Not a pound for air to ground, on that base.
LAS Incident
- Thread starter inigo88
- Start date
Not a pound for air to ground, on that base.
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
None at all. Even the Eagles were C models
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
Under 31 for no experience and 36 with prior experience. That’s not an issue though, there isn’t a lack of applicants. Something like 50k people apply every bid. The academy is a huge bottleneck because they can’t get enough instructors because nobody wants to retire and then go work in OKC.
greg1016
Trustworthy Source
I personally believe everything comes down to pay. Our pay has lagged behind the rest of the industry. You can make more money at a regional than as a new hire at a tower like BDL right now. If you pay people enough money to live comfortably and on par with their colleagues in a given market, most other problems will fall into place. Why do large TRACONs and Centers have such an abysmal training success rate? Because the people already there NEED the overtime to sustain their life styles. They are disincentivized to train the next generation because improving the staffing situation would reduce their overtime. If we were paid enough so that OT was not required to make ends meet, training will become so much better. This will also help with attrition. I was just reading an instagram post where a colleague was speaking of a controller who was quiting the agency after 20 years (5 years from collecting a pension), to go fly airplanes, because our raises have not been enough to keep up. I've thought of it myself but with 7 years to go IMO it is not worth giving up my pension.
Second the FAA needs to actually hire training SMEs to develop curricula on teaching this job, rather than death by powerpoint followed by widely varied simulator training and/or OJT. Additionally, the FAA needs to open up training campuses on the east and west coasts in order to attract talent to become instructors AND they need to pay them accordingly.
Third, we are overworked, even those of us that think we aren't. It is time for a 32 hour work week for controllers. In the short term we'd all be getting 8 hours of overtime to backfill our week, so it would help alleviate my first point. Coupled with more hiring it would all work itself out. Controllers are not actually accomplishing more with less right now. Many delays (looking at FL) are the result of 1 controller now working the airspace that 10 years ago would have been worked by 3 controllers. It is not just FL. I have never worked at a facility (I am onto my 5th) where we didn't routinely work below staffing guidline numbers. This results in either a) fewer and shorter breaks, or b) working more positions combined, or a combination of both. Working positions combined also results in a more difficult and lengthy training process. In the radar environment this means departure flow restrictions and airborne holding. In the tower environment it means tools like line up and wait become unavailable.
I don't know if it has been brought up in another thread or not but the administrator just came up with some unimplementable BS about our rest rules. The goal seems to be to kill the rattler schedule. The rattler is a schedule where you start your week on the latest possible shift and end it on the earliest possible shift. The problem is the only thing worse than the rattler is literally every other alternative. If you take away the rattler you are left with a rotation of a week of days, a week of nights, a week of midnights. If you work a week of nights and have young kids, you don't see them for the week. For me, if I work a week of nights it takes me at least 4 days to then get on a sleep schedule where I get enough sleep for a day shift, so I am tired for my first 2 days of the next week when I am on days. I am sure the opposite exists for my earlybird colleagues. The FAA also opposes permanent shift asignments because the traffic varies so much shift to shift. Imagine completing training and then getting stuck on a straight graveyard shift for the next 3-5 years till your seniority allowed you to bid a night or day shift line. That would certainly be contrary to safety.
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
My facility does week of days week of swings. There is no week of mids. Every couple months you get 2-3 mids during a day week. We have enough people that like mids I haven’t had to work a mid in over a year, and that one just because I wanted it. I’ve never worked the rattler and never want to.
greg1016
Trustworthy Source
Yes but the administrators new proposal will eliminate your ability to work 2-3 mids during what would normally be a week of days.
A job action?
inigo88
Composite-lover
Quoting this part for emphasis. I focused too much on middle managers being incentivized to not change the status quo (I’ve heard anecdotes from controller friends about bad controllers “failing upwards” into management and then being don’t rock the boat types) but I totally missed the high performing controllers being “golden-handcuffed” into keeping the mandatory OT going as well. And I very much doubt those high performers who are keeping things together have a lot of bandwidth to take on and mentor a trainee even if they wanted to, and if and when their shift schedules lead to premature burnout that’s one less experienced trainer left at that facility.
He’s talking about them being accused of participating in an illegal strike.
