Well, that was easy.
New FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford has apparently been allowed to take off his training wheels and make a major announcement without Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy there to correct him. And it was a doozy.
He was able to mostly solve the air traffic controller shortage literally with the stroke of a pen. With the miracle of modern math through the scientific application of alleged common sense, suddenly we aren’t 3,500 controllers short. We only need to fill 1,500 empty chairs at the towers and TRACONs of the nation.
And how will the need for these 2,000 folks disappear as traffic congestion reaches saturation levels throughout the National Airspace System and burned-out controllers, pilots, and other aviation workers inevitably make more mistakes? A business management tool called the Theory of Constraints will be applied and Poof! the need for 4,000 highly trained eyeballs will disappear.
It’s no wonder Bedford and his betters didn’t involve the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) in the discussions that led up to the release of the 2026-2028 Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan. I mean, what possible interest would the union representing air traffic controllers have in determining how and when they will work? I would have paid money to see the look on the faces of NATCA brass when told the plan to fix the system was to eliminate 2,000 dues-paying jobs.
It seems like NATCA found out about it the same way we did, with a Friday afternoon press release. Surely these folks know that the media is on to them with this clever timing and they actually wait for the Friday drops of unpopular news, but I digress. Like everyone else who’s interested in this stuff, I immediately got in touch with NATCA and got this frosty response.
“NATCA was not involved in the development of the 2026–2028 Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan and is reviewing the document.”
I swear that icicles formed on my screen.
Then I looked up the Theory of Constraints and I must say that if it was applied to every aspect of everyone’s life we’d have a perfectly smooth world.
It essentially says that if you have a problem, you should fix it and then keep doing that and everything will be all right and your business will make more money. Yes, it’s a business tool where quantifiable results all relate to a bottom line rather than esoteric considerations like the obliteration of hundreds of lives in a nanosecond of inattention. Just figure out how that inattention (or equipment failure or weather or insert your flight hazard here) occurred and fix it. Just like that.
In the business world it works kind of like this. All complex systems are constrained by identifiable glitches and bottlenecks that drag the whole operation down. If you’re using an old prestidigitator to compress your rammelflax when a more modern version would allow 10 times as many compressions, then you replace the prestidigitator and the capacity of your production line increases tenfold. Then you find the next thing that’s constraining that increase in production and fix that and so on and eventually you’ll achieve the system-wide benefit of a fully functioning rammelflax.
It makes sense in a narrow cubicle view of someone whose job it is to analyze problems he or she doesn’t understand and come up with theoretical solutions for them, but it’s woefully inadequate to address the human-driven environment of a modern airport and its environs. We are finding that out the hard way just about every week as humans find new and creative ways to crash or almost crash airplanes.
That’s not to say everything is right with the system as it stands and it couldn’t be improved with the smoothly running equivalent of the rammelflax, but to try to simplify the issues facing ATC with theory designed for factories and stores is naive at best.
Because what if your number-one constraint isn’t a doodad or thingamabob? What if it’s an entire system of government that has discovered the enormous political value of controlling your every move?
All this attention on air traffic control has little to do with safety and everything to do with controlling an enormous political resource. As the button-pushers in Washington have found, voters get testy when they can’t show up at the airport at 10 a.m. and be in the air by 11:30. Both recent government shutdowns have been resolved because of the chaos that ensued at airports, and politicians are both tantalized and terrified of the prodigious but fickle power that successfully manipulating the system holds. They will not give it up, regardless of their political stripes.
The politicization of air traffic control and now airport security is in its early stages and it’s not only the politicians that have seen its power-grabbing potential.
Unions like NATCA have so far said they don’t want politics to rule their operations but I think with this slap in the face the gloves are off.
Not only were they not included in the discussion, they were told that rather than get the immediate help they need to start rebuilding a system they genuinely care about, they will have to keep delivering without the people they’ve been promised in favor of a business theory that ignores so many of the variables of a dynamic environment like ATC.
I can hardly wait for NATCA’s response to the Friday directive that includes the FAA’s plan to get the union to decide, based on a tidy little business school theory, how to trim 15% from an optimal workforce that is currently working six 10-hour shifts a week with plenty of mandatory overtime.
