US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

https://www.thedailybeast.com/air-traffic-controllers-start-resigning-as-shutdown-bites/

by throw0101a • 9 months ago

172 307 9 months ago

thedailybeast.com

montroser2• 9 months ago

What is Trump's endgame here? Everyone stranded for Thanksgiving, poor kids going hungry, all for...what, exactly?

0xC0ncord• 9 months ago

To own the libs, apparently.

e403• 9 months ago

Their goal, since they 80's, has been to make government look incompetent so they can privatize it and use as a weapon against their adversaries (who they argue want "big government").

neilv• 9 months ago

How much do they need that angle anymore?

Recent history shows that a lot of the old rules, about persuasion and enabling actions, don't currently apply.

techblueberry3• 9 months ago

I saw this interview with Arie Rothschild, the author of strangers in their own land (https://youtu.be/RywaAeWbXjo). And she described this sort of paradox, that people sort of know that Republicans are the ones screwing them, but the sting from being hurt by the government causes them to be susceptible to the arguments Republicans make about the government not working.

ryandrake5• 9 months ago

Don't forget "so they can make a lot of money off of it." One of the critical legs in the "privatization" stool is to make everything more expensive to line the pockets of people profiting off of what was once a government-provided service.

jeffbee• 9 months ago

Trump has no remaining mental powers and is not orchestrating this shutdown.

dangus2• 9 months ago

Mike Johnson has been speaker for long enough so that the average follower of politics probably forgets the fiasco behind his selection.

He’s really not a very skilled politician at all.

And of course, Trump is beyond deep fried, he’s a full blown dementia patient. He has no ability to navigate Congress. He even gave away his party’s leverage by fighting against SNAP payments, giving Democrats no reason to back down.

Fun fact, the only two presidents without government shutdowns since the modern budget process began have been Joe Biden and George W. Bush.

Joe Biden in particular was a master at navigating Congress and has relationships all over the place across the aisle. The bipartisan infrastructure bill is a really legitimate accomplishment in that sense.

slashdev• 9 months ago

Why do you blame Trump for the shutdown? Isn't it caused by Congress basically failing to agree on a funding continuation? (I think it's been ages since they could actually go further and agree on a budget). Government shutdowns are common under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

You can say he refuses to compromise, but clearly so does the other side, hence the impasse.

grebc6• 9 months ago

Republican Congress is in his pocket. If he wanted a compromise you bet your bottom dollar it would happen.

mayneack• 9 months ago

Well in this case the executive branch isn't even following congressionally appropriations, so one could argue that this particular shut down is more caused by the president than any other in history.

dummydummy1234• 9 months ago

The issue is that the Democrats 'compromised' on the last funding bill - basically had an agreement that some programs would stay funded.

Then the trump administration said "funding allocations from Congress are limits, and we do not have to spend that much on these programs if there is not a need"

And then stopped funding things anyway.

pwthornton5• 9 months ago

The two longest shutdowns in the history of the United States of America have occurred under Donald J. Trump.

Trump is hosting Great Gatsby parties, traveling, golfing, and doing everything except trying to end the shutdown. He doesn't seem to care that much that it is happening. And the entire reason it is happening is because Trump's Big Beautiful Bill did not contain Affordable Care Act subsidies.

It is incorrect to say that what is happening is common under all administrations. This dysfunction is uniquely Trumpian.

rainsford5• 9 months ago

Government shutdowns are common under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

They're not really, especially at this scale. Since they became a thing when Carter was President, Biden and George W. Bush had 0. Reagan had 3, but only for 6 days total and George H. W. Bush had 1 for 3 days. Clinton had 2 for 28 days total and Obama had 1 for 16 days total.

Clinton and Obama's records are a bit more significant, but Trump so far across his 2 terms, 1 of which is less than a year in, has had 3 shutdowns for 77 total days so far. Or to put it another way, out of the 130 days of shutdown that have even happened since they became a thing 45 years ago, ~60% of them have happened in the 5 years Trump has been president. If you do the math, that's roughly 10x worse government uptime. Notably, those are also the only shutdowns that have happened with one party controlling the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

I'm still not saying this is definitively the Trump administration's fault, but any way you look at it that is not a great record.

yieldcrv2• 9 months ago

Given that Trump and the left have the same view on this government shutdown as they’re both acknowledging how Republicans control both houses, I wouldn’t say this is part of any plan he has.

Trump has called for the Senate to remove the filibuster, which would allow for the government to reopen with a simple majority instead of needing more votes from Democrats

One could say the only endgame is unilateral control

But this is an issue with Congress which Trump does not control. The Senate is not considering getting rid of the filibuster because of the threat its used in favor of Democrats after midterms

actionfromafar8• 9 months ago

Trump needs to sooth the Senate with the message there will be no midterms.

immibis• 8 months ago

AFAIK the existence of the filibuster is something that's separately decided every session. I think if the Republicans delete it for this session, and Democrats win the next one, they'll bring it back because they suffer from extreme normalcy bias / Business As Usual syndrome.

pjdemers• 9 months ago

There is no end game. He makes everything up as he goes along. When (if?) the shutdown ends, he will claim victory no matter what the outcome. If it doesn't end, he will still claim victory. He always wins.

Tiktaalik3• 9 months ago

Poor people starving is the upside for these folks.

e403• 9 months ago

Remember, the pain this is causing everyone means less to the people in power than does the benefits of this shutdown (to them). We can argue about what those benefits are all day long, but they wouldn't be refusing to have discussions with the Dems if there were not some benefit, be it political power they can wield, or whatever.

nostrademons• 9 months ago

It's interesting how the effects of filter bubbles are playing out here. Everyone believes that they have the upper hand and the majority of the American people are on their side, because computerized personalization shows them only opinions from people who agree with them. As a result, they think that the negative popular opinion for the shutdown will fall primarily on the other party, and so it is rational for them to continue the shutdown until the other party blinks. Of course, the other party has the same information distortion in the opposite direction, so they also believe that if they just keep going, the American public will blame their opponents.

In reality, the public is pretty close to split down the middle, and both parties are getting blamed, and the real message that people are taking away from this is that Congress is dysfunctional. It's a game of chicken where both parties think that the other side will blink, and so they just end up crashing.

grebc6• 9 months ago

Reminds me of the dysfunction the Roman Republic towards the end of it’s time.

