Thread by @atclew58

1/ If you want an inside look at what #AirTrafficControl is dealing with these days: May I present Mr. Chip Flores. Chip is a fellow #AirTrafficController. He recently posted this insight on Facebook which I'm breaking up into a super long thread.

2/
"Many people have asked me about my job: “Air Traffic Control? I hear that’s very stressful; what’s it like?” And I, not being the most eloquent speaker, usually find it difficult to explain one of the most complex and technical jobs one can do.

3/ Which is why my common answer to this line of questioning usually falls along the lines of “Yes it is a stressful job, but I enjoy it.” Today I will try to pull back the curtain and shed some light on the subject to the best of my ability.

4/
Air Traffic Control is a high stakes game of Airplane-Tetris-Chess, with a crazed mental patient playing Russian roulette with a revolver held to the back of your head. None of the pieces are allowed to touch.

5/ All of the pieces are different sizes and move at different speeds, so you have to plan ten moves ahead so they can properly fit in a sequence (that’s the chess part of it).

6/ You clear a line of pieces from the board when you line them all up perfectly and then either hand them to the next ATC wizard to move onto his board, or you land them on an airport. If an airplane goes around and doesn’t land, or if something upsets the delicate sequence…

7/ …(like a thunderstorm or an accident at an airport, or an emergency... which would be the unpredictable crazy mental patient aspect of it) then that is a piece or a line of pieces that stay on the board which you must continue to deal with as the board continues to fill up…

8/ …and become more complex and difficult. If you make a catastrophic error which would end the game, it would result in heavy metal showers and lightly scattered people parts.

9/ And if you are found to be at fault, it’s go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 (This is the gun at the back of your head aspect). Does this sound difficult to you yet? Now for the bonus add-ons.

10/ The FAA is currently suffering from a major staffing crisis. We are at a 30 year low for certified air traffic controllers. In many facilities the controllers are working major overtime, 10 hour day, six day work weeks.

11/ When there aren’t enough controllers despite all the overtime, we are forced to combine sectors and positions. This means that each ATC wizard is now over the overseer of three or four of these game boards.

12/ Which means he can only safely handle a limited amount of pieces so when the guy next to him has his sequence all lined up perfect and goes to hand him those pieces, he’s going to say no I can’t take them.

13/ This means those airplanes are going to go into holding, and that guy is going to stop taking new pieces too. And so on down the line until planes still on the ground are not allowed to take off. You experience this as a flight delay or even a cancelled flight.

14/ And that staffing shortage I mentioned? Around 2000 of the nearly 10000 Air Traffic Control wizards currently working are eligible to retire. This means they could walk of the job and start playing golf TODAY if they chose to.

15/ It takes between 2-3 years from start to finish to fully train and certify a new Air Traffic Control wizard in their first facility.

16/ And then if they move on to another more complex facility to grow their career, they have to start that training again which can take another 1-2 years. It takes a great deal of knowledge to do this job.

17/ You can use google maps and take three interstate highways to get to Cincinnati from anywhere in the country. If you want to do that in the air, the maps look a little different. They are in THREE dimensions.

18/ For one area you may own from 20000ft to the ground, and 30 miles away you only own 10000ft-20000ft.

19/ You can just drive across a state line, but before an airplane can cross a border (and this is in all directions to include up and down) you have to get permission from the ATC wizard responsible for it.

20/ He might be the guy sitting next to you or he might be the guy sitting in another building 1000 miles away. This requires a great deal of coordination and complex communication equipment.

21/ You have to know countless airways, radio frequencies, approach procedures, emergency procedures, security procedures, and so on and so on. And you have to be able to call upon all this knowledge and make critical decisions at a moments notice, all while keeping track of…

22/ …all these moving pieces in three dimensions, and talking to thirty different people (and I don’t mean like talking to an audience, I mean thirty separate conversations) all at the same time.

23/
So now getting to the point of all of this: As I have mentioned the FAA is currently facing its worst staffing crisis in over 30 years. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City which is tasked with filling these empty positions with new controllers is shutdown.

24/ No new controllers are being produced and 2000 can walk off the job today, and if they did it would take 3 years to fully certify each new hire to replace them.

25/ The FAA Academy processes, completes initial training for, sends to their first facility, a little more than 1000 new controllers each year. Only half of these make it all the way through training and become fully certified controllers.

26/ That is way less than it takes to fill current open positions. And ALARMINGLY less than they would be able to replace if 2000 retirement eligible controllers decided they have had enough.

27/ The proud and professional Air Traffic Controllers that are currently keeping the National Airspace System safe are already overworked and over-stressed. Every year they handle more and more airplanes from a growing aviation industry, and every year they do it with less.

28/ Now they are being asked to do it without pay. Consider the amount of focus, concentration, and dedication it takes to do this job.

29/ Now decide if this is the person you want focused on things like whether or not they are about to be evicted, or if they can afford to care for their children. You may not think this affects you all that much.

30/ But when we are forced to combine sectors and positions, it means more delays and more cancelled flights. The airlines’ policies for flights that are over-booked resulting in people being bumped from their flights have been under fire in recent years.

31/ Imagine entire flights regularly being cancelled. And if you never travel, how well do you think that 2-day prime shipping is going to function when it starts impacting air-mail?

32/ And how well will your assets hold up when the degradation of the entire aviation industry begins to impact the economy? This government shutdown is extremely wasteful, expensive, and damaging to this country. The effects will already be felt for years to come.

33/ It needs to end and it needs to end now. Please join me by emailing, calling, and writing to your elected officials and telling them this government shutdown MUST END TODAY! And feel free to share and spread the word. This will eventually affect all of us".

This is a link to Chip’s original post on Facebook if you wish to view it there. facebook.com/ThePirateKing/…