NATCA and other aviation related unions will have to change their strategies for protecting their members and they have some inherent advantages over the politicians. They actually know how the system works and they’re the ones who really push the buttons.
I’m glad you finally have seen the light Russ. Carry on…
Message received: “Under no circumstances fly in US airspace”.
Truly unbelievable incompetence. A race to the bottom. Superpower suicide.
Well with spirit airlines out of the picture, it makes perfect sense to have less controllers. Of course using business theory works great if you don’t care about the people.
Correction: business theory works great if you don’t care about the people OR the real-world business.
Great point!
Between this administration’s refusal to correct the damage done from the Biden administration, its indefensible & total subservience to Israel, their complete disregard for the struggling American economy, forever Chinese students & H1B workers and now this crap, you’d have to be a special kind of loser to continue defending Trump at this point.
Trump sold this country out to India, China and Big Tech. Simple as.
Its pretty sad, actually, because this was literally America’s last chance at salvation, and I say that as a retired US Army field grade officer who served 21 years.
The GOP deserves to be curb-stomped this coming November, and I am going to enjoy every minute of it.
But at least the Dow was at 50k at one point….
TOC is effective only if (1) the system you are trying to improve is fairly stable and (2) the folks on the front lines working in the system are identifying both the constraints and the potential solutions (with help from other knowledgeable experts). And, of course, you have the resources to actually implement the fixes. Otherwise, its all a waste. Duh.
I hope the union tells the FAA mgmt to stick their idiotic TOC where the sun doesnt shine. Hold FAA/DOT mgmt to thier promises.
Controllers if not working on position are always doing other training. CBI videos,
wake turbulance, weather, airmet sigmet cwa refreshers, 7110.65 study and review,
training team meetings, supe meetings, QA reviews, one on one. training with a trainee,
and yes a break now on then to use a bathroom, eat, grab a coffee. The goal was always 6 hrs top time on position on a 8 hr shift. But it got to be 9 hrs top on a 10 hr shift. All the other duties woefully behind on due to staffing, and needed to man operating positions. STAFF up the system! its been a disaster since 3 aug 1981!
As the war on general aviation ramps up… I’ll shamelessly quote Pogo “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Great article Russ… keep preaching it!
As a lifelong Pogo-phile, I’d suggest that “us” ain’t the “problem”, here.
I submit that a better quote for describing the FAA’s solution, might be from Churchy LaFemme:
“Y’see, when you start to lick a national problem you have to go after the fundamentables. You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source — breathin!”
Solutions are easy to come by when you don’t care who you hurt.
I should have been more ‘communicable’… the ‘us’ was me trying to reference the situation acting as someone on the inside of the beltway… which I ain’t. My bad… I liked Pogo, but my favorite was Gary Larson’s ‘The Far Side’. I imagine he could have come up with something appropriate as well.
If memory serves, TOC was initially developed at Boeing with UofW. So there’s that.
Ah yes, but the workforce with the knowledge of the system had a lot of input as to the nature of the constraint. None of that applies here.
Subtracting or adding controllers will not fix the problem.
While I don’t think “Theory of Constraints” will solve the problem, it could help identify it. And I believe, if taken honestly, another 2,000 or even 5,000 additional controllers wouldn’t put a dent in it.
At some point, the system is just not scalable. The model becomes quickly saturated and fails.
And here’s the thing-nobody really wants it “fixed”. To do so, would require an entire re-write of the system and no one really wants to do that.
I could not believe this when I saw it yesterday! Words fail me. I know in my case it was long ago, but I clearly remember sitting at a radar scope at ORD, six mandatory days a week, still working with only 67% staffing, being directed to do it because that was all we had. We sucked it up and actually felt proud of how we were accomplishing it, because “y’all just hang in there. Great job. It is soon to be fixed. Honest”. And of course it never was. One of this memos suggestions is improve time on position. Too much time being wasted. Too much overtime being used. First, this idiot has no idea of how a shift works. It is much more than just sitting at a position. Many other behind the scenes items to accomplish. But if I was NATCA, and I was at one time, I would just say, “ok, we are fixing the overtime use right now. We are never again working any. Have a nice day.” And I could go on and on. Incredible. And this is only 11 months or so since Duffy proclaimed the fix is heading you way to be completed by 2028, which was BS anyhow.
