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Concerns about the FAA's air traffic control system date back decades. 2008: U.S. air traffic controller force in crisis 2009: JOBS: A Scramble to Add Air Tra
by CGMthrowaway 2y ago
Concerns about the FAA's air traffic control system date back decades.
2008: U.S. air traffic controller force in crisis
2009: JOBS: A Scramble to Add Air Traffic Controllers
2010: FAA Faces Challenges in ATC Staffing
2011: How Ronald Reagan Doomed The FAA To A Staffing Crisis Every 25 Years
2012: FAA's ATC Staffing Shortage Continues
2013: Tower at O’Hare May Be a Victim of Federal Cuts
2014: Blame the FAA for air-traffic controller shortage
2015: Union: Chronic shortage of air traffic controllers a crisis
2016: Why the U.S. Doesn't Have Enough Trained Air Traffic Controllers
2017: Breaking point: America's air traffic control
2018: Could air traffic controller shortage have impact on safety?
2019: Shutdown Sets Off Airport Delays as F.A.A. Announces Staffing Shortages
2020: A global shortage of air traffic controllers is being exacerbated by huge demand for flights
2021: Staff shortage, bad weather blamed for flight cancellations at JIA, airports nationwide
2022: What’s behind the US air traffic controller labor shortages
2023: Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink
2024: FAA still short about 3,000 air traffic controllers, new federal numbers show
2025: Concerns about the FAA's air traffic control system date back decades
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoRight. The FAA has been understaffed for decades. Cutting its staff further is giving a starving patient a staph infection. The rate of actual failures, not stories about staffing, has gone up.
- CGMthrowaway 2y agoIncidents at U.S. airports are making headlines in 2025, but these types of incidents are actually happening less often than in the past. https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/26/no-runway-near-misses-are-not-on-rise/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/26... Serious close calls have serious close calls have decreased over 20 years https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/airport-runway-incidents-risen-close-calls-decreased-20/story?id=97358077 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/airport-runway-incidents-ris...
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThe problem with rising frequency is in-air close calls, not runway incursions.
- exabrial 2y agoIts incredible, back in 2015 how DOGE stifled the hiring of air traffic controllers: https://manhattan.institute/article/affirmative-action-lands-in-the-air-traffic-control-tower https://manhattan.institute/article/affirmative-action-lands... Elon has gone too far
- CGMthrowaway 2y agoNear mid-air collisions (NMAC) as they are known, are ~1000x more rare than runway incursions - only 30 total at Reagan going back to 1987, compared to 1,330 RI's in 2023 alone - and are also decreasing. https://www.bts.gov/content/number-pilot-reported-near-midair-collisions-nmac-degree-hazard https://www.bts.gov/content/number-pilot-reported-near-midai...
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Near mid-air collisions (NMAC) as they are known, are ~1000x more rare than runway incursions - only 30 total at Reagan going back to 1987 And two this year, one which resulted in a fatal collission. We're still in a statistical grey zone for an increase. But we can reject the hypothesis that they're still decreasing.
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoGiven the historical data and statistical inference, observing 2 NMAC in a year @ Reagan has a probability of about 1 in 7, so it is not highly unusual.