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Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink
- ren_engineer 3y agonon-paywall link: https://archive.is/ld9Bm https://archive.is/ld9Bm
- mortos 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20231203014618/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/business/air-traffic-controllers-safety.html https://web.archive.org/web/20231203014618/https://www.nytim...
- ordu 3y agoOh, thank you. I see that full links do not require javascript and captchas with cars and traffic lights. I though that web-archives becomes plainly unusable, but it seems that it is only for short links. I wonder, is there any way to expand short links without captchas.
- Tempest1981 3y agoarchive.org and archive.is are different services
- nulltxt 3y agoI think this is probably something with your DNS or moreso with archive.is's policies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
- tester756 3y agoI don't know why, but archive.is is not loading for me
- tux3 3y agoThey're in a fight with Cloudflare over technical details, if you use CF as DNS that's why
- rainbowzootsuit 3y agoThis is a relevant explanation from the perspective of cloudflare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
- o11c 3y agoThere's plenty broken with both .is and .ph even if Cloudflare is not in the picture.
- tester756 3y agoI have Google's DNS and DoH turned off
- a1o 3y agoIt didn't work for me either but the ph one worked https://archive.ph/EV9WP https://archive.ph/EV9WP
- anonhn1231231 3y agoI had to disable DNS over HTTPS to get archive to work again. In Firefox it's enough to add archive.is/.ph/.today to the exception list, and keep using default settings otherwise. Not sure about other browsers.
- nemo44x 3y agoFWIW Obama’s administration instituted a diversity program for ATC that gave points to people that did poorly in school and haven’t had a job recently and penalized people with pilots licenses or military ATC experience and other qualifications. The ATC was considered “too white”. In essence they worked backwards to figure out how to hit their arbitrary diversity targets without considering the lives of everyone that flies. Yes, they put your life at risk to fulfill an anti-racism agenda. This is criminal.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoThis would be very interesting to look into if you cited a source.
- nemo44x 3y ago[flagged]
- DiscourseFan 3y ago>NYT cites overworked employees as the cause but leaves out the ongoing and dangerous agenda in the FAA to prioritize diversity over merit. I was looking for more info on your claim, not another claim from someone else that only says something was being left out, without actually showing the very thing that was purported to have been elided.
- a1o 3y agoMaybe the problem is diverse employees have less power to negotiate changes and improvements in the workplace like the issues cited in the NY piece - building and infrastructure issues and the short staffing.
- defrost 3y agoJust to be clear, your source for your opinion expressed in your comment on this forum is another opinion expressed on Xitter? Do you have any kind of more primary source, data on hiring changes, studies that correlate incidents with more recent hires, etc. Or just the strong opinions of some fellow travelling RestoreUSA types?
- tayo42 3y agoWell that was worrying to read since I flight through San Diego coming up. Why are the budgets low and why is our government running atc like a best buy durring holiday season?
- Unfrozen0688 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Public_Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Public_Management Policy is to run government entities like a corporation.
- losteric 3y ago- ATC is a difficult job both in terms of training required and day-to-day work - There are high health requirements to hold the job, which should be revisited - The federally mandated retirement age is relatively low. - Pay is not attractive - Overall FAA funding is largely set by the finicky Congress, which swings between extreme austerity and moderate fiscal pragmatism - Airports can supplement federal funding, but it's difficult to get someone that cares. The right port authorities would need to be elected, then raise rates at risk of airlines pushing back... only to improve the safety of their one airport (likely still taking the full PR/trust-hit if a tragedy happens at a different airport anyway) - COVID19 led to a higher rate of people exiting the field (due to reduced labor demand + natural retirement), and few entering the field. - Hiring/pay was not managed in alignment with the return of travel demand. - These ATC articles have been circulating for a couple years now. That's probably dampened interest in these jobs.
- gred 3y ago> Pay is not attractive That's not my impression at all, based on discussions with FAA employees. From a quick online search: > ATC 2022 median pay: $132,250 per year https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/air-traffic-controllers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/a...
- jjulius 3y agoIs $132,250 attractive relative to the constant high stress and everything else involved with the job?