Hi Roger,
Another spot on post. 38 yrs here retired 10 yrs now.Thousands of us say the same thing.Short staffed, combined positions, OT, rotating shift work, Always a fix from mgmt
coming. Staff up the system! hire the best and brightest! Have the instructor jobs OKC be faa positions you could bid on. Nearing 56 or medical issues people, lets use their experience! What are they paying OU contract instructors ? $20 an hour? LOL i could go to taco bell in Ca. and make $25 an hour. This situation keeps geeting worse by the day. More mistakes, more accidents to come. That they came up with cutting 2500 atc slots tells you that the top is clueless. And not to incl NATCA or brief them prior to the dumbell dropping is incredible! Its getting worse not better.
Where is Duffy and all his promises? Bedford, new on the job and has all the answers……I’ve seen the dog and pony show over and over…….
Did I understand correctly that they jobs being cut are unmanned at this time? I thought they said instead of 3,500 in the pipeline they were magically changing that number to 1,500. By ending overtime now, and not expanding the workforce, the work load has to be reduced. Want to bet what an IFR clearance or permission to land at a controlled airport is going to cost in the future?
When traffic is bumper to bumper doing the speed limit on the highway, you don’t fix the problem by putting more police or signs out to control traffic. Saturation is saturation and someone is going to have to be more intelligent than the concrete they are standing on to recognize it. You have to do something to reduce that traffic volume. And something will reduce it sooner or later. Either there will be enough loss of life that people are scared to fly, or else controllers will be so overloaded that someone will start a metering ground stop program to limit traffic.
Jay, after the strike of 1981, master flow control was implemented. Its called the faa command center, located in herndon Va. Staffed by controllers, nws weather, traffic manage ment tmc controllers.
Lots of factors in play, weather, controller staffing at facilities, airport construction,
rwys taxiways avbl, navaid / radar outages, etc. all large towers and radar facilities have local tmc and coord w the master flow unit in herndon. ground stops, metering
and flow times have been around for a long time. small facilities coord w larger tower or radar facilities in their local area, who in turn coord w the command center.
Yes there still is hot spots w rush of arrivals and dept’s , but the controllers always do a great job with minimum req’d seperation.
More controllers is an attempt to fly more airplanes closer together in tighter confines without having too many crashes. The system is already at breaking point and the controllers are already at each others throats in some places. Otherwise usually cool headed controllers are being told to accommodate unreasonable volumes of traffic and it will just bring more people saying stupid stuff like, “how could this crash happen in the safest system in the world?”
Roger’s right. 2028 is a joke. It takes at least 3 years to make a GOOD Tin Pusher after he walks in the door with a GREAT attitude and ABILITY to learn. Recently there have been trainees QUIT (not wash out) saying “our standards are too high” ++ Really … they’re too high …. I don’t think so. HD … go ahead … P.S. Control Tower Operators are another story, I suppose they can check out in less time?
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A “workforce that is currently working six 10-hour shifts a week with plenty of mandatory overtime…” I understand that the general public isn’t particularly aware of this concerning fact, but the idea that the political appointees at the top of the FAA aren’t painfully aware of this massive problem is genuinely alarming. During the last shutdown, I spoke with a controller who had, earlier that day, been in a meeting with Secretary Duffy. The details she relayed left me scratching my head (Duffy was asking about very granular details of their work,) but at least he was there trying to make a show of appearing to understand what was going on. It didn’t click at the time that the fact it was the Secretary of Transportation, not the Administrator of the FAA indicated a problem.
Previous administrations and Congress absolutely deserve blame for failing for years to dramatically increase the number of controllers. But doing anything at this moment other than increasing funding overall, dramatically scaling up to attract and train new, incoming controllers and increasing pay/incentives to retain the existing controllers is obviously stupid.
