I am sure the attempts of hiring for government jobs will go well, after all the indiscriminate firings experienced by many government agencies thanks to the DOGE and company.
One of the biggest problems with ATC hiring is that location assignments happen after trainees pass the academy. A lot of the academy graduates quit when they get an assignment they don't like. It's not like the military where they can force people. The trainee pay also sucks so the prospect of getting sent somewhere undesirable and then barely being able to afford it just isn't attractive. If they would hire based on location like they used to graduates wouldn't quit as often.
The other big problem is Obama changed the hiring test from testing intelligence to testing personality in a bid to increase diversity. There was a lawsuit over this. The effect was academy failure rates soared and because class sizes are fixed there was a shortfall in the number of graduates making it to towers to train.
> The other big problem is Obama changed the hiring test from testing intelligence to testing personality in a bid to increase diversity. There was a lawsuit over this.
It was even worse than that. What they actually did was write up a phony “personality test” and distribute the answer key to applicants who were members of preferred racial organizations.
Another problem you haven't mentioned is the level of union control in the industry. Which is great as far as protecting jobs and salaries for existing controllers but it makes getting a desirable position difficult for a new graduate. From your comment it sounds like they just get dumped with the least desirable location until they've climbed high enough up the totem pole to get a good job.
While the incentives are a step forward, officials caution that hiring alone won’t resolve the deeper problems.
The nation’s air traffic control infrastructure is aging, with 51 out of 138 systems currently labeled as unsustainable — some using components more than 50 years old.
An announcement regarding technology upgrades and infrastructure improvements is expected next week.
Haven't they been trying to modernize air traffic control since forever?
I wonder what announcements they're going to make.
I haven't been able to find it since but at one point I came across a quote saying that NextGen was the "greatest failure in the history of organized labor." Or something to that effect. A bit of an overstatement but I have to admit I found the parts I could see circa 2010 ridiculous.
Based on what I read earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if it was based on AI that Musk recently purchased. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though. I also hope whatever it is, it doesn't make the ATC system dependent on some proprietary monopoly.
This discussion of ATC makes me nervous, as mandated sudden adoption of new, often proprietary tech nationwide has created a lot of nightmares in other fields like healthcare. Instead of learning lessons from that, we seem to be repeating it over again but even more so.
The US Government is not interested in hiring outside of law enforcement so they won't be able to find people to fill positions outside of law enforcement.
Maybe federal government which hasn’t grown much (they contract everything). State and especially local government employment has been growing consistently for years, or growing very fast if you count education
ATC should probably be private like it is in Canada, where it functions very well, and also better lines up with how the federal gov operates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada
I'm not sure how "we want ultra-high non-woke pure-meritocracy hiring standards and we'll aggressively filter out anyone who even smells like they won't pass those standards" is compatible with "we need butts in seats doing this work immediately." I also am not at all surprised that people do not want to begin working for a government which has made it clear it despises all of its workers. You really can't have it both ways. (And plenty of perfectly capable/qualified people, myself included, read all this "anti-DEI" stuff exactly the same way that the anti-DEI people read DEI itself, as a means of preselecting who is entitled to compete for jobs.)
The solution is not to "de-wokify" anything - nor is it to "wokify" anything. All of that stuff is a sideshow. The solution would be to offer massive incentives in order to get highly competent people to see ATC as a good career choice. That means big salaries, very flexible training timelines, and in general, willingness to spend a lot of money on the program to make it attractive. ATC is an intense job being done by people who are under a lot of strain. It doesn't sound appealing to most. That would need to change.
It would be great if actually needed, demanding government jobs could pay a market rate. And even better, we could somehow pay better people more. And even even better - fire poor performers. The more-less lockstep pay scales across the US government are bizarre, as well as government unions, negotiating with politicians. As FDR said:
> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
> Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.
> … Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”
Easier firing would increase the market rates for every role. At least unless combined with generous unemployment benefits, as in Denmark. It could make the government more efficient in the long term, at the expense of higher spending (and therefore higher taxes) in the short term. Which many voters would not like.
The issue with unions negotiating with politicians is mostly a consequence of an excessive number of political appointees. Many things would be cleaner with more career civil servants in top positions. Top officials would have fixed-term appointments, and they could not join unions or be fired without a criminal conviction. They would run their departments, while political appointees would only set the goals and directions with little direct control. And then the rest would be more like ordinary employees who just happen to be working for the government.
Government employees are a mostly irrelevant category anyway. Depending on the time and place, the exact same job can be performed by an actual government employee, outsourced to a private contractor, or done by an employee of a company fully owned by the government. What the employee can or cannot do should depend more on the actual role than on the administrative structures above them.
The limits on government salaries seems entirely counterproductive.
I am all for evaluating things in an effort to establish more government efficiency.
But that means you need smart people who understand that domain evaluating, and you need to be able to bring smart people on board to do the work…. not artificially low wages/ arbitrary cuts…
"The nation’s air traffic control infrastructure is aging, with 51 out of 138 systems currently labeled as unsustainable — some using components more than 50 years old."
this is okay for the post office or DMV, but probably not as okay for air traffic control infrastructure.
Can any controller or person who otherwise works in this area comment on the tracingwoodgrains blog post? I always see it linked on HN, but never mentioned anywhere else. Seems like there would be a huge scandal with lot of commentary and links if it were true.
U.S. ATC here: opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect that of the FAA. But to be safe: no comment. Otherwise, if I knew something was untrue, I could say that.