It’s not unique to the US however, I think maybe we are all approaching the end of the line for current political/civil systems without further work that no one seems interested in taking.

techblueberry3• 9 months ago

Trump said it was Republicans fault.

lesuorac• 9 months ago

I mean they wouldn't talk to democrats before the shutdown so it seems entirely reasonable for them not to talk to them afterwards.

I still find it (morbidly) hilarious that congress considers doing their job the "nuclear option". If they weren't hiding behind the filibuster and started legislating maybe their approval rating wouldn't be such trash.

tbrownaw2• 9 months ago

I'd kinda assumed that any "benefits" were mostly about the opportunity to blame it on the other party and try to corner them into blinking first.

(Note this works identically well regardless of which side of the aisle you read it as being about.)

rainsford5• 9 months ago

The problem is that it's existential for both Democrats and Republicans. Given the current makeup of the federal government, Republicans basically have all the power and have been able to leverage that into spending the last 10 months doing whatever they want. The exception to that power is the Democrats' ability to filibuster in the Senate and shut down the government by not agreeing to whatever the Republicans put forward.

The actual demands I think are essentially irrelevant. If Republicans give up anything to the Democrats, the spell of the last 10 months is broken and Republicans can no longer unilaterally control the direction of government. If Democrats don't get any concessions, they're essentially irrelevant for the next 14 months and that only changes if they win either the House or Senate in 2026. Given that, it's not obvious how this ends.

consumer451• 9 months ago

I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.

mcphage7• 9 months ago

The problem is that it's existential for both Democrats and Republicans.
If Republicans give up anything to the Democrats, the spell of the last 10 months is broken and Republicans can no longer unilaterally control the direction of government.

How is that in any way shape or form “existential”? Existential means “if they fail they cease to exist or matter”, not “if they fail they don’t get to whatever the fuck they want”.

jaybrendansmith• 9 months ago

It's not existential for the Republicans. THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING THEY WANT. This setup is essentially anti-democratic, which is why they are able to murder hundreds of thousands of aids patients in Africa and kill 'future you' through their cancelling the bulk of investment in life sciences.

mothballed3• 9 months ago

It's wild ATC isn't funded by use fees instead of being appropriated by congress. Seems like a good opportunity to provide some mechanism so the government has to shit or get off the pot, because if the government won't do the job the airlines would surely be glad to pay for the service themselves.

bobthepanda3• 9 months ago

It kind of is https://www.faa.gov/about/budget/aatf

The problem is that tax collection also happens with congressional approval.

inglor_cz5• 9 months ago

This seems to be a somewhat inefficient system. There is no absolute need to consider aviation fees to be taxes and collect them through a federal agency.

Individual airports should be capable of financing their local ATC as they see fit, be it their own airport fees or, IDK, a surcharge on hamburgers sold in the local McD or a gift from a wealthy sponsor; and they should only have a duty to maintain certain technical standards.

pwthornton5• 9 months ago

It is kind of wild that airports themselves don't straight up pay for this. I can understand not wanting to privatize it, as they'll be liable to half-ass it, but surely a usage fee on flights would cover it?

I wonder if this is because bigger airports near major cities and businesses would basically be subsidizing tons of airports in the middle of nowhere, and some people don't want to admit that?

nandomrumber2• 9 months ago

Most airports in the middle of nowhere aren’t controlled.

There are something like 530 ATC towers in the USA out of 5000 or so public airports. 20,000 if we include anything that can be described as an airstrip.

Your wider point still stands though, probably something like 20% of the airports handle 80% of the traffic.

crooked-v• 9 months ago

From what I understand, ATC also covers military flights in the US, which gives a pretty good national security reason to have central control over it... at least when a particular party isn't intentionally trying to destroy it along with various other government functions.

alemanek• 9 months ago

I think the argument is more that ATC, people and equipment needed, should be funded via use fees.

This ensures that the system is self sustaining. Also as demand increases then revenue to run the system would also increase.

nandomrumber2• 9 months ago

How do you determine which party is refusing to capitulate at any particular moment in time.

Doesn’t it take two to have a disagreement?

dylan6045• 9 months ago

the airlines would surely be glad to pay for the service themselves.

No, they would be glad to increase fares so that the flying customers pay for the service themselves. Currently, ATC is subsidized by all tax payers. Your method moves the burden to only those that pay for fares. I'm just pointing it out not saying it is good/bad.

HPsquared3• 9 months ago

That's probably better anyway. Air fares should cover the costs of flying. It's already a very profitable activity: it's much more efficient than the alternatives, and flying provides much value to passengers. So why can't the industry fund itself?

epolanski7• 9 months ago

Your method moves the burden to only those that pay for fares.

Well they are the ones flying why do I have to subsidize them?

I'm obviously borderline joking, but you get the point.

dessimus• 9 months ago

Commercial airline passengers are not the only users of ATC. If you include mail and parcel carriers and other use cases like med-evac, tourist, and other private flights, you are probably close to 100% coverage of US taxpayers in the country.

piva00• 9 months ago

It's wild that from the many developed countries in the world this issue only happens in the USA, the richest one. Fucking bonkers actually...

danaris• 9 months ago

The problem isn't that ATC is funded by the government; it's that the government has been taken over by people who don't believe government should exist.

This is a fundamental failure state that it is impossible for any realistic governmental structure to protect against. The best we can do is put in place safeguards to make it harder.

And...we did. It's just that over the past 40 years or so (and increasingly so over the past 15ish), those safeguards have been systematically eroded by the Republican Party, both socially and legally.

ndsipa_pomu3• 9 months ago

It seems logical that the government should have a lot of control over preventing air disasters. If we allow air traffic control to be turned over to the lowest bidder, then we can expect a lot more incidents, especially at smaller airports that don't attract a lot of traffic.

8note• 9 months ago

why are traffic controllers government employees at all? wouldn't it be better for the government to maintain a standards/licensing body and only have a couple on staff as a "traffic controllers of last resort" during emergencies?

when an traffic controller quits, what job can they go to? clearly not another airport

tayo422• 9 months ago

Why would it be better to have this job be driven by profit?

It's a service provided to the public. Seems like a natural fit for being run by government. The only thing is this funding situation for this government is dumb. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.

tbrownaw2• 9 months ago

Why would it be better to have this job be driven by profit?

Er, to avoid it being used as leverage during government infighting?

krisoft4• 9 months ago

It's a service provided to the public. Seems like a natural fit for being run by government.

