue, just like a pilot. And yes, I am over 56!
Being a controller is a young man’s game. There’s not much more to say about it than that. Cognitive decline is much more likely to be cited as a contributing factor to a tragedy than it is to be caught beforehand.
We might wish it were otherwise, but we are humans and it’s not.
I would be in favor of a program that would provide extra screening over 55 years old to allow controllers to work until 60 or 65. I would also be in favor of giving controllers over 55 high priority (a practical guarantee) to move to less busy facilities. I’ve worked some of the busiest and most complex traffic on the planet, and watched others do it. After about 45 to 50 years old, you can see that it just becomes more of a struggle to keep up with the traffic. Even the “hot shots” admit that it became more difficult when they reached a certain age. Still, there’s a way to keep that experience working live traffic without compromising safety, as long as it’s done carefully. A system-wide raising of the retirement age, a la Duffy, is not the answer.
You are on the right track, Gary. I’m not willing to hear about addressing manning problems from anyone who freezes hiring and takes a scorched-earth approach to firing employees, especially if it is based on made-up accusations of poor performance and phantom numbers.
You don’t cut budgets every year while turning a blind eye toward what is needed, especially when it comes to safety. You don’t fire new employees in a MANDATORY probationary period because that’s the fastest way to reach an imposed number. You don’t cripple someone (or something), then tell it to get up and run.
The US Congress should stay out of things it clearly does not understand.
Mandatory retirement by age makes zero sense; for anyone.
56 for Controllers? Seriously?
If they are incompetent by 56, something is clearly wrong.
Same with Airline Pilots; 65 has nothing to do with competence in the most monitored profession in the world.
Numerous countries don’t have these arbitrary barriers and do better than the US.
Other countries with the barriers do worse.
Pass the recurrent checks, pass the medicals; keep the experience in the system.
Legions of persons over these arbitrary ages who are 100 percent competent.
(Looking at the US these days; the world is stunned by the level of incompetence and nonsensical occurrences in a formerly respected country)
ATC retirement is the same as Fire retirement, 20 years minimum or mandatory at 56-57. Why? These are high stress jobs that take a toll on their employees. They require Overtime frequently. The retirement is higher than other Federal workers for a reason, see above. Walk a mile in their shoes/boots. It seems no one is claiming that Fire fighters should work until 65…. Then there is the reality that an airline pilot is not constantly stressed throughout the entire shift AND has a copilot right next to him to share duties and cross check.
They deserve their early retirement.
Hire more controllers, simple solution.
The FAA really has shown its gold standard when it comes to dealing with unleaded Aviation fuel. After 40 years, we are still adding the dangerous lead to the Avgas. This poses a danger by damaging aircraft engines and reducing safety to the flying public and the non-flying public in so many ways. The world looked on thinking the FAA would lead us to a solution. Please world do not look to the FAA for answers anymore. It has, and now more than ever would be a mistake. Please take the lead the US is no longer Great, and now is becoming A nation of cowards.
Airline pilots have to complete training events and pass checkrides every six months. Controllers don’t. There is no way to catch a controller’s cognitive decline with age.
Being a controller is really very much being a video game player. Take any video game you can think of and have a 25 year old team and a 60 year old team. Does ANYONE think the 60 year olds will be anything but utterly crushed?
The busiest airport in Australia doesn’t even come CLOSE to being on that list.
I am not saying Australians are bad at aviation, but you don’t have close to the amount of traffic we have.
There is a very lively discussion of USA vs. World ATC over on PPRUNE in relation to the DCA accident. Long story short: The USA takes a lot of shortcuts most other countries will not take. The rest of ICAOlandia is basically 121 traffic flying IFR all the time, no using visual separation rules, and GA traffic is kept far away. Their rules would create a mass traffic jam here and we would not stand for “the airlines own the air and the airports, maybe you can fly a bit and maybe not”.
All that said, the FAA is suffering from endemic underfunding and understaffing that is creating real dangers and there is no relief in sight. Currently I cannot imagine a worse career choice than joining up with them.