- DiscourseFan 3y agoVery scary indeed. I think for the first time in my life I will be a little on edge flying in the US. You always hear that flying is the safest mode of public transport--well, if this is the state of the ATC, we're definitely in trouble. And you know there won't be any real change until hundreds of people die needlessly...I just hope it won't be my flight.
- HPsquared 3y agoIt's the safest per mile, but not per journey. A nice comparison to other transport methods, including taking the bus, and the Space Shuttle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
- iteria 3y agoIt is utterly fascinating to me that technically walking is just as safe as a car on a journey by journey basis. I definitely didn't need to know the danger per journey for flights though. I liked the lie I had before
- ghayes 3y agoPer that chart, flying is about 3x as deadly per journey as a car. Many people take a car to and from the airport, which means it nearly nets out already.
- someplaceguy 3y agoWhat do you mean, it nets out? Shouldn't the car trips from/to the airport mean that an airplane journey is even more dangerous, as you can't really fly without those additional car trips?
- Gud 3y agoYes you can. I usually take the train to the airport.
- Unfrozen0688 3y agoPushing Tin is a pretty good film about ATC
- PaulKeeble 3y agoCar accidents are up as well, less so this year than last. Both Air traffic and Car accidents have been up since 2020. Its not unique to Air traffic control. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/09/28/road-crash-deaths-drop-but-remain-higher-than-before-pandemic/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/09/28/road-crash... Its also happening worldwide, more air traffic near misses in the EU alongside road accidents as well. I suspect its world wide.
- soupfordummies 3y agoI don't really see how that's related though
- astrostl 3y agoACT test scores have plummeted too. Combined with what we know about the physical brain changes that can be observed after a single mild infection, it all paints a potentially concerning relationship with COVID.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ghodith 3y agoCould also be the consequences of schooling during a lockdown.
- xattt 3y agoPeople continued to drive.
- infamouscow 3y ago[flagged]
- 3y ago
- claar 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/@VASAviation https://www.youtube.com/@VASAviation posts ATC audio and a visualization a day after such incidents happen. Fantastic channel, if a bit too addictive.
- ra7 3y agoI just discovered this channel a few days ago and I’ve been hooked to it since then. Another channel I’ve been enjoying is https://youtube.com/@YouCanSeeATC https://youtube.com/@YouCanSeeATC
- macinjosh 3y ago[flagged]
- s1artibartfast 3y agoWhat strange reasons. Is this a joke?
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y agoWhat do we think, within 5 years pilots will be talking to AI chatbots that handle air traffic?
- QuarterReptile 3y agoIs there a plane about to crash? Say 1 for not sure, 2 for normal business hours, 3 for no, or 4 for I'M SORRY I didn't catch that, say 1 for not sure...
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoOf all the things to use an AI chatbot for, this might be the worst one.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoThat's assuming AI still stay as it is forever. In 3-5 years every job that can be done on a computer will be able to be done better by an AI designed for that job. The only issue will be adoption, not the tech itself.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoThat's quite an assertion. Why do you think that's true?
- atleastoptimal 3y agoAll jobs done on a computer are information processing. AI is approaching human level information processing in every benchmark we can throw at it. By the time it eclipses all trained humans, using an AI to do a human job will be a no-brainer, as AI's: 1. Don't require health insurance/mental health leave/PTO 2. Can work 24/7 3. Are infinitely replicatable 4. More interpretable/modifiable than human intelligence 2 years ago the best AI art models were worse than 99% of human artists, now they're better than 99% of them. The same thing will happen to every skill that isn't based on motor/sensory abilities.
- anonymousiam 3y ago[flagged]
- grok24 3y agoIf you didn’t think there was some validity to the reporting, you wouldn’t be posting it.
- consumer451 3y ago> I make no claim about the accuracy of the reporting below Then you appear to knowingly spreading unfounded rumors?
- anonymousiam 3y agoPerhaps, but I did review the material before I posted it. Did you?
- sparcpile 3y agoBlaming DEI is a dog-whistle for 'people should know their place' The Free Beacon, Fox News, and the other last four you listed are in the business of telling old white people to be afraid of everything. It's the same as denying someone a job because they are not culture fit for a company. It's because the people doing the hiring only want to hire people from their background, college, etc. The safety issues and staffing levels have been an issue since Reagan fired the PATCO ATC workers. It's getting worse because traffic loads are increasing and it is getting harder to staff for a stressful safety-critical job.
