> Guessing this is humorous, but it does seem like a job that could one day benefit from being automated The tools ATCs use have evolved tremendously. Just thr

> Guessing this is humorous, but it does seem like a job that could one day benefit from being automated The tools ATCs use have evolved tremendously. Just three decades ago, not all major airports had ground radar for instance. Then there's ADS-B that's fully automated and does part of the job. The problem is that air traffic has increased a lot. Even if automation goes much further, ATCs are needed for supervision of operation, compliance and backup in case systems fail. The evolution mirrors that of the job of pilots. Flight engineers have been rendered obsolete long ago, maybe copilots will be eventually replaced by a remote operators for backup at some point. Each ATC will be able to handle more and more traffic, as they already have, but someone's gotta be keeping an eye on the system.