Pilot and Controller Shortages …
… are all over the news, and it would appear we are an industry at a crossroad. With pilots, the answer lies in getting new trained bodies into the cockpit; with controllers, the answer lies in technology. However, in both instances, one has to wonder how much the aviation industry is competing with a world of technology in which new gadgets, new games, and new millionaires are the attraction.
The business of finding new pilots, of course, has changed within a generation. Time was, the military fed the system. Then came the G.I. Bill of the 1970s which brought a new influx of pilots from the Vietnam veterans ranks. Since that time, the industry in the U.S. has seen a multitude of small flight training firms depart, many driven away by skyrocketing insurance rates. Today, it is the university system in this country that has become the major feeder for the system.
An article this week in The Wall Street Journal says the shortage of pilots is worldwide, and reports that airlines are staffing their cockpits by reducing the number of hours required of new hires. Other recent reports show that the increasing demand for pilots from the surging aviation industry in China and India is having an impact. Then there’s the boom in U.S. FAR Part 135 charter activity and the ongoing robust state of corporate aviation – two traditional feeders of the airline network have an increasing demand of their own.
Regarding controllers, the picture is fuzzier because new technology offers great promise to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, the need for humans. Muddying the picture is the fact that the union that represents FAA controllers, NATCA, wants to blame every ill of the system on a shortage of controllers. And, they’re still brewing over former FAA Administrator Blakey’s tough bargaining stance the last time the agency and NATCA negotiated the controllers’ contract.
Case in point: the recent report by the Government Accountability Office on airfield incursions that was highly critical of FAA’s management of the problem. The NATCA response from its president, Patrick Forrey, states, “This report provides yet another credible, compelling, and clear link between safety and controller fatigue, which is caused by staffing shortages and longer hours on the job. My question today is, how much more do we have to hear before the FAA is held accountable for the blatant disregard for safety it is showing by understaffing its facilities, working controllers past their breaking points, and refusing to work with us to settle an ongoing contract negotiating impasse that has created the largest mass exodus of both veteran controllers and trainees we have seen since 1981?” In fact, NATCA, with bitter taste still in its mouth, is opposing the nomination of Bobby Sturgell as Blakey’s replacement primarily because of his involvement with the last negotiating round.
Yet, when it comes to a controller shortage, FAA’s posture is that it’s aware of the issue and is addressing it. In a September 30 press release it states that FAA has exceeded its air traffic controller staffing targets by hiring more than 1,800 controllers during FY07, topping the 2006 year-end total by 256 controllers. As a result, the agency now employs 14,874 controllers. “We’re getting a lot of enthusiastic new recruits who are interested in becoming air traffic controllers,’ says Acting Administrator Sturgell. “Controller hiring, training, and staffing is a major priority and we are on track to meet future traffic needs.”
With pilots, the answer is clear – attract new students for a system that has a clearly identifiable need. With controllers, the modernization of the ATC system via NextGen will bring a system that’s not so heavily reliant on the human factor. NATCA refuses to accept this reality. It doesn’t help that the two bulls in this ring, FAA and NATCA, continue to butt heads rather than try to take a measured and joint approach to the reality of the need.
Thanks for reading. jfi
You all are correct. I retract everything I wrote, and apologize profusely. I am hereby submitting my resignation to this organization.
With a little google research i found out that out of the 1800 trainees hired last year, only 40 are certified. Over 850 retired last year. Do the math.
It’s laughable that the FAA or any news source purports the hiring of “new” off-the-street or former military air traffic controllers to be a solution to the controller staffing crisis.
Imagine that you are managing an airline with 15,000 pilots, 4,500 of which are either retired or may immediately retire, and you hire less than 2,000 zero flight time potential pilot trainees off the street to replace them.
It will take years to train these new pilots up to ATP standards before you can even turn them loose on the line and many have never even ridden in an airplane and don’t even stand a chance of obtaining a pilot certificate.