- Havoc 3y agoThe YouTube channels for ATC incidents have certainly been rather busy too.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- timeagain 3y agoFrom what to what? What counts as “serious?” What percentage of flights? Which kind of flights? How many of them are commercial passenger (as opposed to cargo)? Can the variance be ascribed to noise? Sorry if some of these questions can be answered from the paywalled article. But my gut says that this is making news out of nothing important.
- verteu 3y ago> In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, there were 503 air traffic control lapses that the F.A.A. preliminarily categorized as “significant,” 65 percent more than in the prior year, according to internal agency reports reviewed by The Times. During that period, air traffic increased about 4 percent.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoAir traffic control seems like something that should be at the top level surveyed by humans but has many layers of automated computational safety built in. I imagine there is, but the idea that the safety of a plane is up to a single person at some point is unsettling. Having existed for many decades, the entire field should be far past the point of there being even a 0.000000001% chance of hazard.
- woodruffw 3y agoATC makes extensive use of automation for scheduling, queuing, etc. The hard manual parts are what remain: communicating with pilots over unreliable channels, handling unpredictable scenarios and emergencies, and maintaining spatial awareness for the airport and the tower's area of control.
- shermantanktop 3y agoYour expectations don’t seem to match any other field of human endeavor I can think of. Nuclear plant safety doesn’t; rocket launches, no; pharmaceutical trials, nope. Perhaps we’ll be better and smarter in the future, but…I doubt it.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoWhen was the last time Nuclear plants in the US significantly endangered human lives. 1979? With regards to rocket launches, pharma, etc. those are all somewhat novel domains: experiments where risk is a natural part of being the first time trying a set of variables. The variables in air traffic have been the same for decades, thus the thresholds for accepted risk should be much lower.
- shermantanktop 3y agoCall me a techno-pessimist, but we humans have a way of building imperfect machines regardless of theoretical perfectibility. Boeing 737 max?
- 3y ago
- spaceman_2020 3y agoAlso been an 18% increase in road accidents. Just post pandemic recklessness?
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago[flagged]
- mensetmanusman 3y agoPost-covid ripples through time...
- oatmeal1 3y agoPeople are seriously concerned with aircraft near misses when we let cars kill 45,000 Americans a year. Absurdity.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoIt’s possible to be concerned about two things?
- oatmeal1 3y agoAbsolutely, but one is a trifling concern compared to the other. Yet the trifling concern gets the media attention.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tqi 3y agoWhat is your point, that newspapers should lay out A1 with "concerns" ordered whatever arbitrary metric you personally have decided is the "right" measure of importance?
- jamilton 3y agoNewspapers already are applying their own metrics for what's fit to print, seems reasonable to prefer one's own metric (if not reasonable to expect that to happen without action).
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoAlright, the media sucks. It’s amazing that people fixate so much on this obvious point, rather than be more concerned with rising ATC incidents or car accidents
- vore 3y agoWould you like people to not be concerned with aircraft accidents?
- Buttons840 3y agoDo pilots have any tools detect conflicting runway use? Like, I would imagine light patterns would mark a runway as take-off, landing, or neither (plane crossing, etc). A pilot told to land on a runway not lit for landing would know something's wrong, and planes would know not to line up on a runway lit for landing, etc.
- brettproctor 3y agoInteresting idea but no, the lights never change based on usage like this.
- rdtsc 3y ago> I would imagine light patterns would mark a runway as take-off, landing, or neither (plane crossing, etc) It's often both, and the direction depends on the wind. It's better for planes to take off into the wind, so as the weather changes runway usage also changes accordingly during the day. Or were you thinking the lights would change minute by minute based on the next designated usage. That might work! "Now it's a landing runway so it's blinking blue" kind of a thing. So nobody tries to take off or cross it. Or, then when someone is supposed to take off it's blinking yellow so planes landing on it won't be confused.
- Buttons840 3y agoThat's what I mean. Change the lights minute by minute. There have been incidents where one plane is cleared to cross while another is landing on final approach. There's no fault on the pilots I think. With the right signaling on the runways all pilots involved could double check the clearances and one of them can speak up if things are weird.
