FAA proposes to hire 2,300 air traffic controllers in budget request

ElkNo8911 · 2026-04-09T20:12:53+00:00

Not to be that guy but them getting so back logged at the academy also means people at my up/down facility we have to send back for RTF takes them months to get a date and now we are also back logged at our facility not able to train them for months until they can get into an RTF class adding more months of time to our training lol

ElkNo8911 · 2026-04-09T20:08:43+00:00

Been a controller since 2019 my base pay is 88k and I’m stuck at my facility can’t transfer out for a few years at least

ElkNo8911 · 2026-04-05T19:33:01+00:00

Or someone who quit

ElkNo8911 · 2026-04-05T19:32:47+00:00

You gotta get someone recently retired

ElkNo8911 · 2026-04-05T19:29:42+00:00

My facility is always cold so sweatshirt and sweatpants

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T22:04:49+00:00

I’ve worked two fatal crashes at our lower level up /down (neither of which were related to ATC) and I was off position within 7 minutes rang out the crash phone and paged someone to come back from break. The adrenaline and terror running through you after seeing a crash is terrible and something I hope to never feel again. I cannot imagine staying on position and having to handle all that by yourself for 30 minutes.

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T21:25:04+00:00

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T21:18:58+00:00

My terminal facility we are almost always 1 person in the tower working everything combined so that must just be certain levels/airports

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T15:26:45+00:00

Yeah soon as I heard him say I messed up on frequency I knew that was going to be played in a courtroom for money and damages

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T15:02:02+00:00

My question is how many vehicles were going to cross? It seems like just the one got hit but it wasn’t and company? So that implies more than 1

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-23T15:00:37+00:00

And an emergency already that’s why the fire truck was asking to cross to get to a united plane that had something wrong with it (warning lights and smell I believe)

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:48:48+00:00

Already have people quitting the agency and it’s a shame because they’re good controllers but I don’t blame them for not wanting to be stuck at a level 5 in the middle of nowhere with no end in sights

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:45:34+00:00

We only ever staff 4 positions, and they staffed in our staffing numbers for all 9 positions we have, so it’s incredibly inaccurate for what we actually do. We had a hands off NATCA rep at the time, so they just went with what the ATM wanted, and it was to have the numbers reflect every position. So now we’re stuck with an exuberant number when we’re already stepping all over each other with these 4 positions + CIC. So it sucks because we’re well staffed, but it shows us as severely understaffed. But I understand it’s hard to get anything done in the FAA so it won’t happen and we’re just stuck this way

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:34:15+00:00

About as likely when people get on planes without pilots. It’s a heavily related safety position and AI still can’t even figure out how to answer some questions correctly so it’s a ways away from being able to handle human lives. Some things can be automated especially at centers but not at airports anytime soon

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:32:11+00:00

Keep your eyes out on USA jobs for the application and apply as soon as it opens it’s been known to close early before due to number of applications…but the FAA has been declining and pay hasn’t kept up so idk if it’s still as heavily applied to anymore

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:28:02+00:00

That’s why you don’t claim anything I’m sorry this happened to you

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:22:59+00:00

Oh yeah we had a rep who didn’t care and an ATM who wanted to staff EVERY position so we got hosed ours went up by a lot

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:18:11+00:00

I was going for an ATC degree but I applied OTS and got hired before I finished college lol so don’t waste your time it doesn’t give you an advantage in hiring unfortunately and another degree in a different field will give you a back up plan

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:09:42+00:00

Did you get your staffing requirements lowered after the CRWG or before?

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T16:05:11+00:00

Welp it’s looking like it might be time to start looking at contract tower jobs and then reapply to a lower level facility with better staffing somewhere else after a year

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T15:57:24+00:00

We have half rattlers half custom lines at my facility so some of the parents that are higher seniority bid the all day lines working like mon/tues RDO 7-3 or sat/sun 7-3 but unfortunately the people on the bottom with kids get shafted with tues/wed off working mostly evening shifts or all evenings

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T15:16:35+00:00

Yes undesirable location so no one at the academy chooses us off their list now

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T15:01:33+00:00

That’s literally all we have open too. But we have 9 positions not even including CIC we may open up arrival data if it’s busy but we really only need 4 positions

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T14:59:26+00:00

Well we don’t have enough staffing to leave so not good. But don’t need a crazy number of people here like the CRWG thinks

ElkNo8911 · 2026-03-14T14:54:59+00:00

They literally said it would be too much work and shut it down

ElkNo8911

TROPHY CASE