And something I tend to forget, the total, entire controller workforce, everywhere is always just in the 12K range. That’s nothing at all compared to many of the professions that have many, many times that level. Panic over a few hundred or even thousands more, that money is just a drop in the government bucket. And paying overtime is way less expensive than hiring and training full time employees. That has been shown as true for years. And I heard many times as a sup, “don’t’ be holding anyone over for OT. We are cutting too far into our OT money.” Like that govt money is a different type money.
I haven’t read the plan (it is just Monday morning), but before we go trashing the Theory of Constraints, let’s get a better idea of what it is and isn’t.
First step is to figure out “the goal” of whatever you are trying to do. For businesses, yes, it is to increase how much money you are making. Hopefully with the FAA (like I said, I haven’t read the plan yet, but I will), the goal is to increase the number of aircraft and operations flying safely in the airspace.
The next thing to do is identify the bottleneck. The bottleneck is not a bad thing, it is just the throttle on how much throughput the system can handle. Increasing capacity on anything that isn’t the bottleneck won’t increase throughput. Also, there is never an attempt to eliminate all the bottlenecks. If you were able to get rid of one, like magically hiring another 10,000 controllers, there would be another, like the computer that keeps track of all the scheduled flights. In any case, whatever the bottleneck is gets identified, because that is what sets the limit on the entire system – how many safe operations can be handled.
The next step after that actually isn’t to throw more money at the bottleneck, it is to get rid of everything the bottleneck is doing that could be done by someone/something else that isn’t the bottleneck. If the bottleneck is the number of controllers, for example, then changing things so that they don’t need to spend their time reading clearances to pilots and verifying the read backs would give them more time to do the critical things that only trained controllers can do. Those other things would be done by non-controllers who spend much less time in training or by sending the information to the airplane’s flight computers digitally.
After stripping away the stuff the bottleneck doesn’t need to be doing, that’s when you throw more resources (more people, more technology, more training, etc.) at whatever the bottleneck is, but you will need less of those resources now because the bottleneck is only doing the critical stuff.
And the continuous improvement part of all of this is that the entire system is being reviewed to make sure that what was the bottleneck still is. If it was the scheduling computer and that gets improved so that it can handle twice as many flights, it is likely that the bottleneck has moved to something else, like the number of controllers or even the number of airports. That new thing then becomes the focus of improvement.
Anyway, I don’t know yet if the plan actually matches the Theory of Constraints, but *if* it does, then it won’t be a “fewer people must just work harder” plan. If it is a “fewer people must work harder” plan, then it ain’t really T.O.C.
I forgot to mention it but someone else has, the plan only works when the people implementing the plan are also involved in developing it. It’s all worthless if it comes only from outside consultants, no matter how good they are, and doesn’t resolve the pain points from the people impacted. Any solution will also need to know what is actually happening now, not just what should be or what some people think is happening, and that only happens by including those impacted.
Sure, reduce the number of ATC, because …. nope, don’t see it at all. Not even applying TOC which generally is applied to none human systems (pre Russ’s agitator swap).
The system is broke, but not because of ATC< but because the FAA keeps allowing airlines to add slots to airports then schedule them in a manner that benefits their sales, not safety. Just doing a generic napkin calculation, average time between airplanes on a runway is @ 3 mins (plus/minus based on specifics). That 20 in an hour, 480 in 24 hour period if planes where scheduled to leave/arrive throughout a 24 period. We know they are not.
Instead, airlines pack the morning/evening times so flight A/Ds are stacked way back then poof, a short break, rinse and repeat. Airliner profits demand that aviation be run like a machine at 100%, when it does not have the capacity nor is meant to run that way.
If we applied TOC we would not remove ATC, we (FAA) would require airlines to spread out their flight times across the full day. People complain? F em, they will always complain, but they will fly. Either that or reduce slots so the system runes at less than 100% capacity to then adjust for dynamic situations of weather or flight emergency impacting runway access.
I am all for technology changes to improve ATC and flight safety in general, getting rid of people is not a viable solution. Reducing time between planes is not a viable solution. You cannot TOC around time and physics.
Duffy and Bedford were just lying their asses off saying they'd have this fixed by 2028. I cannot tell if who is currently running the show are idiots, incompetents, or spoiled children
In this case the constraint is “not enough humans to staff the facilities.” Not quite sure how reducing the number of humans solves that constraint, but then I didn’t go to business school to learn theories that I could apply to abstract situations in the real world while sitting in my cubicle.
