An exclusive report by the New York Post claims that on Monday evening between 18:30 to 21:30, flights out of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) were handled by just one air traffic controller and a trainee. The report quotes a New York-based controller describing the situation as “pure insanity.” It also noted that an FAA spokesperson said that there were at least three controllers scheduled for each hour on Monday night but did not clarify how many of them were fully certified personnel.
The New York Times reported something similar, adding that four people familiar with the situation said that the number of fully certified controllers on duty to manage Newark’s air traffic was sometimes one or two. These figures are shocking because the target number of controllers for Newark to manage traffic in those hours is around 14-15.
I think one of the biggest problems is the government cutting and not investing in our infrastructure just to give hand outs to big businesses and the wealthy.
I posted this on another thread, but thought it was worth sharing here as well.
Heads up this is about to get worse. Republicans recently voted to cut retirement funding for air traffic controllers. By cutting the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) for workers retiring before 62 (all Air Traffic Controllers are required to retire at 56 and are eligible to retire at 50), this is completely fucking over ATCs who continue working by changing their retirement math.
An open secret with ATCs is that they have numerous medical qualifications that they have to maintain to keep working. For example, if they see a doctor about sleep apnea, depression, alcoholism, etc they lose their medical qualification and are forced to take a medical retirement.
So what happens if you’re an ATC in your 40s and the government says “hey you can keep working for the next 10 years and retire without this FERS supplement… Or you can tell your doctor that you snore at night and take an immediate medical retirement right now and get paid more in retirement”?
TLDR; We’re about to have a shit load of Air Traffic Controllers taking medical retirements and these staffing problems are going to explode.
I categorically refuse to fly under Trump’s FAA.
I really wish we had better trains in the USA.
The thing is it’s not Trump. Or more precisely it’s not only Trump. This shit started with Reagan. He decided to break the air traffic controller Union and in doing so he inexorably steered us down this path of chaos with our airplanes and airports. Trump is only the most recent president to throw gasoline on this particular fire. Biden did too so did Obama so did Bush.
The thing about Trump though is that he’s setting up even more situations that are going to be exactly like this with all the other agencies he’s trying to de-unionize.
Voting to make cuts to an already ailing ATC system makes no sense to me. Simply from a self-preservation aspect, I would think this is one service that all politicians and oligarchs would maintain. It doesn’t matter if you fly private or commercial, everyone uses and needs ATC to fly safely.
At least with something like global warming/climate change, I can see people selfishly believing it won’t effect them during their lifetime, but the 2nd and 3rd order effects of removing ATC can be immediate and fatal.
I only hope that a minimum number of bystanders are killed when poetic justice occurs.
It’s because the people at the tip top who regulate ATC don’t have any idea what’s actually involved. The actual regulators are very experienced and valuable. The suits think ‘It already works so why spend money on a system that already works.’ It gives a financial opportunity to cut on capital expenditures and engage in stock buy backs.
Maybe elon convinced them that grok could do the job next year. The same as robotaxis are a thing since 2018.
Could you imagine. For three straight hours, having thousands of lives in your hands knowing full well one mistake could send hundreds of them to their deaths. Bruh. Air traffic controllers need to strike.
How’d that work out last time?
How hard would it be to piss on Reagan’s grave?
They are federal employees. Federal employees can’t go on strike. Shit is fucked up. The US hates it’s labor force and that’s by design.
I keep seeing people say that… But what are they going to do? Fire them?! They have a fucking moral obligation to those flying under their watch, and if they are unable to do that for whatever reason, everything needs to stop until the issues are resolved. Not continuously hoping that crash won’t happen. It’s a matter of when not if.
All of your questions can literally be answered with history, as this type of stuff has already happened. Long story short, since others have typed it here as well, Reagan as president fired all 11k ATC workers and forced the Air Force to help pick up the slack while they looked for more workers. Some of those ATC workers got rehired, but it essentially prevents ATC from having any control of their careers.
