Radar Jockey Dot Net

They finally did it. Another milestone here at Jimmy D’s Air Traffic Work Farm. We officially reached a 3:1 controller to supervisor ratio. When I got to work this Sunday morning, one of the busiest days of the week, we had nine controllers and three supervisors. I’m not including the two developmentals (trainees) because they aren’t even certified on one sector and cannot do anything by themselves. Three controllers have a supervisor all to themselves to watch them work. Super! There are a few things to keep in mind to put this happy occasion in perspective.

For one, a couple of years ago they wouldn’t even have considered staffing my area with less than 13 people, and that would have been considered short-handed. We are the busiest area in the building by far, over 30% more traffic then the next closest. We have eight sectors, and when things get really hectic, most of those sectors require two controllers and some even three. You can do the math. Not to mention you can’t have everyone “plugged in” all day without a break, so you need extra people to rotate others out for a rest. The maximum recommended time on position is two hours, but working heavy, complex traffic with weather impacting the operation, sometimes even one hour is exhausting. Tired controllers make mistakes, and the effect is cumulative over time as well. It’s called burn out.

Another is that today just happens to be a beautiful clear VFR day, so they figure they can safely handle it with nine people and they’re not even considering calling in overtime, if they could even get anyone to answer their phone. The problem is, in our world things happen suddenly and without warning. I can recall two important days here, both beautiful sunny days, when things just suddenly went to s***. One of those days was September 11, 2001. Do I really need to elaborate on that? Another was February 1, 2003. I doubt anyone reading this would know that date off the top of their head, but that was the day the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over and into the airspace I was working at the time. The impact of that was that for rest of that day it was chaos as military and civilian planes converged on our area for search and rescue, salvage, news coverage, etc. and we dealt with rapidly changing Temporary Flight Restrictions and shifting identification requirements to enter those areas. Luckily, on both those days we had plenty of people on hand to handle the sudden workload safely.

Now, keep in mind not every day is clear and sunny down here on the Gulf Coast. In fact, we have more thunderstorm days a year than anywhere. Period. Thunderstorms and airplanes do not mix, and so they either have to stay on the ground, or fly around them. The airlines have schedules to keep and customers that get very cranky when they are delayed, so of course the preference is to get off the ground and find a way around or through a storm system. We have Traffic Management personnel who’s job it is to try and make everything go as smoothly as possible, routing aircraft around weather in advance, and trying not to overload any particular facility or sector with more aircraft than they can safely handle. Note I used the verb “try”. They’re not always successful. Sometimes with all the new routes and confusion and developing weather, many aircraft get squeezed into a small area that gets over-saturated. When that happens, sectors, areas or entire facilities go “down the tubes” where it’s a mad scramble for the people working just to keep airplanes from hitting. That takes lots of people, like I said earlier sometimes 3 per sector. Remember also I said we had eight sectors? And nine people this morning? The most we can optimistically hope for this summer (peak thunderstorm season here) with overtime called in or scheduled is maybe 12 people. Now that will be interesting.

Also disturbing is the fact this short staffing situation is going to get worse before it ever gets better. There are several of my co-workers that are eligible now to retire, and in a year there will be many more, most of whom will walk out the door and never look back. We are replacing those leaving with about an average of one certified controller a year. That’s right. The FAA says they are hiring thousands of controllers. No, they’re not! They’re hiring developmentals, many of whom are terminated, resign, or fail training. Those that are successful take anywhere from two to four years to certify. So out of all the developmentals we’ve hired for my area specifically in the last three years, and I can’t give an accurate number but it’s in the neighborhood of at least 20, only nine of those even progressed far enough to start on-the-job training (OJT). Of those, three more have failed out, and two have fully certified, with one more close to finishing his training. The jury is out on several of the few that remain in OJT. Compound that with a new training program that allows a developmental to be working the only sector he’s certified on, probably only a year and a half since he was hired off the street with no prior experience, at one of the busier air traffic control facilities in the world! That gives me lots of warm fuzzies. How about you?

The FAA admits they have staffing problems at a few facilities, but they would never allow that to jeopardize air safety. Uh huh. These people have lost all credibility with me, so I really don’t give a rat’s behind what they say, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that is true. Well, the staffing problem is going to be very real at most facilities around the nation, especially the busier ones. If it’s true that they won’t allow that to jeopardize safety, then the only option is going to be delays. Big delays. Major delays. Delays like we haven’t seen since the strike of 1981. I fly too, and will be this summer. I’ve already been the victim of delayed and canceled flights. I know how much it sucks and I’m sympathetic, however, you can’t fit 25 pounds of sand in a 10 pound bag, so if you’re heading to the airport pack a lunch and bring lots to read.

Finally, the FAA cannot solve this issue until they quit ignoring the elephant in the room. Controllers do not have a contract, and until the agency negotiates a fair collective bargaining agreement with us that we ratify, experience will continue to retire in droves and new hires will continue to refuse job offers and resign because of the pathetic working conditions and drastically lower salaries. The arrogance of this agency’s management is astounding because they know this is the case, but refuse to admit it and publicly say “Problem? What problem?” Folks,  there’s a bustle in the hedgerow, and it’s not the May Queen, it’s the chickens coming home to roost. Everybody will know soon enough that these idiots systematically dismantled the safest and most efficient air traffic system in the world both to feather their own nests and to cling to pig-headed political ideology. So when you’re sitting on the ramp in a packed, hot airplane for hours without food and water and the toilets are overflowing, or your flight is canceled and you miss your daughter’s wedding, pen a nice thank-you card to the architect of this mess, the ex-Administrator, Marion Blakey. I doubt she’ll read it. She’s busy as the half-million-dollar-a-year CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. Oh, and I doubt she flies commercial.