I don't understand this part of your reasoning. It sounds like you are saying it is a service provided to the public therefore it is a natural fit for being run by the government. Do I understand your reasoning right?

Because if so: A lot of services are provided to the public. For example baking bread. Should every baker be a government employee?

pwthornton5• 9 months ago

It's probably because a lot of smaller airports in the middle of nowhere would be hard to get coverage for. The current system sends controllers to where they are needed, not to where people want to work.

Now, should more productive parts of the country be subsidizing air travel in less productive parts of the country? That's for you to decide.

inglor_cz5• 9 months ago

"Now, should more productive parts of the country be subsidizing air travel in less productive parts of the country? That's for you to decide."

I would say "no", personally. In the absence of a subsidy, the network of the rural airports would likely become sparser, but the surviving ones would have better economy and, as a result, infrastructure too.

philipwhiuk2• 9 months ago

Bear in mind you need radar coverage for overflight even if you don't land.

epolanski7• 9 months ago

Because managing the skies over your country is a public service.

montroser2• 9 months ago

Curbing air traffic at major airports by 10% -- seems like this change alone would cause enough upheaval and disruption to everyday operations that it would offset any incremental relief from slightly lower traffic volume.

dylan6045• 9 months ago

I heard a radio report that said something like 25,000-30,000 flights a day, so 10% would still be 2-3 thousand flights per day canceled. They said a majority of these would be the smaller legs from smaller airports to the larger hubs. The flights from hub to larger cities would be less impacted. However it breaks down, 2-3 thousand flights a day is a lot of flight crews not working, and similar cascading effects. So not only an inconvenience for travelers, but some people are going to take a financial hit because of this

baq• 9 months ago

Fact: This government has done more to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation than any green protester could have hoped for.

Interpretation: none from me. Don’t shoot the messenger.

koolba2• 9 months ago

Pull all air traffic controllers from private airports and shutdown all routes for private jets, then this government shutdown will be done by tomorrow morning.

OsrsNeedsf2P• 9 months ago

[flagged]

barbazoo• 9 months ago

FAA could restrict who flies in and out of airports, why not target private jets? It’s like closing traffic for cars but letting busses in. Much better unit economics in terms of passengers serviced.

DontForgetMe• 9 months ago

[flagged]

FL410• 9 months ago

That’s not how it works, like at all. Private airports don’t have controllers, and the ones I presume you are thinking of (smaller PUBLIC airports) the controllers are either employed or funded by the FAA.

slg2• 9 months ago

I know many of the people reading this will think I'm being hysterical. But there was a small voice in the back of my mind when the shutdown started wondering whether that version of the American government would ever reopen and that voice has started to become much louder in recent days. Specifically the combination of this, the handling of SNAP benefits, and this all happening in November just seems intentionally designed to cause unrest. Families going hungry and/or unable to fly to spend Thanksgiving together feels like a perfectly orchestrated way to cause mass civil unrest that an authoritarian could use to seize power.

actionfromafar8• 9 months ago

That’s MAGA for you.

Waterluvian5• 9 months ago

The sooner things become intolerably broken in the U.S. the better off I think the rest of the world is. The U.S. kind of scares me right now. So much power, wielded by deeply incompetent, broken, and evil people. And those who aren't those things are demonstrably too weak to do anything about it. I have a sense that things will only improve once they hit an intolerable low. And the longer it takes for that to happen, the more normalized it will become for all of those people. Basically: I really hope the current regime boils the water too fast.

slg2• 9 months ago

I can't deny that and maybe would even agree with that as an abstract theory, but I just can't stomach the amount of misery and death that would come along with this to ever use a word like "hope" to describe that outcome.

sebastiennight4• 9 months ago

A major part of the plot of The Every[0] is one protagonist's belief, akin to yours, that precipitating things to their worst outcome could be the fastest way to snap public opinion back to sanity.

I don't want to spoil the suspense, but I'll say that I do see the logic in hoping that a quick fire would call everyone's attention to the fire hazard. What you're failing to ask here is "What could possibly go wrong with this plan?"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Every

wredcoll• 9 months ago

This is, uh, not usually how these things work out, historically speaking.

A desperate country with an extremely strong military is not a great situation for anyone.

crikeykangaroo• 9 months ago

I completely agree. It's a good thing we're in a multipolar world now. The US (and its vassal states) have ruled terribly and the world suffered much over it. Sadly, there is still a lot of propaganda that needs to go away. A great world leader would spread genuine peace. Not corrupt other countries, start wars and shed blood. The USA has failed to even keep its own citizens safe and secure. All I worry about is that they will drag a lot of other countries with them while they are falling.

chasil• 9 months ago

Europe has certainly had its share of deeply incompetent, broken, and evil people. So, so many. Such profound impact.

I think any country will see this, despite all the wishing in the world.

api• 9 months ago

Historically low points are when very bad regimes seize full control.

themafia3• 9 months ago

That this is happening is an indication that power has been seized already.

What do you think their goals with the power are? To make your life miserable? No, clearly, all they care about is the wealth and it's profits. Which they're already swallowing whole.

You _already_ live in their prison.

fzeroracer2• 9 months ago

Well, there's one critical flaw which is that Trump is also fucking up with the military. A lot of military members are going unpaid, and many more are going unpaid and their family isn't receiving snap benefits. An authoritarian trying to seize power without the backing of the military is bound to lead to failure, and even though money is being funneled into ICE enmasse they're an untrained legion of goons with little access or ability to use actual military equipment.

If push comes to shove we're not going to get an authoritarian takeover, we're going to get a military coup. Unless they wake up and realize they need the guys with the hardware to do their whole fascist takeover thing.

an0malous2• 9 months ago

ICE is being paid

pkulak4• 9 months ago

Didn’t they illegally take funds from the CIA to pay the military and ICE?

It seems to me like this is ideal for them. They break the law to pay for the stuff they want, let everything else rot. Why the Democrats have allowed this is beyond me.

forgotoldacc• 9 months ago

People who support the guy aren't rational. He could personally take their every cent, say they're lucky that's all he did, and he wouldn't lose a single supporter. If the military went unpaid for half a year, all his supporters in the military would shift the blame to someone else.

RickJWagner• 9 months ago

The Republicans have tried to pay the military, the Democrats blocked it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/politics/shutdown-congress-fe...

legitster• 9 months ago

One side abhors "the government" and actively took an axe to the agencies and programs that the other side cared about. The result is that neither party have any sort of active investment in the current status quo.

