Oh boy. So... I have some ties still to the FAA and its ATC staff despite living in Sweden and This article is just painting a picture I've seen time and time again when there are staffing woes.
I'm gonna ignore the gamer hype because that's just recruitment that has happened even in other admins (Level Up campaign was the last one in 2022 or so)
They got near to their quota in the training pipeline but it's not like training as most think about where someone can just study hard. Going to the Academy (there's only one in OKC and congress will almost always shut down ideas of opening another elsewhere) is not like a guarantee that someone intelligent or hardworking will pass like in uni. If historic stats are any indicator we will see a ton of washouts there (30%+) and then they need to qualify as a CPC (certified professional controller) in which time they may also wash out while training for their facility which the article didn't actually touch on. The bottleneck is still this process and until that 2000 converts to CPCs I'm not going to be raising hell or singing praises. Great that more are passing the ATSA and going to the academy, but that's step 0.
Not like any of this is Duffy's fault but as we say here: comes with the title man. I really would like to see more staff get there so best of luck to all the candidates, given the amount of OT I've seen (not just from facilities that game it mind you) the FAA needs all the controllers it can get.
I'm gonna ignore the gamer hype because that's just recruitment that has happened even in other admins (Level Up campaign was the last one in 2022 or so)
They got near to their quota in the training pipeline but it's not like training as most think about where someone can just study hard. Going to the Academy (there's only one in OKC and congress will almost always shut down ideas of opening another elsewhere) is not like a guarantee that someone intelligent or hardworking will pass like in uni. If historic stats are any indicator we will see a ton of washouts there (30%+) and then they need to qualify as a CPC (certified professional controller) in which time they may also wash out while training for their facility which the article didn't actually touch on. The bottleneck is still this process and until that 2000 converts to CPCs I'm not going to be raising hell or singing praises. Great that more are passing the ATSA and going to the academy, but that's step 0.
Not like any of this is Duffy's fault but as we say here: comes with the title man. I really would like to see more staff get there so best of luck to all the candidates, given the amount of OT I've seen (not just from facilities that game it mind you) the FAA needs all the controllers it can get.