Add to all this that you have a very limited number of flight simulators and training aircraft and you cannot mathematically find the time to accomplish the required training. “Whatchya gonna do?”
The FAA and your answer to the controller staffing crisis is that someone, somewhere, will create a magical technoligical solution out of thin air, where there isn’t anything today.
I hope magic works quickly, because the FAA is failing.
Okay John, Answer the FAA Follies.com’s challenge. You may have to eat a little crow but it’ll make you a better more informed reporter.
OW!
So far all the comments posted seem to be in agreement.
I am not a controller, just a GA with “L” plates, but would love an unbiased but well researched follow up to see where the truth lies.
From what I have read so far, and throwing in the recent NASA “report” … I think I will leave any air travel to the “Good Ol’ USA” off the menu for a while and stick to little Ol’ NZ
The Job Applicants that the FAA hires are not controllers. Teaching new hires how to separate aircraft and dealing with inflight emergencys is not like teaching someone how to clean toilets or shampoo carpets. NEXGEN, satelite based radar or ground base d radar, the aircraft are still in ths same position. Unless the FAA is going to reduce landing separation minima including wake turbulence minima, how will it increase airport capacity. Technology does’nt always equate to increased efficiency, especially when dealing with variables such as weather changes, aircraft equipment malfunctions, medical emergencies
I suggest you investigate:
(a) The stage at which decision-making tools are, for air traffic control. You might be unpleasantly surprised how little these items actually do for the customer, either at a sector or in a cockpit.
(b) The number of employees with a 2152 designator who actually are fully certified in their respective facilities, compared to five years ago. Five years from now, take a second look at the number.
I think you need to write another article.. This time stating that you forgot to include facts, documents, or any information from future, current, or past controllers. You Sir, should be ashamed.
Well, I’ve been waiting to see if you had the huevos to answer your critics but “surprise!” no response. Did you do any work at all or do you just put your name on any press release propaganda that they put in front of you? Check out John Carr’s “The Main Bang”, do your job, have some pride man!
Just to provide real facts to augment the speculative fiction this editorial item provides.
1. Former FAA Administrator Blakey did not use a “tough bargaining stance.” She walked away from the bargaining and refused to negotiate.
2. Just because the FAA says they are addressing the controller shortages, it does not mean they are actually doing it. Staffing at every facility I am associated with is at its lowest point in 25 years. Most facilities are unable to call in overtime to staff the shortages because there are not enough people left to call. Many facilities have cut hours or services or both. Just because a press release says its so, doesn’t make it so. Some light research should have been done to find what is really happening.
3. Many of the “new recruits” are hired as part of a military veteran reassignment program. Many are already near the mandatory retirement age of 56 and while some have waivers to extend their careers, many just want to get out as soon as possible. The most these enthusiastic will contribute to the air traffic control system is five years and then the FAA will be back in the same staffing mess as before.
This editorial relates only half truths to make a point and honestly does a disservice to the aviation industry and the safety of the flying public.
Whooo John. I think you been drinking some of that Kool-Aid bud.
As I said in a post last week, the FAA can talk til the cows come home about what they’re doing to solve the problem.
It’s not simply a matter of numbers as someone pointed out a bit ago. FAA is hiring trainees.
Why not ask how many of those 1800 hired will NEVER become rated controllers? The number is higher than you might think.
But in the end, the result is what counts. If you’re forcing people to work six day weeks and or 10 hour days, something is wrong.
Except for a short stint during the mid 90s when it looked as if controller / management relations were improving, there have NEVER been enough bodies for the job.
NexGen is also a red herring. It doesn’t even exist yet, if it ever will.
Like it or not the ATC folks are the answer for now and there simply are not enough around right now to be of any help.
By the way, “technology that will eliminate the need for controller’s” !!! You be better off getting some magic beans…
John,
My name is John Carr. I am the immediate past president of NATCA. I served two consecutive three year terms, ending on September 1, 2006. I retired from the FAA on February 3, 2007 on the first day of my eligiblity at the age of 47. I could have legally controlled another nine years. I chose to collect the annuity and stay home instead.
