Incite -- (v) 1: give an incentive; 2: provoke or stir up; "incite a riot"; 3: urge on; cause to act |
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Written by: AnonymousHere's something I hadn't thought about. We are apparently running out of Air Traffic Controllers. I have always thought that this job was up there in the unsung-hero category - almost a silent service, if you will (save heartfelt attempts to bring it into the limelight) According to various government sources, within 6 years, over half of the country's 15,000 controllers will have or will be eligible to retire. Government regs mandate that a controller must retire by 56 years of age. Johnny Lake, an air traffic controller in Honolulu said his facility is already understaffed by six controllers: "It starts to concern us as we see gray hairs all around us and we don't seem to see any youngsters," he said. "I've been here 15 years. When I got in, I was probably the median age of the facility. Fifteen years later, I'm still the median age."Not unlike many public service jobs, there is little doubt that young people find little incentive to entertain a career in ATC. The pay is low and the stress can range from very high to lethal, all depending upon which space you are assigned to. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the federal government has not allocated funding to the FAA to hire more controllers: In fiscal 2003 and 2004, the FAA has hired only one air traffic controller. No new hires are planned for fiscal 2005, and the earliest the FAA could get funding for more controllers would be in the federal fiscal 2006 budget.Accoriding to the ATC's union, and we publish union statistics here at INCITE only when there is an absence of any other source, including my own imagination, the FAA will need to hire 1,000 controllers every year until 2007. So, what happens when the FAA doesn't hire 1,000 controllers per year, or even a tenth of that? Delays, copious amounts of delays. This will be followed by markedly fewer flights to some of your favorite North American desitnations. An ATC can only handle so many planes per hour per unit of area. That means that Tom Thomerson over at Cleveland Center will still be required to handle as many planes as he did before all his ATC buddies bailed, but he's gonna be the only one there. So, a hell of a lot less capacity will be able to be handled by the system. Amazing, that in the end, the capacity constraint has to do with the guys we never ever think about.
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