Everyone is going to make this about money or unions or etc, but my employer briefly worked with some ATC employee groups and I can tell you exactly why they are short staffed:
- The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10% of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
- The training and onboarding process is incredibly long, and turnover is high
- The fundamentals and technology of the job have not changed in decades, despite air traffic exploding in recent years
- Most people are just not capable of the amount of stress and risk associated with the job
- Seriously, it's a really freaking stressful job
I would argue an ATC employee is worth every penny, but I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work. These people are already very well compensated, and at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools.
The real need is new and modern technology that automates much of the mistake-prone, human-centric tasks. But nobody wants to risk introducing changes to such a fragile system.
- The FAA has strict hiring requirements. You have to be mentally and physically capable, and by their own admission less than 10% of applicants are qualified for the job. https://www.faa.gov/air-traffic-controller-qualifications
- The training and onboarding process is incredibly long, and turnover is high
- The fundamentals and technology of the job have not changed in decades, despite air traffic exploding in recent years
- Most people are just not capable of the amount of stress and risk associated with the job
- Seriously, it's a really freaking stressful job
I would argue an ATC employee is worth every penny, but I also don't think there is a magical amount of money where you are going to suddenly double your pool of candidates willing to do this kind of work. These people are already very well compensated, and at a certain point you are just going to be cannibalizing other talent pools.
The real need is new and modern technology that automates much of the mistake-prone, human-centric tasks. But nobody wants to risk introducing changes to such a fragile system.