All of your correspondents are on point. I won’t restate their positions.
If you have any interest in the truth, you can do one of two things:
1. Research. Call me. My cell is 440-986-0242. email me. john@teamcarr.org
2. Visit my blog, The Main Bang, at http://www.themainbang.typepad.com
I have been writing it every day for two years. That’s something like seven hundred stories of FAA malfeasance, neglect, danger, idiocy and mendacity. You are welcome to any of them. They are heavily researched and unrefuted in any forum.
Best personal regards,
John S. Carr
Immediate Past President, NATCA
Air Traffic Controller, Retired
Author, “The Main Bang”
http://www.themainbang.typepad.com
I will second the request for you to follow up this story with a response to our replies. You seem to be a fair minded but misguided gentleman. Do some digging, look under the FAA’s carpet, open some closet doors, ask a CONTROLLER! Don’t just take the FAA’s word on this. Please!
I wonder if you will have the courage to do your homework and then respond to your critics, as a now retired controller I agree with all of them. You sir, are a very gullible fool if you actually believe what you wrote.
The political appointees who run the FAA don’t understand how the job is performed and can’t distinguish between experienced controllers leaving within a year, and incoming replacements that will take 3 to 5 years to train. I guess we can’t expect you to figure it out either.
I’ve been informed by a friend in the media that if you want a story, with a particular slant, to receive media attention, you need to do the background work, write the article or news release, and usually some reporter/newsperson will pick it up, sign their name, and it becomes news. It seems to me that the FAA must have sent you the information that they wanted printed! Far be it from me to expect you to investigate the facts for an article, that is passed off as factual!
If Bobby is hiring controllers off the streets, then except for your age, you could be one of those ‘controllers’. I offer you this opportunity. You are welcome to come to my facility, strap on a headset and ‘control’. Anybody can do it, right? And with all of this new technology, they won’t be needing us in the near future, right? After you’re done with your stint as an ATC, let me be a doctor, give me a scapel and I’ll see how I do seperating the handset from your hand…(I could have used a different analogy here, but I’m trying to be civil)
Yes, there are planes flying with a pilot that is on the ground. Did you read about the one that crashed because the pilot’s computer position froze and when he moved to the next position, the engine of the airplane turned off? Plane crash! Personally, if I’m on the airplane, riding in the back with the other human cattle, I want a real pilot in the cockpit, not on the ground. If the pilot is on the plane, he has a more heavily vested interest in the safe flight of said airplane. Don’t want to hear “Doh, lost another one”.
If you do this writing/reporting thing for a living, do the research, check the facts, talk to the people who actually DO the job. Would you go to Ford management to get the real scope on a safety design flaw in one of their vehicles? Why then would you actually believe what the FAA says, especially when it’s “We’ve exceeded our hiring goals for air traffic controllers” and my personal favorite “Safety was never compromised”! They have an inherent desire to show that they’re doing their jobs, and that the NAS is safe. By admitting that, not only did they not bargain in good faith, controllers are retiring faster than expected, trainees are quitting and washing out at higher rates than ever before, more overtime is being used than in the previous ten years, I could go on, but if they admitted to any of it, then they’d be admitting that they royally screwed up the airspace over the U.S.A. and put everyone flying and on the ground in harm’s way. Did you really think they’d admit to that?
[…] Original post by John F. Infanger […]
Your article was horrible. Have you ever attended any type of journalism classes ? Obviously you missed the classes that taught about INVESTIGATION !I’m FAA Management, and what your reading in these responses is true and correct. These controllers really got the wrong end of the stick. I’m ashamed that my management team (THE FAA) actually did what they did to these hard working intelligent Air Traffic Controllers.
I’ve never seen nor heard of a Management Team from any organization that showed so much disdain for a group of workers. What was handed down to the Controller work force was nothing but a Political Power SCREWING ! I am a Republican, but I will forever vote Democrat because of what this Republican Administration has shown me what they are really about.