Marshferm3• 9 months ago

Yes, exactly. I second this. Time to repeal the president before this gets terrible.

paulryanrogers5• 9 months ago

The process of repealing a president (impeachment) is a political process. Republicans could do it at any moment, so every day they don't is an endorsement of what the president has done, continues to do, and even what he threatens to do.

AnimalMuppet• 9 months ago

For me, I wonder if Congress will ever reopen. I wonder if the trench warfare in Congress has gone so far that it will destroy itself rather than compromise.

epolanski7• 9 months ago

I don't buy it for few reasons.

1. The budget doesn't include some insane, unvotable measure. I don't hold any sympathy for either of the parties, but as an external it seems that the majority and the president have been voted on top of repealing the affordable care act and the opposition is weaponizing the budget on topics that voters have already expressed themselves against.

2. Being unable to spend or spend vacations with family are not things that historically lead to unrests.

So imho, no, Occam's razor suggests me this is simply business as usual, but with the usual increasing polarization and extremism we're seeing all around the world.

rasz• 9 months ago

voted on top of repealing the affordable care act

Its much more stupid than this. People voted MAGA to get rid of Obamacare, but same dont even realize it IS the ACA. Jimmy Kimmel Live did whole bit around that in 2017 and it still holds true today.

thephyber3• 9 months ago

Maybe.

But having 10%+ of all Americans panicking after missing a few meals is also enough to topple a country. There’s not a whole lot that can unify the different political factions of the US, but going hungry gets people focused on necessity and to deprioritize the shallow / vapid aspects of politics.

Arguably it’s China’s governing body’s biggest single fear.

I currently think this government shutdown is unlikely to do that to the US because politicians have had lots of practice making each shutdown less impactful for most Americans, but the longer we go, the more likely we are to find some high value thing the US government does that Americans don’t want to live without.

epolanski7• 9 months ago

Arguably it’s China’s governing body’s biggest single fear.

Why China's? What you said is true in any corner of the globe.

disgruntledphd2• 9 months ago

I can't see any rational politician letting this go beyond another two weeks. I can't imagine keeping people away from their families over Thanksgiving is gonna work out well for anyone.

But then, maybe they're not rational.

mrtksn3• 9 months ago

Two weeks ago, the German state funded publisher Deutsche Welle published a video making a case about the possibility of Donald Trump actually being a Russian asset: https://youtu.be/JmEtx-EmYtc

I would be speechless if a conspiracy theory comes true, and the American state is actually captured by the Russians. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish it, but as a fan of the series The Americans, it will be epic..

thrance3• 9 months ago

Nah, he's swung back and forth on Ukraine at least 4 times now. Russia certainly did help Trump get the White House, what with the propaganda and all, as they correctly foresaw how terrible he would be for the American Empire. But he does not receive his orders from Putin, that's ridiculous. He's just cruel and stupid.

bmitch3020• 9 months ago

http://archive.today/aKDPo

andy99• 9 months ago

I don’t know US specifically but I know a bit about Canadian air traffic controllers. It’s a high stress but very well paying job with good pension etc. But I suspect there’s not a lot of opportunity to change to another job and get the same pay and benefits. So I guess I wonder what the end game is in resigning? Is it just people taking some pre-specified early retirement option, is it early career people that just are cutting their losses? Unless I’m missing something it seems like for someone mid career at least, waiting it out seems like the only real option.

rainsford5• 9 months ago

Not really ATC specific, but at some point most people in most jobs can't deal with indefinitely not getting paid and will have to go do something else even if they don't have a good backup plan. Working retail, driving for Uber, etc, all have vastly better ROI at the moment than working ATC getting a $0 paycheck. In theory they'll get backpay and have better future earnings prospects than leaving for an uncertain career change. But that's probably not as comforting as it should be since it's uncertain when that will happen, or even if, since the government has unnecessarily gone out of its way to cast doubt on the promise of backpay.

mrtksn3• 9 months ago

If they are allowed at work when they are not being paid, why don’t the airlines create a fund where they just pay them something so they can survive the shut down? IIRC the shutdown isn’t happening that often, they probably can just put money in it and use it when needed

metalman• 9 months ago

at a certain point, rebooting ATC could become exceptionaly difficult, as the whole aviation comunity, flys. And no, you cant train new AT controllers, they learn on the job, and what a job it is! as part of our pilot training they took us into a controll tower, which is a radicaly modern, high tech, high security environment, and let us hang around, the senior hand started chatting with us, while directing air traffic, ground traffic, confering with coleages, talking on the phone, telling us a joke, all at once, and his timing was so good, that the joke was still funny......these are guys who can do other stuff

noir_lord2• 9 months ago

Depending how bad it gets you could end up in a situation where European controllers are needed to at least help get things stood up again but while the job is similar the systems won’t be.

That or you pay the ones who’ve resigned a shit load of money.

It astounds me how quickly they are breaking things that took decades or more to build.

ryandrake5• 9 months ago

Also, there are strict medical (including mental health) and age requirements in order to become and remain an ATC. You need to be under 31 to apply and must retire at age 56.

nakamoto_damacy• 9 months ago

Elon Musk will step in to save the day and privatize air traffic control. The government will transform the nation into a fully decentralized economy owned and operated by oligarchs, with the role of the government shrinking to that of a mediator between the various oligarchs, and employed directly by the oligarchs. Kind of like how they describe it in the sci-fi show Alien Earth.

forinti2• 9 months ago

This thought gives me Back to the Future II vibes. Trump even reminds me of Biff.

sharts• 9 months ago

Cue AI traffic control

morkalork2• 9 months ago

You're absolutely right, that is another plane in your flight path.

pessimizer2• 9 months ago

If the Democrats are smart, they'll keep the shutdown going until Trump folds, keep it going until the midterms if they have to. It's the first thing they're doing that people like, they blame Trump for all the misery.

He's jumping in front of the bullet by trying to stop SNAP under a goofy theory that Democrats actually care if people go hungry. Many Republicans have this strange but deeply-held crazy belief that Democrats are motivated by ideology rather than the same money that they themselves are motivated by, so they always think threatening to cut the baby in half will work.

And he's busy building a ballroom. People are really loving flights getting cancelled and more expensive, hard to blame that on immigrant fent terrorist antifa; and if there's anything that middle-class people hate, it's minor inconvenience.