Russ,
I very much agree but with one slight departure. The politicization of FAA/ATC isn’t starting, but evolving. The politicization started when Regan canned PATCO.
Russ….H.L Mencken famously said, “ For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.” Your commentary sums it up nicely. Too many in management seem to think that training a full performance controller only takes 6 months to a year. Typically, it will take about three years, even with an adept trainee.
I will respectfully take issue, however, that we have come up with new ways to crash aircraft. At least, I haven’t come across it.
America hasn’t come up with new ways to crash aircraft, it is simply discovering what happens when traffic limits are pushed and too many inexperienced and moderately experienced people assume too much that just ain’t so.
The theory of constraints is right out of the playbook of Kamala Harris. If she were elected president this is exactly the kind of “help” we could expect from her and her administration. “Just fix it”. Easy Peasy.
Less controllers for the same amount of work with the same level of safety sounds like a recipe for delays and missed flights if you ask me, from a business standpoint?
Yes, as soon as there are enough fatalities to make people take the traffic volume problem seriously and begin metering the traffic down to workable levels. And where are all those young gamers they were going to hire to become air traffic controllers?
As I read it, the plan is to reduce off-scope time during shifts so fewer controllers are needed each shift. But they say they will not reduce the off-scope duties the controllers must perform each shift. Only way I see to do that is to reduce bathroom and coffee breaks. We’ll see how that flies with the union. Maybe they’re going to put coffee dispensers at the work stations and issue Depends.
Applying the Theory of Constraints may or may not be a path to a safer airspace. I do know there are an unacceptable number of runway incursions and airborne near misses. As to required number of ATC folks, more might be a short term band-aid but not a long term solution. The NATCA will dispute that but they have an entirely different agenda. (Union Growth) A system not so dependent upon voice communications, with all its attendant issues, is part of the solution. As to “Theory of Constraints”: Yeh we should be wary of the “Theory” du jour but a system replacement is long past due.
First thing I had to check was the published date of your article Russ. I thought this was a pretty cruel April Fools joke, but it isn’t. I can’t wait to see how the 121s and turbine GA react when they begin to understand they are going to be capacity limited even more, going forward. Non-turbine GA is going to be constrained also but I expect we’ll see a lot more NOFP/VFR and small strip traffic.
Sure they will be unhappy. The money spent on ADS-B out was supposed to enable increased traffic volume, by reducing separation. That was the sales job the FAA used to get airplane owners to equip. I guess that was just another government boondoggle!
If the ToC is accurately applied, the constraint would be found to be airline scheduling. This is a battle I fought (and lost) as a TMC (Traffic Management Coordinator — flow control) at LAX. The rules state pretty clearly that we aren’t supposed to have more than one aircraft on the runway at a time. Nonetheless, there are times of the day when there will be a couple of dozen flights from completing airlines all scheduled at exactly the same time. The enroute environment faces the same problem. There should only be one aircraft at a given point in space at any given altitude at a time. To manage that, we have to run flow control programs no just for runways, but waypoints as well. The “bad old days” of regulation are starting to look pretty good . . .
CV. I hired in ZLA , Feb ‘68. I guess about a year later, ZLA established the first flow control position. Didn’t have much to work with back then. But I clearly remember him, Chuck Spellman, a super nice guy. And he owned an Italian deli in Palmdale. About 10 am he would come around to the sectors and take orders for Italian subs. He would phone it in to his wife and she would deliver about an hour later. Delicious! And his Canola was outstanding. So long ago but such good memories.
I think the first thing we need to remember is that this report was written in “Washington” speak. Remember, if taxes are planned to go up 10%, and later congress amends the law so that taxes go up only 5%, then congress calls that a “tax cut”.
Bedford didn’t say we need to cut the existing workforce. What he said, according to this article, is that instead of needing 3500 additional controllers, we only need 1500 additional controllers. The total number is still going up, just not as much. And given that over the past year I’ve seen everything from needing 3500 additional controllers, to needing just 2000 additional controllers, I think there is some funny math going on anyway.
