US Air Traffic Control Facilities Are Understaffed

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/business/air-traffic-controllers-understaffed.html

13 5 1 year ago

Actual title is more specific: 285 of 313 are understaffed

Related: A scandal at the FAA has been moving on a slow-burn through the courts for a decade, culminating in the class-action lawsuit currently known as Brigida v. Buttigieg, brought by a class who spent years and thousands of dollars in coursework to become air traffic controllers, only to be dismissed by a pass-fail biographical questionnaire with a >90% fail rate, implemented without warning after many of them had already taken, and passed, a skill assessment. The questionnaire awarded points for factors like "lowest grade in high school is science," something explicitly admitted by the FAA in a motion to deny class certification

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

DiscourseFan• 1 year ago

Yes everyone knows that at leaat in one area DEI policy has lead to a decline in the qaulity of vital government services. But Trump’s anti-DEI campaign isn’t doing much to fix this; in fact, he’s probably doing more harm than any of those policies.

insane_dreamer2• 1 year ago

The issue doesn’t seem to be that ATCs are under-qualified (which is what the link implies and what Trump is saying, without evidence of course).

The biographical questionnaire (terrible idea if indeed was the way described) was canceled in 2015 - thats 10 year ago so it also doesn’t explain why towers are understaffed _today_.

The biggest reason for understaffing is typically lack of funding. That’s what I would want to know. But the NYT is scant on details as to why there is understaffing.

tomohawk• 1 year ago

Hundreds of qualified applicants were denied jobs through a "Biographical Assessment" that you can take yourself:

https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/

Spend a bit of time taking it and it's clear what at least one reason for this shortage is.

US Air Traffic Control Facilities Are Understaffed

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