As for the new trainees coming into the FAA, well I suggest you look for another line of work. I would not stay for a minute knowing what I know right now. Let your college degree’s open other aviation doors that will gain you mutual respect. I’m watching nothing but Political Appointments, and folks being placed above their ability in positions that could make all the difference.
Ask one of the air traffic control trainees who obtained a degree in ATC at ERAU what they think of their employer. Ask them how they feel after the FAA and ERAU essentially promised them a rewarding career as an air traffic controller for good wages and benefits, only to change their starting wage to 8 dollars and change per hour. You read that right! Then place them in an area of the country with absurd costs of living ( think any major city) for $31,000 and change per year and expect them to be happy about it? Please! You can and should do better. Step away from the business first mindset and ask your friendly neighborhood controller to give you the straight scoop. We won’t steer you wrong! Things are going to get much much worse. It’s up to the FAA to start bailing, because the ship is sinking fast. Smoke and mirrors, and promises of whiz-bang gadgets for the future won’t get you home safely, ATC will.
John;
I have 31+ years in aviation, both crew and as a controller.
Where did you get your qualifications to post such 3rd grade “research”?
Maybe, just maybe you should get off the computer and actually get out and meet with pilots and controllers. Guess that would be too much like doing a reporters “job”. Anyway, good luck with your sought after job with all the other spinners. I can hardly wait for your explanation of the probible loss of life.
Lazy POC.
Shame on you, you should have done some research prior to writing this piece, if you had you would have realized that the majority of NextGen is nothing but an idea on paper. That right, nothing but an idea, no working models, no testing of a model,and it has issues that they have not addressed. Going to a satellite system with no radar back-ups and no discussion on how they will handle solar storms/flares. This is a problem for any satellite in orbit now and many companies will shut down the satellite to avoid damage that can occur during these storms–can’t do that with the sky full of planes. Also as it was mentioned the government does not do anything right away so the system is 20+ years down the road–if they can develop a working system. Also this isn’t a story about 2 bulls who can’t see eye to eye it is a story about an employer (FAA) who refuses to discuss or negotiate on matters, whether it is a contract or safety issues. Just for the record the union (NATCA) was the only party making concessions in contract talks and the FAA never moved and ceased talks and had their last offer delivered to Congress within a couple of hours after this, right before Congress left on an extended break, they planned it.
The FAA was warned for years about the controller retirement but they needed to impose their new pay structure first, so they delayed it. Now we have have veteran controllers, like myself, leaving the minute we become eligible. That’s right we would rather walk away from our current salaries rather than continue to work for an Agency that is destroying a job that we dearly love. They now have numerous facilities working 10 hour days and 6 day workweeks. A controller’s job can be mentally draining and we need recharge time to fully do our jobs. The workforce is tired and the GAO recognizes this. Sadly, when or if, something really bad happens no one in the FAA will be held accountable. Instead they will do a Marion and take other cushy jobs in the outside sector. Safety should be the FAA’s number one concern and instead it is the bottom $$ line.
Some of the above comments are right on target. The notion that the 1800 people who were hired in the past fiscal year by the FAA are “controllers” is ridiculous to anyone who’s actually done air traffic control for a living.
In my area, at Seattle Center, the other day we had 9 control positions staffed. Of those, 6 had trainees plugged in with instructors; the instructors are responsible for the safe operation of the position while the OJT occurs.
The instructors had, on average, just over 20 years of experience. The trainees had an average of 8 months in the FAA. (And yes, I sat there with a notepad and figured this all out.)
That means we had over 120 years of ATC experience guiding 4 years of experience. None of the trainees were able to work the position alone- but those folks are in the 1800 that the FAA claims are the “controllers” that they hired.
Of the instructors, a few are eligible to retire right now. The one that had the longest to go until retirement eligibility, me, has just over 8 years; the average time to retirement eligibility was 3.5 years.