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
Yes but there is an alternative to the rattler that isn’t worse and doesn’t involve a week of mids. Although my guess is that could also vary with staffing numbers
greg1016
Trustworthy Source
For me it is the weekly rotation that messes with my sleep more than a daily rotation. When they eliminated the rattler at JFK they brought it back the next year because people wanted to see their kids. A week of the same shift during the pandemic was fine because you had several days to adjust to the next rotation. 1-2 days is not enough for a lot of us.
greg1016
Trustworthy Source
And yeah at small facilities where the mid staffing is closer to the daytime staffing, the way you do it would not work either. I am not sure it would work at here either, we have a few no-mid lines but probably not enough to avoid working a full week of mids. At the small towers I worked we staffed 3 on the day and swing and 2 on the mid. Here at the up down it's 9 on the day/swing and 4 on the mid. I'm not sure it would even work at my old area at the center which was 11 day, 12 swing, 7 mid.
Inverted
mmmmmm wine
I have said this in other threads but it is worth repeating. I have friends in the SFO tower and one who I consider a very close friend. She has repeatedly stated concerns about staffing and being overworked. The new norm for them is 6-day work weeks. They have to use sick time to get a normal amount of days off. The FAA has audited these towers and asked what controllers need to prevent these issues and all of them say staffing. The FAA specifically told them to not mention staffing, but what else could they do? The FAA does not want to properly fix staffing issues and I firmly believe these mistakes are due to fatigue, exhaustion, and being understaffed. SFO is short several controllers, and I know other towers are too.
Pilots really need to watch themselves at these airports. We are having too many close calls and thank goodness they are caught before there is an issue but we are seeing an almost state of emergency when it comes to ATC-related close calls. Controllers are working more planes as traffic levels continue to recover and go beyond pre-COVID levels and towers are understaffed.
Pilots really need to watch themselves at these airports. We are having too many close calls and thank goodness they are caught before there is an issue but we are seeing an almost state of emergency when it comes to ATC-related close calls. Controllers are working more planes as traffic levels continue to recover and go beyond pre-COVID levels and towers are understaffed.
Sounds like some of these facilities may not need to be 24 hours anymore…and same with the associated airports , with staffing being such an issue and one that can’t be instantly resolved,
SNA tower is a good example. Sure, it would change things for some of these airports to not have 24/7 arrivals and departures, but that’s better than having another Tenerife.
I don't know. It feels like what's wrecked NASA (constantly having to ask for lots of money from an ever-changing administration and a changing congress, who are just worried about the next election cycle when NASA needs to fund programs that span into decades, the funding model is broken.
We, as Americans accept this. We don't, however, accept the deleterious affects it has on progress, but we're unwilling to admit the pains of our current situation is because we haven't figured out that not everything needs to be political.
roundout
VNAV monitor
Why do you hate America, ya librul?
I'm just getting 'long in the tooth' and realizing that our fundamental problem with America is that we live in an ever-lingering campaign season every 24 months which is the 'cap' of a deeply festering rot because we can't plan more than 24 months in advance for programs that could take generation or two to build.
We were talking modernization of ATC back in the 19 effing 70's, fifty years ago. Today's "OMG! The Boeing 737 Max!!! heads are going to roll! This is a conspiracy! (it's not)" was yesterdays "Who in the hell at the FAA thought certifying a DC-10 with all three major hydraulic lines underneath a motor was SANE?!"
But of course, we treat history like a dog treats food. Three to six times per day: "OMG! It's dog food, I've never seen such a thing! Food JUST for me! ! I'm so excited! I've never had this before! I'll never see it again! EAT EAT EAT!"
Then the next day: "OMG! It's dog food, I've never seen such a thing! Food JUST for me! ! I'm so excited! I've never had this before! I'll never see it again! EAT EAT EAT!"
And then the next…
That's kind of how I'm starting to see the ATC thing. We'll fix it when we stop treating the FAA like the Department of Education.
Yeah, the decisions in this country being short-term results oriented instead of being based on long term goals is one of the factors that will drag us out of the #1 position in the world. Much too short sighted to be effective over the long haul, on so many fronts (your earlier comment about NASA being a prime example).
greg1016
Trustworthy Source
But that's the new normal with everything. Pretty soon maximizing shareholder value will just mean selling off the assets and cashing out. #latestagecapitalism
[What's the over under of this thread getting banished to the Lav? I'll take the under whatever it is
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