Air Traffic Control in crisis: Federal Aviation Administration recruitment looks to high schools to fill jobs
Confronted with an exodus of veteran air traffic controllers who are hitting retirement age, the Federal Aviation Administration is busy recruiting -- at, among other places, high schools.The FAA is busy wooing recent high school grads to come right on board, so to speak, and begin training to be controllers. They'll go through three months of training before becoming "controllers in training." Not long after that, they'll be staff.
The New York Post broke the story today.
The FAA has just completed a recruitment drive that placed ads on Craig's List, Myspace and at high schools nationwide. The feds were offering more than $100,000 in signing bonuses to newbies to draw them to the New York area's five understaffed radar centers, says the Post.
There's a one-time $27,000 bonus at the start of training, with another $75,000 paid out over four years.
So far, the Post says, one recent hire is a 20-year-old man who is currently monitoring radars at a station in Westbury, LI. He happens to have majored in air traffic control, but the FAA says students who have completed the 12th grade are eligible.
This news comes after two recent near-misses above the skies of New York that are being attributed to understaffed radar stations.
On July 5, two passenger jets inbound to JFK came within 100 feet of colliding in mid air, which the FAA considers to be an extremely close call. On June 25, a Learjet was given the green light to land at Teterboro Airport on a runway on which maintenance employees were busy working.
By 2011, nearly 60 percent of all air traffic controllers nationwide will have less than five years experience on the job, the Post says.
I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, the FAA has to get new people in there to bring staffing numbers up to a safe level. Then again, how safe do we feel knowing the FAA is searching out applicants for this life-or-death job on Myspace?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jul 23rd 2008 @ 6:49PM
John said...
" don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, the FAA has to get new people in there to bring staffing numbers up to a safe level. Then again, how safe do we feel knowing the FAA is searching out applicants for this life-or-death job on Myspace?"
You should feel angry at the Bush administration. These problems were forcasted since 1981. When Reagan fired striking Controllers, there was a massive hiring wave back then. Guess what?? They are retiring now!!!!
Instead of planning say five or six years ago for this, the president and his appointees in the FAA chose to fight the Controllers and try to destroy their union. Even if there weren't a labor issue, Controllers would still be fighting Bush and the FAA to actually do something productive instead of lying to Congress, the Press and the Public. From what I can determine, most of Congress knows as does most of the investigative press. Unfortunately most of the Public doesn't. Do you care enough to get informed??? Most people don't until someone they know dies. Sad, but probably true.
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Jul 24th 2008 @ 4:54AM
Joe said...
I wish them the best of luck. What they are looking for are smart, young, and educated candidates. Which is the same for just about every well paying industry. But can they afford to offer the salary and lifestyle of someone who decided to go into medicine, engineering, or computers. Because that is who they are competing against.
I applied for ATC jobs in the US and the UK. For the US there were only a few colleges that offered training and they were hugely expensive. The UK, and Europe in general, was slightly better because they have ab-initio training for the best qualified. Age also plays a factor, after 30 your ability to think quickly, and do other mental acrobatics (air rules) decreases.
I was on the fence between continuing on working in software development or switching careers to Air Traffic Control. 2 things I've always loved were airplanes and computers. While I was waiting to go through different stages of recruitment for ATC I accepted a job as a software developer. The start salary was much higher than I would see in ATC atleast for few more years. And the hours are much friendlier.
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Jul 24th 2008 @ 9:28AM
Emma Leigh said...
I think that having young people working as ATCs will not be a problem. Young people today have been raised with computers and many have honed their hand and eye coordination. It doesn't take a college degree to do what they do, but it will take strong disposition to put up with the bureaucracy of working for the US government. Although my husband has his MBA now, he didn't when he was an ATC for the Navy. There are many men and women in their teens and early 20s controlling helicopters, fighter jets and bombers every day. The age of the controller doesn't bother me, only their competency.
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Jul 24th 2008 @ 12:33PM
kevjohn said...
No problem. Just hook up an Xbox 360 controller to the air traffic system and we'll be good to go.
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Jul 27th 2008 @ 7:17AM
Terry Paddack said...
www.padackbooks.com
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Jul 27th 2008 @ 5:11PM
Kent Wien said...
Here's the link to the FAA's ATC job page.
http://jobs.faa.gov/announcement_summary.asp
To anyone who applies and gets accepted, let us know how it goes!
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Jul 30th 2008 @ 6:41PM
torii said...
I have been trying to figure out how to apply for Air Traffic Controller--BUT the FAA must be trying to keep it a "big secret" because I have searched FAA and can't figure out how to apply for the test?
Anyone know?
There is an application for Federal Government positions--Is this the only required documentation?
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Aug 20th 2008 @ 12:26AM
Bruna said...
Air traffic controlling is really a delicate matter in many countries around the world. It's a very specific career and demands specific training. To be an air traffic controller is much more than having the eyes of an eagle and the attention of a fox. You must make decisions very quickly and the best way you can according to the rules and the safety of everyone listening to your voice and trusting it.
I am Bruna, twenty-year-old and Brazilian air traffic controller. I studied for nine months right after my high school to become an air traffic controller and am working in a control tower for almost one year now.
Our course in Brazil is completely free of expense for the student but we still have problems of understaffment because of the low payments and lack of future expectations as an air traffic controller. I began working exactly for the same salary I will be working for the next 35 years. This leads many old coleagues to leave the job and a big mass of new controllers just like myself take their places.
What is amazing to see, though, is how fast you understand the responsability you have in your hands dealing with the lives of thousands everyday. I grew ten years older right on the moment I climbed the control tower stairs. At first, I was shocked and could barely understand the pilots' requests. I spent the first week stammering instructions, struggling to find the moving black dots far in the horizon and crying against the pillow for all the bad and sexist things the pilots used to say in response to my lack of experience.
Little by little you gain more confidence in yourself and although I have the complete notion I still have a young girl's voice I've proved my service and gained the trust of everyone who flies 'my' space.
I cannot really criticize the US goverment's attitude. It sounds very desperate and puts us all to think if such a measure couldn't be avoided with a little more of planning, but still I would feel myself safe flying under the watch of american controllers, even the young ones.
I've been proven many times here in my own country that an air traffic controller, anywhere they are and under any circumstance will do just anything to avoid a crash. I only feel sorry that sometimes this great feeling of responsability the controllers have end up being used against them by their recruiters who understand their silence when they just keep working no matter the problems they face as complete acception of their working conditions when we all know these conditions are so far from the ideal ones.
Aug 15th 2008 @ 5:19AM
bokiefabs said...
Im an ATC newly hired here in the philippines. We control too much traffic with too little pre-historic equipments and ATCs. And we are gravely underpaid. Though we have done so much with too little, our government just cant recognize the gravity of our job. We recieve half the salary of the lowest paid commercial pilots. I dont know what the hell the FAA's doing about it. So if someone out there knows any hiring relating aviation which pays quite fairly, email me at bookiefabs@yahoo.com. For us ace controllers here in the third world have continuously seeking for greener pastures.
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