FAA Looks To Technology To Train Air Controllers

[thestoic]

Source: Morning Edition from NPR News

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world's busiest airport, serving more than 90 million travelers last year. But it faces one problem shared by airports across the country: finding capable people to manage its air traffic. A new program could help solve the problem.

In his two-plus decades as an air traffic controller, Dan Ellenberger has routed countless planes. One event last year sticks out most in his mind, even though he wasn't directly involved.

"It was probably the ugliest and the closest that I've ever seen airplanes get to each other without there actually being a midair ," he says of the near miss.

As passenger jets were on final approach to Atlanta's airport, an air traffic controller at a nearby satellite airport mistakenly routed a small, general aviation airplane into their paths.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121781791

[MercutioATC]

1. Yet another flashy do-nothing "solution" designed by FAA management.

I've been an air traffic controller at what was once the world's busiest facility (now #5, I think) for 19 years.

The current issue isn't training technology, it's the fact that the FAA has moved to what's essentially "open enrollment".


When I hired in, one had to pass an OPM test (white males needed a 96%+ to qualify). That accomplished, you got sent to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City...where 50% of the class was washed out. What was left was the best of the best...and about 10% still washed out at their assigned facilities.


Now, the FAA hires air traffic controllers off the street. No experience/qualifications required. They go to the Academy, but it's no longer pass/fail and virtually all of them get assigned to facilities. I'd estimate that roughly 70% of the Academy graduates that make it to my facility would never have made it through the screening process I had to go through.


THAT'S the real issue. NATCA (the controllers' labor union) had warned the FAA about impending staffing shortages for years (based on projected retirements) and the FAA ignored them. When the avalanche of retirements began, the FAA reacted by doing whatever they could to increase its numbers. Had they just listened to NATCA (or used some basic arithmetic) they'd have realized that this was going to happen and been able to gradually staff for projected losses. Instead, we go through years of them grabbing people off the street, desperate to fill positions.


$42M simulators are great. What's better, though, is an intelligent hiring plan.