Dems don't have to say anything (in fact it's better if they don't say anything) or do anything. Just watch the poll numbers go up and the donations from health insurers go up. All rational people agree that Obamacare sucks. But the Republicans are fighting to make it worse.

bsder• 9 months ago

All rational people agree that Obamacare sucks.

Um, no, we don't.

Remember recission panels? Remember not being able to get insurance if you had sleep apnea (aka pre-existing condition)? I can go on and on about exactly how insurance sucked shit before the ACA.

The ACA could be better, and it was supposed to be adjusted over time. The problem is that we've got an entire party in the US who sole solution to the problems in the ACA is "Destroy it all" without providing a single alternative or improvement.

Tadpole91814• 9 months ago

Since when have Republicans or Libertarians ever cared about the truth on the ACA? They still call it Obamacare, for God's sake.

From the very beginning they talked of "Death Panels", that quite literally already existed in insurance companies. And on zero basis, the ACA has no such thing!

forinti2• 9 months ago

Are there any laws that protect labour in the US? Will they get their salaries and some extra compensation for the tardiness?

csa2• 9 months ago

Are there any laws… in the US?

Laws are irrelevant if they are not enforced. Laws are being very slowly or very selectively enforced these days, while some of the powers that be are flagrantly breaking laws.

Will they get their salaries and some extra compensation for the tardiness?

Theoretically, yes. Just regular pay plus OT that they are owed. No bonus or extra compensation.

Also, most of these folks can fairly easily get low interest loans from banks or credit cards that will be due when they get back pay.

Part of this story is not being told, but I’m not sure what part.

Were these folks who were about to retire anyway?

Were these folks who plan on getting hired back when the government reopens?

I’m not sure, but I don’t think the complete story is being told here (not necessarily with malice or intent).

viccis• 9 months ago

Are there any laws that protect labour in the US?

Air traffic controllers are famously a group of people who were just mass fired for striking. These days the laws in the US actually protect the airlines from them by making it illegal for them to strike.

epolanski7• 9 months ago

ATC should, like some other essential services, be exempt the budget thing.

This is a disaster in the making.

Waterluvian5• 9 months ago

Why are Americans paying for ICE agents to terrorize America but aren’t paying for ATCs to protect Americans? What decides what is and is not an essential service?

Tadpole91814• 9 months ago

Frankly, the dictator.

xphos• 9 months ago

Remember the ATCs never recovered from the staffing shortage when Reagan fired them for striking on working conditions. The conditions have not improved the hiring has never caught up. Rates of alcholalism from work induced stress is extremely high and they have been showing up for work while not getting paid.

Anyone who calls all public sector people lazy or entitled, remember ATCs are government workers do work extremely hard and most log extensive overtime. These are government workers and they are American Heros through and through

drivingmenuts• 9 months ago

I get the impression that some people in Washington think all government employees are lazy and entitled.

soupfordummies• 8 months ago

Who do you mean? The lazy and entitled government elected representatives?

radar1310• 9 months ago

Yeah Happy Holidays everyone.

phendrenad2• 9 months ago

This whole shutdown seems engineered to enable privatization. I wouldn't be at all surprised if ATCs get outsourced to some federal contractor.

nullocator• 9 months ago

Didn't DOGE/Musk try this or at least talk about it? Like modernizing the whole system or something? I don't think the turn around time on such a conversion would be very quick. I'm not sure there are thousands of qualified controllers waiting in the wings private sector, though maybe I'm wrong about that.

mvdtnz• 9 months ago

I can't believe it takes this long. I would resign the very first day my paycheque doesn't arrive. There's one and only one reason I go to work every day.

fortranfiend• 9 months ago

What happens when people don't get paid for multiple months.

insane_dreamer• 9 months ago

Stop paying ICE and use the money to pay ATCs.

AgentK20• 9 months ago

And here we see a system that was already stretched to the breaking point BEFORE the shutdown, put under an incredible strain and failing. A more robust system can handle sudden shocks, but when you’ve spent years whittling away at it there’s no slack.

xg15• 9 months ago

I get that the Trump admin doesn't care a bit about the impact of the shutdown on the general population (they're fighting in court for NOT having to release the emergency funding that would instantly reinstate SNAP) and probably even welcome it as an opportunity for "government downsizing" - but things like air traffic becoming restricted would start to touch even the areas that the ultra-rich are interested in, would it?

gafferongames• 9 months ago

Not if they have private planes, unfortunately.

samrus2• 9 months ago

Private planes dont need air traffic controllers?

tombert3• 9 months ago

Wouldn't private planes still necessitate air traffic controllers? I remember when I flew with my uncle in his small private plane [1] he had to fairly frequently chatter with the air traffic people over the radio to report his position and altitude and the like.

[1] Just a tiny two seat thing, I don't come from billionaires, it wasn't a cool private jet.

dathinab2• 9 months ago

yes but Musk has claimed he could trivially re-implement the system with more or less only using AI

putting aside weather that is true or not and just assume it to be true for the later argument

then it is the perfect chance to replace a public service the country depends on by a billionaire controlled private company

thats how you convert a country to an oligarchy, bit by bit replacing essential parts with entities privately owned and (most importantly) controlled by a few people so that a country "has to" depend on them to function and they can use it as leverage to force through their interests

to be fair, this might not be the intend here. A lot of the shutdown seem more blind ideological driven then well calculated, but it's a potential danger anyway

RestartKernel2• 9 months ago

trivially re-implement

That's... concerning to anyone who has tried or witnessed a trivial rewrite. Let me hold some hope in the institutions that be to stop this from being hastily deployed.

labcomputer2• 9 months ago

yes but Musk has claimed he could trivially re-implement the system with more or less only using AI

He is wrong about that.

That being said... there's a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick in terms of efficiency gains for the current system.

jeena• 9 months ago

No, because there will be always some left and those will be used to get the private jets off the ground first.

Jtsummers3• 9 months ago

Yes, air cargo will be impacted as well which will change the costs for businesses. They'll need to start shifting to other freight methods (rail, truck, ship) if available and those operate on different timescales than air cargo which can have further downstream effects impacting businesses' abilities to actually do their business.

perfmode• 9 months ago

The shutdown impacts Federal FAA controllers (at major centers/towers) who are considered essential and must work without pay.