So to review- the trainees can’t work the positions alone. The instructors, if the FAA continues on its present path, will almsot all be gone in 3 to 5 years.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand how this shakes out.
What’s more, let’s look at the other main assumption in your post. You claim that when it comes to the aircraft end of the equation, we need a lot more pilots, but at the ATC end, automation can replace the humans.
Yet right now, today, the state of technology is such that aircraft are capable of taking off, flying enroute, and landing without a human being involved at the controls. Autoland technology has been around for decades. This has been tested and shown now.
On the flip side, no system has yet been tested (or even designed) that can actually take over the role of ATC.
The closest thing to a true conflict probe, URET, does have some automation capabilities, but no controller seriously allows the URET to run their sector. In fact, they can’t, because URET cannot suggest courses of action to resolve conflicts; it only does a mediocre job of identifying them (it misses some and gives false alerts to other situatiosn) in the first place.
So based on the state of technology today, I find it very curious that you assert that in the cockpit we need more humans but in ATC we need fewer. It’s not based on reality.
Finally, the entire LMR issue. It’s not just a union thing. The B scale for the new hires (who were made to go obtain expensive, timely college degrees for ATC to become eligible to be hired by the FAA) is anywhere from 30 to 50 percent less than the pay scale they were originally led to believe they would get.
The pay of existing controllers wasn’t just held down by a “tough negotiating stance”- it was CUT. And the “negotiations” were a joke; when one party can implement whatever they want and the other party has no recourse (in fact, the union membership could be prosecuted for even talking about a strike, let alone undertaking one) it’s certainly not a “tough but fair” negotiation.
The GAO report proves there is a controller shortage. It’s going to get worse. Many controllers worked hundreds of hours of overtime last year. OT useage is skyrocketing. Most facilities work with far fewer controllers than they previously had. Error rates are rising. Runway incursions and on- or near-airport errors are happening at the same rate, or more.
Everything Pat Forrey said in the NATCA press release is true and backed up by the GAO report. It DID say that there aren’t enough controllers. The GAO and NTSB have repeatedly identified staffing, overtime and proper rest periods for controllers as issues they are worried about in a safety context.
Forrey didn’t mention the other factors in the GAO report, true… but why would he? He’s the controllers union President. It’s not his job to put out a press release saying “controller shortages were identified by the GAO, along with delayed equipment upgrades and better signage at the airport blah blah blah”.
The last note… the technology solution for ATC is still YEARS away, at best. One of the most crucial tools needed is datalink, yet the FAA does not have a working datalink tool for normal use (the datalink for oceanic flights isn’t robust enough).
No datalink tests are ongoing (one was, but it was cancelled). The union has been specifically disinvited BY the FAA from work on new technologies. At best, a true datalink solution is at least 4 to 7 years from initial implementation, and given the s-l-o-w speeds that operators implement new, expensive technology, full implementation of datalink is at least 10 years away.
Ten years is almost half of a controller’s career. Even if we fully committed to the project, we’ve got a decade of time when automation and technology give us absolutely nothing, a decade when we’re still as reliant upon the human being working an ATC position as we’ve ever been.
This is just a single example of how the “technology will save us” promise is full of holes. While we definitely need to develop new, better technology to aid ATC, the fact is that RIGHT NOW we need controllers. We need incentives to stop those controllers who’re presently eligible to retire from doing so. We need to fix the environment that we’re hiring the new folks into (they’re coming into the FAA and then quitting in record high numbers).
NATCA stands ready to work on all of these things. Our union has been ready to do this for the past several years.
Please reconsider your approach. The methods and course you advocate in this post are exactly what we’ve been doing over the past few years, and it’s brought us the record year for delays with no end in sight. Do you really think staying this course is logical?
Ok…I see your anti-union stance. It’s kind of hard to miss. But have you done any fact-checking before you sat down at the keyboard? I’m thinking not.