- matwood 3y agoOver the summer a near miss happened in Austin and I looked into this a bit. It seems that some airports do have lights that change in real-time, but not all. Austin does not have the system.
- otherme123 3y ago
- m3kw9 3y agoMaybe there is 65% more flights since the Covid times
- talldatethrow 3y ago[flagged]
- PromKwing 3y agoYikes. What a weird thing to try to make it about race. So to clarify, if you're not white and male, then obviously you're just not serious about a job because you're a "diversity" hire and not a serious person. Got it.
- throwme_123 3y agoIf you're (much) less competent but the only reason why you get the job is "diversity", then yes we have a problem. There can be diverse good candidates of course, there's no racism here.
- PromKwing 3y agoRight, so if you're not the hiring manager, how do you know someone is a "diversity hire" though? Isn't it racist to just assume someone was hired as a "diversity hire"? Most importantly, people tend to hire people like themselves, if the hiring manager is white it's most likely they'll hire someone who is white regardless if they're more qualified, but I doubt anyone ever questions those hires.
- throwme_123 3y agoThat's the point. You should not know and should not take it in consideration but in the USA this is part of the application. I understand the whole point is to make sure diverse candidate are not discriminated against (and of course that would be a ridiculous thing to do), but it seems to have been perverted into caricaturical discrimination _for_, even favoring a diverse incompetent candidate over a non-diverse competent one.
- mcphage 3y ago> You should not know and should not take it in consideration Then how do you suppose we ended up with fields where nearly everyone was a white male, if race was never taken into consideration?
- jongjong 3y agoI've been warning of software deterioration for the past few years and this seems to be an extension of the same effect. Likely the result of increasingly non-meritocratic employee selection processes and non-meritocratic incentive structures. Due to government interference in the economy (especially due to money printing), we've basically turned our capitalist system into a very poorly implemented communist system. People are broke, have low self esteem, can't afford to own a house and only anticipate further deterioration. Heck, average people can't even find a romantic partner because rich people are monopolizing the supply by dating 10 people at a time. I'm surprised things are not worse than they are. I guess it will take another decade to feel the full effects of the problems we're creating today.
- astrange 3y agoYou just have depression. Healthy people don't go around collecting sad half-truths. I don't know any rich people with 10 girlfriends though. Rich people have just as much time as anyone else, likely even less since they usually work more, so that sounds hard to schedule.
- jongjong 3y agoAs if anyone would tell you if they had 10 girlfriends on Tinder. The number is just a figure of speech. The effect is real. Also, I'm probably happier than you will ever be because I live in the truth and am surrounded by honest people who have 0 incentive to pretend or say anything that they don't fully believe.
- astrange 3y agoYour truth is that people are broke[0] because there's too much money[1] and that you don't have a girlfriend because rich people on Tinder stole the women? [0] they aren't https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 [1] even if that made sense, it's going down again https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
- sillysaurusx 3y agoIt’s possible this is statistically expected. In the same way the stock market randomly fluctuates, it would be implausible that the ATC incident rate should only ever go down. The question is whether this is outside the variance we should expect. Is it? I see a lot of people coming up with reasons and explanations, implying that the incident rate can be controlled. To an extent it can. But it can’t be decreased forever, especially as the fleet increases. Is there a graph of the incident rate with respect to fleet size over the last few decades?
- sixQuarks 3y agoTrue, and a 68% increase in something that rarely happens isn’t as scary when you look at the actual total number of incidents.
- resolutebat 3y agoUS air traffic also increased 20-30% compared to 2022, depending on whose numbers you believe (the year isn't over yet).
- NautilusWave 3y agoI wonder whose fault that is, 𝙍𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙙 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙣.
- PseudoThought 3y agoAutomated aircraft for routine cargo and passenger travel controlled by an automated ATC system seems like the future.
- cratermoon 3y agoHow would it handle emergencies like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586773 ?
- logicchains 3y agoInterestingly, in 2022 the FCC changed the range of acceptable EKG requirements for heart health required for pilots; previously the PR had to be between 0.12 to 0.2, and they widened it to 0.12 to 0.3. That would have allowed pilots with mild cardio injury (who are more likely to suddenly pass out) to fly.