However, many smaller FBO-serving towers are staffed by Contract Controllers, who are employed by private companies holding FAA contracts.

These contract controllers generally continue to receive their pay during a shutdown, shielding them from the immediate financial crisis affecting their federal counterparts.

BurningFrog• 9 months ago

More as an interesting fact than trying to be argumentative:

In the current electorate, Democrats are supported by a majority of both low-income and high-income voters. Republicans even it out by having a majority of the middle income voters, especially those without a college degree.

It didn't use to be like this. But now it is.

samrus2• 9 months ago

So the deadlock is over ACA premium tax credits. A subsidy towards premiums, inversely proportional to income.

Republicans have to budge on this right? Health insurance is already dire in this country, you cant fuck it up even more. The working class is the biggest part of the citizenry, and we are in an affordability crisis

salawat• 9 months ago

Never underestimate how bad things can get. They can always get worse.

tombert3• 9 months ago

Somehow the Republicans have managed to convince their constituents that somehow stuff that will objectively fuck them over is actually not fucking them over. It's impressive in its own way.

I have seen people who still don't seem to understand the (extremely) simple "there's no such thing as a free lunch" part of economics and genuinely still think that the tariffs are going to be paid purely by China, because apparently they don't realize that for-profit businesses bake all overhead (including taxes and tariffs) into the total cost. It really isn't that complicated, but I guess the distortion field around "owning the left" makes them turn off this logic.

kevin_thibedeau2• 9 months ago

60% of ACA recipients are in Republican controlled districts. That shows how much they care about their constituents.

antonymoose• 9 months ago

What percentage of this recipients are Republican constituents?

muglug• 9 months ago

They absolutely don’t have to budge. The affected population has a lot of low-propensity voters.

pstuart• 9 months ago

Project 2025 (the instruction manual that the president and his staff are hewing to) wants to shred everything in ACA and privatize everything. They offer nothing other than reducing taxes on the wealthy. The poors don't matter because they they are poor and exist only to be exploited for service work.

nostrebored• 9 months ago

This is a strange assertion given that the concession is reallocating funds to HSAs?

pessimizer2• 9 months ago

I think this is the last stand they can take that will (under normal circumstances) be completely forgotten before midterms. Democrats need to drag it out as long as possible and look for populist Republican allies.

They need to start campaigning for midterms now, and to be generous towards those populist worker-friendly Republicans and especially those that are threats to Republican incumbents. That means campaigning on something other than illegal immigration and trans. It also means that shutdown misery will be part of what they'll be campaigning on, so everything Trump is doing now will backfire. He cut his base out from under him with H1Bs, Israel and Epstein, so as terrible as they are, Democrats have a chance to get to popularity parity or even turn the tables right now.

Trump also gasses when he starts losing control of the situation. He lost at the end of his last term because everything was going wrong; he looked tired, and like he had lost interest in the job completely. A dragged-out shutdown will weigh him down and bore him like covid did. He doesn't even care about ACA tax credits.

jmclnx• 9 months ago

If this keeps going, lots of knowledge will be lost. But at least by retiring they will start getting paid (I think) via 401k, Social Security or pensions.

In a way we have an idea what to expect. When Reagan fired the controllers in 1981/2, AFAIK there were no major incidents with air travel. But I think Military Controllers were brought in to cover the holes the firing left.

This time, I thought I saw Military Controllers are unable to cover or were told not to cover. so I guess we will see how this plays out with a set of crazy people in charge of the US.

Jtsummers3• 9 months ago

But at least by retiring they will start getting paid (I think) via 401k, Social Security or pensions.

Gov't 401k is called TSP, and like regular 401k plans it's not accessible (without penalties) until you're 59 1/2. Social Security also has a minimum age (62) before you can start receiving benefits. ATC can access FERS earlier than other federal employees because of their mandatory retirement age (56) which is below MRA under FERS (57 for most people now). They can get their pension at age 50 with 20 years of ATC time or any age with 25 years of ATC time (some other services also get this benefit and count towards that).

And an important point there, because ATCs retire before 59 1/2 and before 62 by necessity (56 is the oldest they can be), they won't get their TSP or Social Security for several more years.

Pensions are being held up for people who are retiring right now as the people processing retirements are also furloughed (I don't think all, but it's impacted friends of mine with delays to processing). Retirements are already slow to process and occasionally people end up waiting 6+ months to get their pension (they should get back pay in that case, but it's still months without income).

utopcell• 9 months ago

The disrespect towards these people is unfathomable.

iJohnDoe• 9 months ago

Serious question. Not trolling.

What happened to Elon Musk taking over Air Traffic Control? Whole new system? Grok controlled ATC?

gigatexal• 9 months ago

lol I don’t want my plane to crash into another plane…

walletdrainer2• 9 months ago

It’s hardly a herculean task to replace most atc functions with software, detecting planes which are on collision course and instructing them how to avoid that being one of the easiest tasks.

Of course you’d still sometimes need a human in the loop, but you could get by with much less staff

Jtsummers3• 9 months ago

It was all bull, as are most things he promised with DOGE and his efforts.

retrochameleon2• 9 months ago

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games. Sometimes I look at our country like a strategy game: where we are investing resources, infrastructure planning and investment, active problems or threats and how they are being prioritized and handled, managing citizen happiness, etc.

The last 10-20 years feel like a massive lost opportunity to invest in some of these improvements and forward-thinking planning. In the last few years, it feels like catastrophic decision after decision.

I can't help but look at the state of America and feel like I'm looking at an inexperienced amateur player taking a relatively strong game position and slowly throwing it away. Crumbling infrastructure, weak citizen cohesion and education, intentional weakening of our own national and cyber security in more than one way, not to mention all the harm being done to our reputation and relationships with other countries.

It feels like we are in a weaker position then ever: militaristically, economically, scientifically, and so on. Meanwhile the threats of China and Russia and what could happen in the next few years are quite concerning.

I'm pretty pessimistic right now. I know the world and the US is not as simple as a strategy game, but tons of principles from strategy games well-understood by experienced players sure could help with more wise use of resources. Attention and time are also incredibly valuable resources that feel like they are being thrown away right now.

Getting into a major conflict could help unify The People and put focus on more important problems in the country, but as far as I'm concerned, I think all the other NATO countries would be the ones holding the war effort together. I'm just ranting at this point though.

jameskilton• 9 months ago

Americans today are incapable of envisioning a better future and incapable of envisioning a worse one! We as a society are now only able to focus on what problems exist now, and to demand that they are fixed tomorrow.