Yay! This will officially be my first post about actual Air Traffic Control, which was initially going to be the primary focus of this blog (thus the title). Unfortunately, reality crept in and I found myself too fatigued from the real job to want to bother spending my free time reliving it in laborious narrative. In addition, I felt there were plenty of relatively popular blogs about ATC already, with authors that spoke with more authority than I, so why bother? But…

The other day I stumbled across a blog by a waiter who recounted daily events at his restaurant; dealings with customers, staff, managers, etc. It was entertaining stuff, and really gave a first hand look at what really happens in a restaurant, a la Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. There are people like me out there who were never a waiter nor have any real experience in the food service industry (though I did work at McDonald’s for a year), who are yet fascinated by the whole thing. There is also no small similarity between the atmosphere in a busy restaurant kitchen and a busy air traffic control facility. Take my word for it. I work in Hell’s Kitchen, if not in name only. With new inspiration, I’ve decided to try and regularly post about some of the chaotic, frustrating, maddening, and (hopefully) often humorous things that go on in a busy air traffic facility.

All that said, I’m not going to start this off with my own anecdote. Instead, I was sent the following article through my NATCA local. The words aren’t mine, though they could be, but are the responses of an old, experienced, and ready to retire controller to a letter written by a young, female “new hire”, and is addressed to future air traffic controllers. There isn’t anything here I could find to disagree with. At all.

I’m within months of retiring from a 20-year career as an air traffic controller. You could say I have a little bit of insight into the system, the FAA and the job. I recently received a forwarded email that was originally written by a 24 year old female controller, and it started me to thinking about what I would say to someone contemplating a career in ATC. This is based on her email, with thoughts of my own added.

Put down your copy of Pushing Tin.

The truth is, the job sucks, even for those of us who LOVE it. We are not appreciated by those that we protect, even though we save and protect more lives on a daily basis than any other profession.

The pilots don’t understand or even listen sometimes. The average airline passenger isn’t even aware of the role we play in their flight.

Everything we say is recorded, and we are responsible to back it up in a court of law should the unthinkable happen. We are responsible for knowing more rules than humanly possible. Frequently, the rules change. No mistakes are allowed.

We tend to have superiority complexes. We are in control. We control everything in our environment. It effects our personal life in ways that a non-controller (you) cannot possibly imagine. Your spouse will not understand you or your job.

You can’t bring the job home…but you will have crash dreams. You will control traffic in your sleep. You cannot imagine the stress, which comes not from the job of separating aircraft, but the combination of ridiculous schedules, lack of sleep and overbearing management.

You can never again tolerate a read-back error at a drive thru restaurant. Indecision is unacceptable in any scenario…especially from those you love. You will have a lack of tolerance in communication. You expect people to say what they mean and mean what they say. Life is black and white (yes…it is…there is no gray).

Driving will never be the same again…you will use “anticipated separation”.

Controllers come in 2 varieties: the home schooler/Bible thumpers or the drunks. Most controllers start as the latter, and end as the former. There is something “not right” about ALL of us. You will either look 10 yrs older than your age or 10 yrs younger than your age. You will be on blood pressure medication at an early age.

You never get normal sleep (this part REALLY sucks). You will work in the middle of the night and holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays). You will never have “normal” days off. Getting over eight hours off between the time one shift ends and the next begins is a luxury.

You will never have a regular social life. You can’t participate in your kids school activities. Your friends won’t understand that you can’t leave work or get off work. They won’t even be able to figure out your rotating schedule. They’ll stop calling because you’re never home, or you’re just leaving for work.

People will think that you are the idiot on the ramp with the lights.

You may be the last person a pilot talks to, and hear the terror in his voice. You will never forget it. Ever. You will relive it again and again.

You won’t make the money that we do (or used to make before the Democratic Congress couldn’t stand the fact that some of the oldest controllers in the busiest facilities made *GASP* almost as much money as a newly-elected freshman Congressman). The new pay bands will never let THAT happen again. You might eventually get the house and the cars and the vacation home. We have them, and the clothes, the watch, the shoes, the attitude to go with it. We’ll sit back and finish out our careers without ever seeing another raise, while you struggle from paycheck to paycheck on the new “equitable” starting salaries.

We are unbelievably hard on each other (ridiculously hard). Thick skin is an understatement. No crying allowed. When you fail we will laugh at you (and laugh hard we will). When you succeed we won’t even acknowledge it (it’s your job…so what?)

Workplace morale? What’s that? All anyone at work ever talks about is “how much longer until I can retire”. The striking PATCO controllers in 1981 had higher morale than today’s controller workforce. Management is a joke, and consists mostly of people patting themselves on the back for catching a controller doing something wrong.

Still think you want to become an air traffic controller? Go get a job at Taco Bell as a manager-trainee instead. You’ll make more money and have less headaches.