I can’t address the pilot issues. I’m not a pilot. But I AM a controller with almost 21 years of experience….the FAA did NOT hire 1800 controllers during FY2007. They hired 1800 TRAINEES, who are not certified to do ANYTHING on their own. Out of those 1800 TRAINEES hired, hundreds have quit, even MORE have been ‘washed out’ because not just anyone can do ATC. Also, in that time frame upwards of 800 (if not more) VETERAN air traffic controllers have retired. Do the investigation. Do the math. Hellen Keller could see the problem.
Simply because the GAO report echos almost verbatim NATCA’s concerns is reason to discount it or the union?
Here’s something you need to understand: NATCA is made up of people that are unlike most other employees or unions out there. NATCA and the air traffic controllers they represent truly CARE about their job, the passengers under their care, and the future of aviation safety. Over and above all else, we do our jobs FIRST and worry about everything else later. We have to. Those jets moving 500 mph aren’t going to ‘wait’ for us to get a contract or get adequate staffing, etc. We are the opposite end of the spectrum from your average DMV worker. We’re the ones who do what’s necessary DESPITE our inept management and our corrupt HQ directives. It sounds trite, but we CARE. If we didn’t, we’d be paralyzed in fear over the disaster that a misspoken word could bring.
So please, do the research before you label ATC and NATCA a bad thing. Just because no one but us and the GAO seem to care about the situation doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Oh, and one more thing. NEXTGEN (the ‘new’ technology in ATC) isn’t even off the drawing board. It’s 25 years away. Good luck finding me a computer program that can respond to the dynamics of a pilot in turbulence or severe icing or that needs immediate help because of a decompression or engine-out……but until you DO find such a program, perhaps you should consider what’s going on TODAY and not what might happen 25 years from now.
Your article points in the correct direction, however, you are missing the huge point as to why there is a pilot shortage. It has nothing to do with pilot/controller relations, or the addition of new air transport carriers. Simply recruiting new pilots is not that simple at all. The ‘pilot’ job as a profession itself has become totally and entirely undesirable because of the modern airline industry. Nobody wants to become pilots these days because the astronomical costs associated with flight training and the minimal payout you will receieve once you enter the industry. You will work absurb schedules for an even more absurd paycheck. Very few college graduates want to join a regional airline that will pay them 18,000 dollars a year and give them a schedule that reduces their quality of life to nothing. Being a pilot is no longer a glamorous job that many envisioned. Not that glamour is important, but it provides a vision of an incredible job that aviation enthusiasts pursuit. Many like me entered this industry for the love of flying, however, you have to ask yourself, how much will I sacrafice to pursuit this career. Everytime a new startup airline like Skybus or Virgin America enters the industry, airlines payscales drop to all time lows because company execs now realize that you can pay a type rated captain of a 160 passenger jet 50,000 a year, because people out there will work for it. Some people out there may argue with my point by stating that FedEx captains make $250,000 a year, but my question to them is how few and far between are these jobs. People will not want to become pilots until the industry does something to change the perspective that airline pilots are nothing but underpaid truck drivers, which is pretty close to the truth these days.
Doctors don’t go to med school, students do. Lawyers don’t go to law school, students do. ATC’s don’t go to ATC school student do. So, how many ATC’s did the FAA hire last year? How many did they lose? Those are the real questions. We all know how they got here, what we need is somone to convince the FAA that they need to be lead dog and get them out of this quagmiere before a thin pink mist is followed by aluminum showers.
You are another example of a reporter that laps up what the FAA’s spin doctors put out instead of investigating and finding the truth. You publishing their spin is irresponsible and diminishes YOU from creditable to ignorant.
I take exception to the fact you published “As a result, the agency now employs 14,874 controllers. ” These new “Controllers” are no more controllers than the people in flight school are pilots. These are controller trainees and will need 3 to 5 years to become controllers. Did you make that distinction in your article? People who don’t know any better (and YOU SHOULD)would believe the spin you post.