Especially since I believe they are supposed to take a ten minute break every hour of work
Here is the neat part. ATC controllers in training needed a huge bump in recruiting numbers 10 years ago. These jobs aren’t something you can pull people off the street to do. There can be zero mistakes, trainees need to be vetted and undergo tons of hours in training and education to be experienced enough to work unsupervised in the tower.
I reckon we are past the point of no return with the current system. Either we are going to see a reduction in operational airports or we are gonna see a lot more automated systems directing traffic.
Here’s a fantastic case for a union. There simply MUST be a minimum number of personnel looking after any given airspace for it to be considered safe, or the whole area gets shut down. It really is pure insanity, and no single person should be responsible for all flights at an airport. If something bad had happened who would get blamed? Who would live the rest of their life knowing they had been taken advantage of and put in a position where over a hundred lives were lost? It’s simply unacceptable that one person should bear that responsibility.
Oh they had one. In 1981 they called a strike, and Reagan fired the 11 000 ATC who were on strike.
That is one of the reasons why labor protection are virtually inexistent in the US, as it’s illegal for federal employees to strike. Wild…
The weird thing for me here is why does the president have power over the employment of random government employees. I’m used to employment having legal protections so that prople can’t be fired just because.
Every generation of Americans decide they want their President to be a bit more like the king that they rebelled from.
Haven’t you ever heard of sMaLL gOvErNmEnT??
The President is the head of the executive branch. i.e the Chief Executive. i.e. CEO.
Not defending this, just an explanation. Usually it works ok, but not when we elect Republicans as we’ve seen again and again.
If something bad had happened who would get blamed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Überlingen_mid-air_collision
“Devastated by the death of his wife and two children aboard flight 2937, Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect, held Peter Nielsen personally responsible for their deaths. He tracked down and stabbed Nielsen to death, in the presence of Nielsen’s wife and three children, at his home in Kloten, near Zürich, on 24 February 2004. The Swiss police arrested Kaloyev at a local motel shortly afterward, and in 2005, he was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter. However, his sentence was later reduced after a Swiss judge ruled that he had acted with diminished responsibility.”
By his logic, Nielsen’s kids should now hunt him and kill him for killing their father.
Don’t read that article any further. It only gets worse.
They do have a union
there is a reason they say ‘safety regulations are written in blood’…
this won’t change until there is a major disaster, and even then, there is no reason to think it will make any difference to this current dumpster fire of an administration…
(…not to disparage dumpster fires, as they at the very least provide heat and light)
It takes like 2 years of specialized training to get operators in these comm towers.
Part of me is wondering if they’re purposely allowing a disaster to occur so they can push through some bullshit AI solution and layoff all existing human ATC
They should go on strike but be more organized, unlike the Reagan era
Are there no politicians or billionaires in New Jersey that fly? Cuz this affects them too. Fix it assholes.
They probably have a chauffer drive them out of the city to a smaller airport while their personal assistant makes sure they get everything else done on the car on the way.
Same air space.
Depends on how far out you go.
And high you fly
How far do you think that would have to be and I’m pretty sure New York’s airports overlap their air space. Not sure why you wouldn’t want the assholes to fix this.
They want the asshole to fix it, they’re just being skeptical about it because assholes have a tendency to not fix things at all.
Newark running a whole real busy airport like M. Bjoernstroem running his remote Swedish airport, wtf?
Some of these flights are gonna end up on the Mentour Pilot Youtube Channel.
(Its a channel about aircraft incidents/accidents, very informative and worth watching if you have an obsession with aircrafts)
He has a channel where he covers aviation news, and he has at least a couple of videos out now addressing the ATC shortages.
He’s fully aware of the mountains of content that will be coming his way in the near future, and seems almost desperate to prevent that…
Well im glad im reading this after I landed bc wtf
He probably needs a drink after that shift