AND…consider what happened in Chicago for the summer. Airlines wanted to up the number of flights to unrealistic levels. The airlines didn’t care how many controllers would be needed, and I would guess that when United was adding their flights they didn’t say, “Well, we need to make sure our numbers reflect that American has flights, too.” Of course not. United acted like the gorilla in the room and said, “If they have to dedicate every air traffic controller just to United’s flights, so be it.” And then American did the same thing. And the result was that the FAA stepped in and said, “Nope.”
As others have said, if Bedford and Duffy and company are looking at the system and saying, “Here’s the maximum number of flights we can handle with the upgrades we actually have money to pay for,” and then did the math to figure out how many controllers they needed, it may well come out to just adding 1500 additional headcount.
Because that extra capacity that would come from getting another $20 billion out of congress is far from a slam dunk. If one side wants it, the other side will fight it, period, full stop. “Bipartisan” is just a word in DC, it really doesn’t mean anything except for the optics. The real meaning is, “I got mine, tough luck for you…”
So until we know the presumptions upon which the FAA now says they only need to add 1500 additional controllers, I think it is too early to tell what this really means.
Hi Ken, et.al., In 1990 we were told that radar controller (at least) hiring was going to slow down because of the rise in computers … our new guys (gals) would ONLY be monitoring ‘crossing points’ if there were to be a tie. We laughed then and realized that couldn’t work there was ONE hole in a 1000 mile line of WX up to FL440. When I retired, we were 65 short and the only leave we could get was “prime-time” – and that was it for the last 8 or 9 years. Two months after I left, the authorized staffing was cut by 35 (IIRC) so they were only 30 short of authorized … trainees were getting checked out on one or two “easy” sectors and not being trained anymore. Loved the job, hated 10 hour days.
Could this be setting us up for another run at privatization by making things so bad that privatization seems good….
Now you’re starting to see the light. “This is too broke; we can’t fix it. Time to hand it off to our friends at Raytheon/Lockheed Martin/SAIC/Boeing/Oracle.” Two weeks to flatten your freedom to travel.
Was TOC invented by someone who knew something about aviation? Asking for a friend.
Deregulation was a Congressionally approved program intent on giving everyone a seat on a plane previously too expensive for common folk.
That changed. But airspace failed to expand around that ideology and what we have today is the result.
As much as I hate the idea, regulate until the traffic fits the model, while improvements are thoroughly vetted.
If you look at Flight Aware, you will see that the system, enroute is fairly full most of the time. We’ve got that part of the system pretty well figured out, we being ATC. But as all those masses that you are watching approach their destination, if they wish to land, they’ve got to start slowing and get in line with each other. Like bees returning to the bee hive. Only one at a time through the hole. Now how much they must slow and get in a line depends on the airport and basically the weather, and of course how many runways available. And don’t forget that for each arrival, there must be a departure, or no gates when you get there. How much space? As someone mentioned, about 40 per hour. Now that doesn’t consider size and types, some three miles, some five or six between each aircraft. Some airports only one arrival and some a few more. When I was at ORD some years ago, ORD could pack them in there like nobody else. Or at least we thought so.
This is old memory but as I recall, ORD on a good weather day put about 80 arrivals on the airport each hour, and that’s while letting about 80 departures get out of ORD at the same time. And let’s not forget two other sectors handling all the MDW traffic coming and going that had to be worked up and down between the ORD stuff.
Now back to ORD. When weather and winds were absolutely perfect, and the tower would let us radar folks do so, they could slow the departures off the airport and let us use a third runway for arrivals, of course converging. With that now, we considered 105 arrivals could be handled, if the world was perfect at that moment. Now, back to only arriving the usual 80 per hour. If the vis dropped and we had to run simultaneous ILS, we now needed two additional controllers back from break go run ILS monitor scopes. Sometimes our Chief would do one. Andy was a super nice guy and had been at ORD forever. If rain or of course snow became a factor, now each runway capacity dropped to about 20 each hour. As snow gets worse and snow plows have to clear one runway at a time, because of braking action on our remaining runway, 40 landings dropping quickly as the slick accumulated again. But do the airplanes go away, no. Same scheduled amount. Do we all just get to take more breaks, no. We would now be having to hold three or four outer fixes to help center while they held some, and it backed up across the system. Eventually, aircraft could barely get off a runway without sliding off, while the plows worked faster.
