[ryandrake]

But think of the money they saved by not having to pay another air traffic controller! A controller's yearly salary is the cost of about 10 seconds of the Iran war, based on the recently-reported figure of $11.3B for six days.

[ultrarunner]

I don't think it's money. I think it's requirements and training pipeline restraints. The system is predicated on being able to throw bodies at the problem, but there is a distinct lack of qualified individuals to back that up. Personally, I didn't realize ATC as a possible career path until I was 36-- imagine my surprise when I found that I had already aged out.

[MrMember]

The training is also not run particularly well. There's a single facility in Oklahoma that every prospective air traffic controller has to go through. I had a friend in college who graduated in the early 2010s with a four year degree in air traffic control. He waited several years for the FAA to tell him he could start training, a spot never opened up, and he moved on with his life and did something different. It's broken on a pretty fundamental level if we have a shortage of air traffic controllers but also people who want to do it can't get in.

[jjk166]

> but there is a distinct lack of qualified individuals to back that up

Which means either the compensation is insufficient to attract and retain the necessary number of qualified individuals, or the FAA lacks the resources to train an appropriate number of qualified individuals. Either way, it's about money.

[throwway120385]

Who would want to work that job once they find out what the day-to-day is like? I had an intern who looked at that out of the Air Force but he found out what you get paid and what the expectations are for the job and he figured he'd try his luck on something easier and better-paying like life-preserving medical devices. On a related note, why do you think nobody who you'd actually want teaching public school actually teaches public school in the US?

[eszed]

I know this is a throwaway comment, but I can't let it pass.

> why do you think nobody who you'd actually want teaching public school actually teaches public school in the US?

We're currently doing school visits for our kid, in a low-performing school district, and the teachers and administrators we've met have been impressive. I've worked in education, and visited a lot of schools in another professional capacity, so I know the questions to ask, and things to look for. I have no illusions about there being absolutely terrible teachers out there (and I'll tell you some horror stories, if you'd like), and doubtless any (hypothetical) bad teachers at those schools are being kept away from prospective parents, but your statement is hyperbolic in the extreme. The problems in the US school system are legion, but "every single teacher is crap" is not remotely true.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I dunno.

I was at school for 12 years.

There were two good teachers.

The rest of them, and all the staff at those four schools, are hopefully spending the rest of eternity burning in hell.

[eszed]

I get you. I'd say I had three good teachers, one absolutely awful one (that I would likewise condemn to hell), and the rest... meh. I hated their classes at the time, but with an adult perspective I can say that they didn't do me any harm, some people well, and (in at least one case) more (albeit non-academic) good for me than I could have recognized as a kid.

Should we do better? You bet your ass. I have all kinds of ideas....

Nevertheless, both of our experiences put the lie to the GP's hyperbole. Bad as the rest might have been, you had at least two teachers who were exactly whom you'd want to be there.

Maybe it seems like I'm being pedantic, picking on GP's wording, but I'm really not. I'm trying to point that even those of us who had a bad time in education (and, to be clear: I did, too) experienced a few bright spots. It's important, if we're going to engage ourselves with any kind of reform, a) not to shit on the entire teaching profession, b) to consider what made those good teachers good, and c) think about how to support the quality people already in the system, and to attract more like them to it.

[ultrarunner]

I think the comparison to public education is apt: often (at least initially) great people trapped in a terrible system. I suppose you can pay people to ignore a certain amount of misery on top of the job, but I do not believe you can (or should) completely obviate all brokenness in a system at the end of two weeks in a paycheck.

[selectodude]

It’s not a money thing. It’s a shortage of people who are mentally able to do the job mixed with terrible hours and early forced retirements. ATC school has a failure rate of over 50 percent.

[wk_end]

It's partially a money thing. ATC is under-compensated. They'd get more - and more talented - people interested if the money made up for the stress, hours, and early forced retirement.

[ryandrake]

Or increased their hiring funnel. Air traffic controller applicants must be under 31 years old for initial hire, which rules out a lot of potential hires.

[arrowsmith]

Why not both? If it paid better then more people would apply to ATC school.

[selectodude]

ATC positions already have a very low chance of even getting a spot in ATC school. There are tons of applicants for every opening.