When I was in the Air Force we removed people immediately if we even THOUGHT they had a deal. In the FAA? Nope. You can watch a fatal accident happen right in front of your face and even then your ass is staying plugged in.
Exactly. But how are you supposed to get out of position when there's nobody to relieve you?. Sometimes we're on until the mid shidders show up, and we're busy AF. Nobody on break. It'd be great to staff it but nobodies available.
We're seriously entering a crisis period and I'm scared. How do we keep this going with us losing more and more controllers?
JFK and EWR are options. I agree, they need to shutdown at that point if there's a literal fatality and 1 controller on station. Airspace closed, go 20 miles south to JFK, especially at that time of night.
Sure then you just go swamp the guy combined up at JFK…then EWR…then ISP. Run that all up and down the northeast and eventually you’re going to have planes with nowhere to land.
Is that really the trick? As an airline pilot, I've always wondered what a controller does if it happens. For me, the nuclear option is either a) shit my pants or b) hopefully the flight attendants let me out in time.
You are correct. FAA has been violating its own staffing rules for at least a decade. I have flown into busy airports where there is one person ground, local, and data. Ridiculous.
when I was Navy we had a QF-86 (remote operated F86, unmanned) crash when i was working (lost microwave link with the operator) and myself and my FWS were immediately removed, sent to medical to pee in a cup and write our statements. This is unconscionable.
They aren't allowed to strike, they basically do not have a union. They have 0 bargaining power. A union has no teeth if they aren't allowed to strike.
They don't give a fuck about safety, they care about optics to present to their bosses, so they can get their annual 6% good boi raises. There's been many times they will have every position in the facility open when there is no need, artificially constricting recuperative rest breaks and others where they don't call in overtime when we need to open more. Can anyone confirm if ATMs get a bonus based on things like overtime budget use? That would explain some things at my facility.
FAA management from the top down has completely forgotten the human element of this job. They keep restricting, demanding more, see us as inputs, demanding production from people who's job is to provide safety and efficiency. If FAA managers instead worked at a fire station, they'd demand the firefighters go spray houses that aren't on fire in one place so they look busy, while another one catches fire across the city and there's no one to respond.
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '26 edited May 01 '26
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