- AdrianB1 3y agoThere is a lowering of standards in many areas happening these days. I don't have an explanation, there are many out there and some are too political to resist even mentioning it on HN.
- orciny 3y agoI’m not sure where this has come from. First degree heart block (ie a PR interval > 0.2) is not a marker of mild ‘cardio’ (NB: it’s cardiac) injury. It does not cause syncope. It is a reflection of electrical timing between the cardiac chambers. It is not an echocardiogram or a RHC and will tell you nothing about the anatomy or physiology of a person’s heart other than timing. It is not a full electrophysiological study either. There is no such entity as ‘mild cardio injury’ and I suggest you stop spreading nonsense. Pilots already have strict medical guidance for health and unexplained syncope is not something that is hand-waved away.
- logicchains 3y ago>There is no such entity as ‘mild cardio injury’ and I suggest you stop spreading nonsense. Pilots already have strict medical guidance for health and unexplained syncope is not something that is hand-waved away. A PR interval greater than 0.2 is considered "First-Degree Atrioventricular Block" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/first-degree-atrioventricular-block https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...), which "occurs as a consequence of disease in the AV node and is common in older patients." How does something indicating disease in the atrioventricular node not constitute mild cardiac injury? According to that page: "Recent data from the Framingham cohort suggest that in the long term, patients with first-degree AV block have a significantly higher risk of requiring pacemaker implantation and have a higher mortality rate." Would not this increased risk of severe events also constitute an increased risk of mild events like temporarily fainting? >Pilots already have strict medical guidance for health and unexplained syncope is not something that is hand-waved away. Those strict guidelines were made less strict in 2022 by increasing the cutoff for PR interval, and the following year we're seeing an increase in flight incidents.
- alexey-salmin 3y agoI guess lessons weren't learned after the lake Constance collision
- PhobosSkunk 3y agoIt's not really the same problem but a good example of the end result (spoiler alert: dead peoples). Lake Constance was mostly due to faulty procedures, technical intervention and bad habits (letting a colleague work alone during night shift coffee breaks) and those lessons have been well learned as Skyguide is now one of the safest ANSP, refusing to increase capacity because of all those safety measures. FAA is another really scary story. 6 days of 10h shifts with 8 to 9h of rest is just insane. As a euro ATCO I know for a fact that we would never accept that, we have way more days off, a minimum of 11h rest time and are never called to work more nor work more than the contracted hour. As a matter of fact it is the opposite, we usually work less hours a day than what is planned. Maybe it is a different work culture between US and EU but we won't sacrifice ourselves for the company. If we are understaffed we will let it happen, reduce capacity or even close some airspace and let the company lose money and credibility. Anyway, as we often say, everybody working in the aviation industry is tired because of the shifts. Just don't let the PAX know about it.
- sxyuan 3y agoThere's an increase in incidents because ATCs are overworked and understaffed. The knee-jerk reaction is to try to automate the work away. A few problems with that kind of thinking: - Automation already exists - e.g., the collision detection warning mentioned in the article. I don't know much about air traffic control but I imagine there's some element of defense in depth. ATCs dozing off or running on fumes won't cause collisions right away (these incidents are mostly close calls) but it sounds like it's only a matter of time before all the other defenses fail and a major accident happens. - There's always going to be work that's hard to automate. Plenty of software teams have on-call rotations to cover production services. You'd think that if any field would have their operations be fully automated, it's software, but nope. We need to stop thinking that the physical world is easier to deal with - it's often much harder. - Automation costs money to develop and deploy. Apparently one of the early outcomes of union action back in the 70s was faster automation rollout. [1] For an executive, why spend money on automation if you could just squeeze more out of your workers and compromise on safety instead? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Con...
- amzthrow 3y ago> Plenty of software teams have on-call rotations to cover production services. There are plenty of valid criticisms of the cloud but this is what you are really paying for. The value proposition of the cloud is infrastructure-oncall-as-a-service.
- adrianN 3y agoYou usually still need someone oncall who determines whether it’s a cloud problem or your bug.
- _cenw 3y agoRAAS (Runway Awareness and Advisory System), the equivalent system installed on aircraft, also needs to become standard equipment. It is for some airlines, but it is by no means mandatory.