There are a lot of problems that can be solved over decades, but we can no longer even fathom such a thing, much less put together the will power to see such projects through.

senderista• 9 months ago

I can't escape the impression that the person currently most responsible for these shortsighted decisions simply doesn't care what happens after he's gone.

jsrcout• 9 months ago

Now, either (except, of course, to himself).

arkis223• 9 months ago

It is fascinating how there are two current opinions about Donald Trump and that one is that he is a serial liar and the other is that he tells it how it is. I'm sympathetic to the latter because he manages to talk without a filter, but the things he lies about are much more serious and much more obvious and much more dangerous. But it gets him very far because people seem to think that "owning the libs" is the success condition for domestic and foreign policy.

I agree though, the next 3 years are going to be him insisting things are great. China will probably try for Taiwan after he leaves and he'll just continue to say things like they wouldn't have done it if he was in office. And sure that's partly true, because why not just wait a year until he's gone, then China can really split the electorate on what we should do.

throw0101a6• 9 months ago

I'm a heavy gamer. I like lots of strategy games.

Politicians should have to play several hundred hours of 4X games (Civ 4/5/6/7, Stellaris, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron) before they're allowed to run for office.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X

If they can't beat some of these videos at the highest difficulty settings they should not be allowed to break things IRL.

bix6• 9 months ago

Any 4X recs for mobile? I had fun with Polytopia.

dzhiurgis• 9 months ago

If this is such a good filter - has it been used elsewhere? I know US military tried to hire gamers before to fly drones.

On a flip side - politics is deeply social game. My mental image of gamers is very opposite of social (yes I know many games nowadays are social).

mizzao• 8 months ago

Can confirm, building a startup scratches much of the same itch as playing Civ — I would say one of the primary differences is that it requires immense growth in interpersonal skills to be able to execute any strategy effectively.

sebastiennight4• 8 months ago

I'm curious on your take on the necessity for political leaders to master the "exterminate" prong of the 4X?

The thing is, a game is a tool with a surface-level set of rules, and a ton of implicit belief systems of how the (game) world works.

You could say someone might become a shrewd negotiator by playing Monopoly, but that is based on a narrow set of winning negotiation strategies which either the game builders have consciously built their game around, or emerge due to their cultural/personal biases or even come up unexpectedly from the rules of the game.

So filtering your leader(s) this way requires agreement that the ideology promoted by the game(s) is what the people want to live under.

silisili• 9 months ago

It's hard not to zoom out and look at the world as a game at times. If you do that, and go back way more than 10 years, it feels like every country is playing terribly.

Countries used to routinely go on domination quests for land and resources. They used to go find exotic lands and claim them as their own. They used to harvest resources and enslave the losers.

Now, not so much. If you watched it zoomed out as a game, you'd assume the powerful players all got bored with it and gave up.

Of course, realizing it's not a game but real people, you realize the world collectively is probably in a better place. But it also means powerful countries giving up power, which is weird to see happen.

denkmoon• 9 months ago

Countries used to routinely go on domination quests for land and resources. They used to go find exotic lands and claim them as their own. They used to harvest resources and enslave the losers.

This is not a golden age to look back on fondly. That was colonialism. That was the world wars. That was the bleakest era in human history.

That doesn't mean power games don't exist anymore though. The order that prevents regression to the above is held in place by peaceful competition and a threat that nobody wants to relive those horrific experiences. Yet the leaders lived through these horrors are gone, replaced by their children who seem to not have a healthy fear of the depths of depravity humans can fall to. Instead focused on personal wealth accumulation to the exclusion of all else, and if the structures that prevent global war are in the way of that well they need to go.

tyre• 9 months ago

The United States has benefited tremendously by having global peace and free trade in the developed world. And the rest of the world generally has as well.

It's simply not in the United States' best interest to go colonizing militarily, nor is it in other countries' if the sole super power is providing stability.

generativenoise2• 9 months ago

To me it doesn't look like the powerful have given up power, it seems as concentrated as ever. It is more that the concept of a nation isn't that useful to them under globalization at least not in the same way.

Some of this is due to changes in technology. For example as farming improved with the green revolution shear land area counted for less, and shipping and refrigeration allow longer distance imports.

So rather than land area control you see more localized strategic resource control. Things like mines, oil fields, shipping lanes etc.

generativenoise2• 9 months ago

Indeed, to go along with your analogy it does feel like we have chosen to go for a "All in rush", rather that try and compound marginal advantage. Sometimes that does work, but is can be a really chaotic where small perturbations can wildly swing the outcome.

To me the most wild thing about our current circumstance is the abstraction away from the real with financialization. Pretending that money basically has unlimited optionality and liquidity in the future without having to manage, maintain and develop the resources, capabilities, infrastructure, and environment for the long future not just the next few quarters.

Especially when it comes to investing for retirement. So much people are delegating their excess to grow the "market" which by in large is destroying the foundations for that very retirement by chasing maximal growth of money while destroying the underlying systems (healthcare, housing, social and environmental stability).

Maybe this is the best we can do due to adversarial constraints and the current system state. But that is a pretty depressing thought.

arkis223• 9 months ago

Most of my early 30 year old friends are very pessimistic about the future. I am pessimistic but less so. I think (and hope) that the republic will still be standing. But what I see and expect is that Trump will spend his time doing performative actions. He is narcissistic and he conflates the deference he receives when flying around the world negotiating trade deals with deference to the US. The reality is that telling him he deserves the Nobel peace prize is easy pickings for politicians who don't want to tank their economies while they realign with Russia.

Ultimately I think where we end up after his second term is he leaves, he says he did a great job and his supporters believe him. But we have problems. And he has this fantastic blessing of controlling all 3 branches of government, which he is wasting by grabbing power and solving NONE of them. So really we just wasted 4 years. And where the world is right now it's probably the worst 4 years we could ever waste.

arkis223• 8 months ago

*realign with China

yason2• 9 months ago

It feels like we are in a weaker position then ever: militaristically, economically, scientifically, and so on. Meanwhile the threats of China and Russia and what could happen in the next few years are quite concerning.

On the other hand, it's not only USA really.

Russia with their czarist structure of power and control hasn't really had an economy that's more sustainable than USSR ever pretended to have, and their government keeps digging the country further in the grave as we speak. Russia can be a nuisance to its neighbours by their size alone but as their failing offensive in Ukraine shows they don't really give much to worry about in their peer countries of similar size and position.