I could go on and on with the many factors that affected the ORD operation from day to day. And controllers from other airports can do the same. Oh, and this is all with six day weeks for years. So if on some really nice days, this small group of controllers, 67% required staffing, get some extra time in the break room, let them. Because the wisdom recently announced just does not have THE BIG FLICK when it comes to this mysterious ATC career field. I do however, 38 years at six different facilities including the Super Bowl of activity, ORD. Oh, I also have all pilot ratings except an ATP. Been doing that since HS.
Many years ago. Many other controllers are also as experienced. We do have the BIG FLICK. But we’ve heard BS for sooo many years, that is now all we consider it.
Sorry folks. Got a little carried away as I sip my WT101 here. AK
Many of us from those days can remember flying in to busy hubs in a 182 just for the fun of fitting in. I’m not sure they liked it but they were always professional.
I miss those days and absolutely hate the risks assumed now.
Everybody forgets “somebody has to break the ties” Before I went to a (then) LV. 5 TRACON, I worked several years at ZAB and usually by 9AM MST we were having to start lining up ORD 10 MIT RAL traffic at PRESCOTT AZ . This was 30+ years ago. It “ain’t” changed … too many planes hitting the same feeder fix at the same time otherwise.
Hank. As I reflect back, it just amazes me we made all that work. I can remember riding jump seat off OKC going back to ORD. We weren’t 100 miles north of OKC before we got a speed restriction and a turn west bound. Already getting lined up for ORD. And yes, at least 30 years ago.
“And how will the need for these 2,000 folks disappear as traffic congestion reaches saturation levels throughout the National Airspace System and burned-out controllers, pilots, and other aviation workers inevitably make more mistakes? ”
The assumption is we WILL saturation levels throughout the National Airspace System at some time in the future. It appears we might have reached that point in 2025. We had and have plenty of burned out controllers, pilots, and other aviation workers contributing to all sorts of mistakes. These “inevitable” mistakes are providing all sorts of accidents, incidences, and passenger temper tantrums for the ever expanding You Tube influencers to prognosticate about.
However, I believe that our 2025 through the present time ATC saturation from airline congestion issues, corporate/GA accidents, incidences, the plethora of training issues from the pilot puppy mills, and the military blunders mixed in, etc. will drastically be curtailed in very short order. Why? Ridiculous present fuel costs, rising beyond the present ridiculous costs, followed with little to no fuel availability, with many more “Spirit Airline” bankruptcies. Add to this recipe, one after another of suicidal, US economic decisions, driven by wars of choice, no manufacturing ability to make anything economically exportable, absolutely no military manufacturing surge capacity to replenish defense systems already used up (even thought they don’t work particularly well), stir in a Congress who can only open another useless hearing to “demand” answers, mix in a present President whose diplomacy is using profanity to threaten folks who we attacked with destruction, boil with social media influencers with new ‘bombshell” political rhetoric, and top off with 90% of the people not having a $1,000 dollars for an emergency.
Ya think those 90% will be traveling a lot in the next six months? I don’t. And GA flying with $10-$15 gallon avgas and the trip to the airport at $8 dollar a gallon autofuel? How about all the supply chain issues just getting an aviation oil filter…and oil for the next oil change, for example? If the all the global military conflicts stopped today, we will NEVER get back to pre-2/28/26 business status quo. The US citizen is about to get a huge wake up about what its like to be under economic sanction we so generously applied to virtually every government on the planet since Bretton-Wood. And flying will be one of the first “sacrifices” to the WAR GOD(s) in DC.
You tell ’em, Russ. Nail head meets hammer.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t terrifying.
BTW, I think it’s “duesy.”
Russ’ doozy is correct for the context. Your duesy is an offshoot of a Duesenberg and means finest of its kind.
NGL. This does not make any difference. They’re still 1500 people short. It is better to have someone actually get 1500 new staff than not get an extra 4000 staff.