- 3y ago
- Geisterde 3y agoUsually I like to just read comments, get a feel for where society is. I love the comments in this, it can be summarized as "throw AI at it" and "more tax dollars will fix it". Lets all forget that we have put the airline industry on government life support through regulation and bailouts, thats turned the biggest companies into tumors that survive off their (literal) monopoly rights. We can all pretend we didnt dehumanize the staff on/off-board with vaccine mandates that simultaneously violated their human rights and failed to stop infection or transmission (as they were promised). Yep, fat, lazy, unprincipled american voters to the rescue, throw in some rhetoric about how we are going to tax the rich (then tax poor/middle class people who dont have their own LLC), replace the workers woth AI, and incoherently froth about your political opponents. Or, you know, we could start privatizing it. Calm down, its OK, I was a nuclear reactor operator in the navy, I can assure you it will only ever get worse.
- quickthrower2 3y agoYeah people doing that kind of job needed a jab. Sorry to say it. Greater good.
- Geisterde 3y agoExcept, the jab didnt prevent infection or transmission, so what difference does it make? More pertinently, you are referring to the ends justifying the means. If Hitler had succeeded in making a utopian society where everything is just great, would he have been justified in the methods he used to achieve it? There will always be some ambitious goal, something society could achieve, if we could just get these people on board. You know, they are just in the way, they are holding society back! What follows that logic is never good for society, and look at what its created in ours; there is a contingent of ~60 million americans that never got vaccinated and are royally pissed about those mandates, probably tens of millions more that were effectively coerced into vaccination, and of these groups a disproportionate amount are gun owners. So, greater good, is it a good thing that something like 50 million gun owners now see their political opponents as a threat to their way of life? Do you think that kind of force could be stopped if things ever turned sour in this country? Are you so certain in the authority and power of your own political alliance that you dont think thats, an issue?
- mightypirate 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoI wonder how that compares to eg. france, where air traffic controllers strike every two weeks (a bit exaggerated, but they really strike a lot compared to other controllers in other countries and other workers in france).
- ImPleadThe5th 3y agoHope trains make a comeback soon
- prakashn27 3y agoMy Etihad flight from North America increased 3 fold compared to pre corona, I am not sure what people in important roles are paid so less with environment so toxic
- projectileboy 3y agoThe US has developed a strong culture of believing that government is always the problem and government workers are always lazy and overpaid. And so cutting funding to these kinds of services becomes an easy sell. The problem is our society depends on these government employees. It’s no different than nursing, teaching, and many other professions - disparage it enough and eventually you’ll succeed in making no one interested.
- fallingknife 3y agoWhy do you think we have developed that culture? In my case it's because I know two people who have worked for the government or deal with it daily for their job, and they have told me that. And their low opinion of government is corroborated by my one experience dealing with the government. None of this was with ATC, but my point is that this attitude you complain about is just a reflection of reality.
- pavel_lishin 3y agoThank you for your three anecdotes; we'll add them to the bucket. Isn't this basically just some sort of weird selection effect? Similar to how people are more incentivized to leave a negative review when they're mad at a business, vs. a positive review when they had a good - or even just a "it was fine" - experience?
- fallingknife 3y agoLet's say you are interviewing a candidate, and you have had one interaction with him, which was negative, and you know two other people who have worked with him extensively, and they say he is a bad employee. Are you going to say, well, my interaction was a one off, and those two people who worked with him could be wrong and that is selection bias, and hire him anyway, or are you going to take a pass? Why should I be so much more generous with the government?
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
- aijoe5pack 3y agoThis is bad news. Most of these people are pushed to the brink normally because of the executive function loading of the task.
- prettychill 3y agoI wanted to go into ATC training but am too old at 32. Was pretty disappointed by that.
- foolrush 3y agohttps://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-when-president-reagan-fired-air-traffic-controllers https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-wh...
- incomingpain 3y agoI was an airtraffic controller back in the day. I have very high spatial IQ, proven by the airforce. I went into IT because that was not a sustainable career choice. The threshold to become a controller is so high. I'm in my 30s now and I literally dont qualify to become a controller anymore. When you starve your potential labour pool so greatly, it's going to leave a workload that's impossible. Thus this article can be rewritten every single year and it's going to trend in the wrong direction.