Europe is running around like a group of headless chicken pecking eachother with minimal ability to make decisions cohesively and in unison, and many larger European countries are trampling knee deep in the mud when you compare to their heydays.

China is indebted, lacking energy, yet wants to expand their projection of military power but having enough to do with their current neighbours and desperately needing to maintain trade relations around the world means that, at best, the ruling party can only think about it. Unlike some other peer nation states I think they just might ultimately be wise enough to understand their position themselves, too, despite the desire to posture hard.

Further, I can name many countries that are, in relative terms, doing similarly stupid things now that they didn't do before and few that have actually managed to preserve some common sense but they're either small enough to not matter a squat on the global stage or they aren't interested in global power in the first place.

Not that USA isn't actively destroying the very relations that did help them extend their power across the globe cheaply through allies, working to weaken the dollar, and in internal affairs shooting themselves in the foot at a rate that could make even Russia jealous, but USA is still pretty good in comparison to their competition. There's no serious contender for USA at the moment and won't be any time soon even if USA keeps hitting even lower and lower bars of statehood.

I'm more pessimistic than optimistic about the future but the reason is that it seems the world as a whole has enshittified themselves down to a level that would have seemed even theoretically impossible by the key players only a few decades ago.

retrochameleon2• 9 months ago

In my eyes China seems to have a very strong position. They have invested so heavily in optimizing their industries, regulations, etc. that they really seem to operate many orders of magnitude more efficiently than anyone else.

They also have a great advantage in their communistic structure. If they decide on a big project, pivot, allocation of resources for long-term strategy, they just do it. You don't have to convince citizens or states. They just do it if it makes strategic sense.

Those benefits often seem to outweigh the issues of citizen happiness, cohesion, government support. China has gotten incredibly good at controlling their citizens such that dissent seems like a pretty small issue for them to deal with.

As I understand, China is facing some difficulty scaling up food production for strong food security. I'm not familiar with their issues regarding power generation, but I'm curious to know more. While I'm not surprised they are indebted, like almost every other country in the world, I don't see that stopping them from ignoring the rest of the world when they don't think anyone else can stop them. Whenever tensions reach a breaking point.

On top of all that, China seems to have a lot of good talent, particular in the technology sector. We are at the precipice of an AI and drone-enabled world war, and if a country were to make vast strides in that technology to get ahead of peers, the power differential could be quite scary. And if any country has the industry and resources to produce tons of such weapons at scale, I'd expect it to be China, maybe with some help from their allies.

neko_ranger• 9 months ago

Would increasing the age limit of 31 for new air traffic controllers fix anything?

pinkmuffinere• 9 months ago

Wow, didn’t realize there’s an age limit for new controllers! That does seem silly

TylerE• 9 months ago

No it doesn’t. They require years of specialized training paid for on the governments dime, and have a mandatory retirement at age 56. Much older than 31 and it simply does not justify the expense of training.

Dusseldorf• 9 months ago

I can't imagine you're getting a huge inflow of people in their 30s or above itching to spend years training for a job where you won't get paid for months at a time at the whims of fighting politicians.

user688587882• 9 months ago

A quick search shows that there are over 20,000 ATCs employed in the United States. (I'm not confident in the sources I found - anyone know where to get reliable stats for things like this?)

Is the number of retiring ATCs higher than normal? I assume it is, but the article doesn't mention the baseline. It's hard for me to understand the scale of the issue from this article alone.

vidarh• 9 months ago

If we take the lower number of 15, than that is nearly 5.5k a year. Even if we round it down, that'd be 25% a year if your number is right and this situation continued. Of course it can't continue very long, because there won't be that many old enough to have the choice, presumably. But it's a crazy rate.

statsma• 9 months ago

The lower number is 0. It’s upto 15 or 20, such a nonsense statement - a clickbait article

user688587882• 9 months ago

That does sound dire. There’s the replacement rate to consider still, though I imagine new hires are close to 0 with the shutdown in effect.

toomuchtodo3• 9 months ago

There is currently a shortage of ~3k controllers (as of this comment), and the time to train and put new controllers into service is significant. Excess retirements reduces time to system failure due to labor shortages.

https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications

Entry-level applicants must complete required training courses and spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Applicants are paid while in training. After graduating the academy, individuals are placed in locations across the country and must gain 2-3 years additional training, both classroom and on-the-job experience, before becoming a certified professional controller. This rigorous training includes close supervision and evaluation by senior controllers that ensures controllers are competent, professional, know their airspace environment and can deal with the pressures and high pace of the job.

Controllers in training have been quitting because of the shutdown.

Flights to Los Angeles Airport halted due to air traffic controller shortage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45715771 - October 2025

The shutdown is having real consequences, as some students at the controller academy have already decided to abandon the profession because they don’t want to work in a job they won’t be paid for, Duffy said. That will only make it harder for the FAA to hire enough controllers to eliminate the shortage, since training takes years. He said that the government is only a week or two away from running out of money to pay students at the academy.

Air traffic controller shortages cause widespread flight delays amid government shutdown - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/air-traffic-controller-... - November 1st, 2025

“Currently nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are experiencing staffing shortages, and nearly 90 percent of air traffic controllers are out at New York–area facilities,” the FAA said in a statement posted on X on Friday evening.

(think in systems)

itsdrewmiller• 9 months ago

This comment was moved from a different post that said “up to 15 or 20” are retiring daily. Thus the lower number is actually zero, and my guess is they are actually describing a peak day of 15 or 20 people retiring (which is still a lot!)

daemonologist• 9 months ago

Typical ATC career is 25-30 years, so naively you'd expect ~1.8 retirements per day. Maybe a little more if you assume the OP is talking only about working/weekdays, maybe a little less as the maximum age for trainees has been raised over time.

rdtsc• 9 months ago

10 years or so ago the controllers got hit with a hiring scandal https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa...

Wonder how that changed the perception and the desire to become an ATC. Did it have a measurable impact, with folks avoiding that line of work. Or, it hasn't really made much of a difference? The idea is if many are retiring but we're graduating or hiring just as many or more, that's not that bad.

wnevets• 9 months ago

Musk firing a bunch of them at the start year sure is paying off!

US air traffic controllers start resigning as shutdown bites

Related Stories