What incentives could possibly exist to go to work for government at this point? It used to offer job security but that’s no longer the case. All I see is low pay, poor benefits, no job security, lack of employer diversity and significant regulatory risk that is tied to whatever administration happens to be in office.
The US can easily fill in gaps by taking the Special Operators Combat Controllers (CCTs) who are actually all certified Air Traffic Controllers.
Furthermore, the Air Force could additionally take the Terminal Air Control Party (TACPs) - think of them as a Radio/Strike guy that coordinates Air Strikes, that accompany tactical platoons and cross train them into Air Traffic Control, further augmenting their ability to perform this role.
It would be great to help keep CCT skills fresh and current - rotate them around with 'deployments' to civilian facilities. It'd be a win all the way around.
If I was an enemy of the United States, I would very much like the US to increase the degree to which applying its warfighting capacity required stripping out hard to replace experts on which its civilian air transport ability relies for safe operation, and vice versa.
It would fit in well with the present administrations policy orientation, both toward militarization and toward making th country weaker and more fragile in general.
As for not falling out of the sky or hitting other aircraft, I think the U.S. still has the safest airspace. If you're referring to immigration/law/customs/etc, I can't help you there.
Even flying (commercially?) in other countries is still probably safer than driving.
[+] [-] sega_sai|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] tbihl|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway48476|10 months ago|reply
The other big problem is Obama changed the hiring test from testing intelligence to testing personality in a bid to increase diversity. There was a lawsuit over this. The effect was academy failure rates soared and because class sizes are fixed there was a shortfall in the number of graduates making it to towers to train.
[+] [-] philwelch|10 months ago|reply
It was even worse than that. What they actually did was write up a phony “personality test” and distribute the answer key to applicants who were members of preferred racial organizations.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...
[+] [-] Havoc|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] decimalenough|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jmull|10 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] FridayoLeary|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ourmandave|10 months ago|reply
The nation’s air traffic control infrastructure is aging, with 51 out of 138 systems currently labeled as unsustainable — some using components more than 50 years old.
An announcement regarding technology upgrades and infrastructure improvements is expected next week.
Haven't they been trying to modernize air traffic control since forever?
I wonder what announcements they're going to make.
[+] [-] _moof|10 months ago|reply
Just looked it up and I'm not far off. NextGen started in 2007 and is still ongoing.
[+] [-] kj4211cash|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] derbOac|10 months ago|reply
This discussion of ATC makes me nervous, as mandated sudden adoption of new, often proprietary tech nationwide has created a lot of nightmares in other fields like healthcare. Instead of learning lessons from that, we seem to be repeating it over again but even more so.
[+] [-] ericjmorey|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|10 months ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_employees_in_the_Un...
ATC should probably be private like it is in Canada, where it functions very well, and also better lines up with how the federal gov operates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nav_Canada
[+] [-] ivraatiems|10 months ago|reply
The solution is not to "de-wokify" anything - nor is it to "wokify" anything. All of that stuff is a sideshow. The solution would be to offer massive incentives in order to get highly competent people to see ATC as a good career choice. That means big salaries, very flexible training timelines, and in general, willingness to spend a lot of money on the program to make it attractive. ATC is an intense job being done by people who are under a lot of strain. It doesn't sound appealing to most. That would need to change.
What am I missing here?
[+] [-] monero-xmr|10 months ago|reply
> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
> Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.
> … Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”
- FDR, 1937 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-the-resolut...
[+] [-] jltsiren|10 months ago|reply
The issue with unions negotiating with politicians is mostly a consequence of an excessive number of political appointees. Many things would be cleaner with more career civil servants in top positions. Top officials would have fixed-term appointments, and they could not join unions or be fired without a criminal conviction. They would run their departments, while political appointees would only set the goals and directions with little direct control. And then the rest would be more like ordinary employees who just happen to be working for the government.
Government employees are a mostly irrelevant category anyway. Depending on the time and place, the exact same job can be performed by an actual government employee, outsourced to a private contractor, or done by an employee of a company fully owned by the government. What the employee can or cannot do should depend more on the actual role than on the administrative structures above them.
[+] [-] duxup|10 months ago|reply
I am all for evaluating things in an effort to establish more government efficiency.
But that means you need smart people who understand that domain evaluating, and you need to be able to bring smart people on board to do the work…. not artificially low wages/ arbitrary cuts…
[+] [-] Flatcircle|10 months ago|reply
this is okay for the post office or DMV, but probably not as okay for air traffic control infrastructure.
[+] [-] joezydeco|10 months ago|reply
https://apnews.com/article/faa-firings-trump-doge-safety-air...
[+] [-] kj4211cash|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] NaOH|10 months ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42874983
[+] [-] RandomBacon|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] iamleppert|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] watwut|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] deadbabe|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] frustratedlazy|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] OrvalWintermute|10 months ago|reply
Furthermore, the Air Force could additionally take the Terminal Air Control Party (TACPs) - think of them as a Radio/Strike guy that coordinates Air Strikes, that accompany tactical platoons and cross train them into Air Traffic Control, further augmenting their ability to perform this role.
[+] [-] somerandomdude2|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|10 months ago|reply
It would fit in well with the present administrations policy orientation, both toward militarization and toward making th country weaker and more fragile in general.
[+] [-] philwelch|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lanfeust6|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] more_corn|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] fracus|10 months ago|reply
[+] [-] RandomBacon|10 months ago|reply
Even flying (commercially?) in other countries is still probably safer than driving.
[+] [-] chneu|10 months ago|reply
you only hear about the dozen or so crashes every year. You don't hear about the 30-40 million other flights that don't have issues in a year.