Comment by clutchdude

2 months ago

COVID would likely have a bigger hand in the current issues than mistakes from 10-15 years ago though.

I found it somewhat puzzling we discuss ATC staffing and don't mention it:

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2024-0...

> When training at the academy resumed in July 2020, after the four-month shutdown, class sizes were cut in half to meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social distancing guidelines.

> The pandemic hit controller hiring and training hard with on-the-job training for developmental controllers significantly dropping at facilities, resulting in delayed certification. In fiscal year 2021, the controller hiring target was dropped from 910 to 500.

> Since then, the FAA has been working to restore the training pipeline to full capacity. The agency’s Controller Workforce 2023/2032 Plan had a hiring target of 1,020 in FY 2022 (actual hires were 1,026) and 1,500 in FY 2023. The is set to increase to 1,800 in the current fiscal year.

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clutchdude

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stackskipton  2 months ago

Yep, COVID didn't help either.

However, I'll note that hiring != actual ATC controllers because drop/fail rate which for some insane reason is so hard to find.

  • clutchdude  2 months ago

    Here ya go:

    Academy attrition on page 38.

    https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...

    • TraceWoodgrains  2 months ago

      This is really helpful. I take something different from it than you do (it looks like attrition starkly increases after 2014, in ways I'd strongly argue it's reasonable to attribute to the new hiring methods), but I'm grateful you posted it. Do you know if more complete/precise numbers are available anywhere (hiring counts, hiring+attrition, etc?

      I'm aware of this but it leaves attrition to be inferred. https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FY23-Staffi...

      5 replies →

    • stackskipton  2 months ago

      Figure, it was in a PDF that search engines had trouble scraping. I feel like FAA is burying this data on purpose because it looks terrible.

      Reading deeper, on page 40 that has historical data, starting FY14 when this survey had been implemented and initial class hired, Academy Training Attrition appears to be much higher though all I can base this on is comparing bar graph sizes. So yes, this change to hiring process did impact staffing levels because academy attrition was higher.

      2 replies →

  • dgfitz  2 months ago

    I'll never find it, but a few days ago someone here posted an anecdotal story that class sizes were between 10-20 and failure/drop rate was ~50%.

    • varloid  2 months ago

      Across 2023 and 2024 the en route academy pass rate was ~66% and terminal pass rate was ~73%. Of that, ~25% of en route trainees fail at their facility and ~15-20% of terminal trainees fail at their facility. There are ~2 en route trainees per terminal trainee.