If they are understaff (namely giga honest, super solid competent people for air traffic ground control), you have to reduce air traffic as it is way too dangerous.<p>For this kind of staff, it is not just a matter of "training", it is way more demanding.
The big question every one seems to be ignoring is whether air travel in the US should now be considered dangerous. If ATC is understaffed or filled with unqualified people, then how is any flight safe? Why would anyone get on a plane unless they really have to and have no other option?
Please just entertain a hypothetical:
If it turns out that the FAA was hiring much more slowly than it needed to be because it was unable to reach its DEI goals, can we all agree that we should stop doing DEI for important things?
Why are they not being trained for free after passing aptitude tests? It sounded like people still needed to pay for their college to even get to the ATC specific training.
If there is one thing I've learned in the past few days, acutely so, is that the vast majority of people do not understand the sheer complexity of what it takes to have an aviation industry.
Hundreds of qualified applicants were denied jobs through a "Biographical Assessment" that you can take yourself:<p><a href="https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/" rel="nofollow">https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/</a><p>Spend a bit of time taking it and it's clear what at least one reason for this shortage is.
I find it almost completely mind boggling that with all the breathless new coverage on the "incredible shortage of qualified tower personnel", I have yet to hear even one mention of what I find to be the elephant in the room.<p>Uhhh...why not use AI to start controlling the airports and airplanes? Talk about an app that, to me at least, seems an almost trivial use of its abilities and I'm sure that an AI could be trained in a very short period of time that could outperform a roomful of overaged, distracted humans...right?<p>Yes of course there is no way I'm the first to think of this...but just the fact that here it is day 3 or so, and literally NOT ONE MENTION ANYWHERE in the media about the potential for AI to safely land and direct all these flying things.
Those personnel numbers don't really make sense to me. Like, sure I believe O'Hare has 57 trained ATC staff, but Kalamazoo has 47 while La Guardia has 29, all at comparable percentages of trained staffing. Something is off...<p>It's good to see that both Chicago airports are at full staffing though (when counting staff in training ).
The far left air traffic controllers union has negotiated many ridiculous restrictions and absurdly high pay rates, causing a major problem in staffing.
It seems like there are shortages in every field according to the media. Shortage in tech workers, shortage in doctors and nurses, shortage of air traffic controllers. Shortages all around.<p>Here's how to instantly cure shortages of ATCs: Each airline is responsible for staffing N ATCs per scheduled flight at a given airport, calculated on a yearly basis.
Ok? So we have tons of US citizens who want to be in high-skilled high-paying professions, bring more people into training programs and staff them? I assume people working high skilled high wage professions spend more on things like housing and food and other things -> economy boost. Where is the hangup?
It would probably have helped if they didn't turn away thousands of qualified white male candidates.<p>Instead of simply biasing their hiring based on race. The FAA brilliantly denied anybody who scored too low on their "compatibility" matrix, presumably as a legal dodge.<p><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/faa-embroiled-in-lawsuit-alleging-it-turned-away-1000-applicants-based-on-race-despite-staffing-woes/ar-AA1ybHmH" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/faa-embroiled-in-lawsuit-a...</a>