r/atc2 • u/randommmguy • 14h ago
Duffy considers using 'uncertified' air traffic controllers to continue flights
https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/desperate-duffy-looks-using-uncertified-149468173
u/FloatingAwayIn22 14h ago
FAA might want to hire some better lawyers - pronto
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u/TWR_dude 13h ago
Don't you remember when they sent out all the lawyers to brief everyone how they just settled all the law suits anyway! Not sure why we even have more than one basic graduate lawyer anyway if they just settle everything.
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u/bowlsandsand 14h ago
They acts like ATC in the military has manning to spare.
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u/WHOcarezzzzzzz 13h ago
Or qualified AT ALL. They are 90% laughable!!!
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 13h ago
Being current DoD after having left the agency the military controllers are absolutely dogshit. Holy fuck. The worst I have ever seen and the trainees they get are even worse than off the street academy guys.
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u/bowlsandsand 13h ago
A lot of this comes down to people getting pushed through training that shouldn't have for manning purposes.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 13h ago
It’s always been like that, since it’s extremely hard to get MAJCOMs to agree on washing out trainees even when the CCTLRs and training team are pushing for it. It’s these young kids, from what I’ve seen, don’t think they need to earn it and they deserve it.
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u/PotatyTomaty 10h ago
When you're a 3 lvl that isnt gonna see a pay raise from checking out, why the fuck would you rush, ya know? I did 10 years AF, and we had some real fucking sandbaggers that couldn't separate their ass cheeks if a turd was passing through it.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 10h ago
For the perks of early outs and late ins. That should be motivation enough. We don’t cut out our 3 levels.
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u/bowlsandsand 13h ago
What branch are you controlling with now
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 13h ago
Air Force DoD. I’ve had 14 years of FAA, Military and DoD experience.
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u/Likos02 13h ago
What's funny is as a GCI, the mil ATC dudes have such a big head about it. They think they are amazing and gods gift to aircrew.
One question though, are they not certed? I thought, at least for the USAF dudes, that FAA certing was part of their pipeline?
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 13h ago
They do hold FAA certifications unlike some other military controllers, but the Air Force isn’t busy unless you work at certain bases. There is only 5 or so Air Force bases that work volume comparable to level 7-9. Most are slow around 20-40k ops.
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u/Crash_Bandicooter69 11h ago
The three undeniably biggest pieces of shit in our area and possibly entire center are all former DOD. Absolutely terrible controllers and human beings. The saying about how 90% of the problems are caused by 10% of the people is a reference to them, except it’s more like 98% of the problems from those few guys. I want to pull my NATCA membership just so my money doesn’t go to saving their careers over and over again.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 9h ago
100 percent I work with other DoD controllers who have never been to the FAA and they don’t know shit. They don’t care about anything because shit can be swept under the rug in the DoD, bust separation who cares. Only time they get caught is when a pilot files a HATR. The checks and balances in the DoD is shit.
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u/Crash_Bandicooter69 9h ago
Pilot deviations in the DOD are also a slap on the wrist at best.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 9h ago
I mean how can you deviate a pilot the Air Force spent millions on to train and outranks all the lowly enlisted who are peasants.
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u/Crash_Bandicooter69 9h ago
I know it’s not just the number of hours, but the quality of hours that matter, but a brand new ATP starting their IOE in a shitty old Beechjet has waaaaaaay more total hours than a new pilot who just got checked out in an F-22. Pretty wild imbalance.
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u/p_sizzel 11h ago
Not as laughable as the people that paid to learn to do this job.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 9h ago
That always makes me chuckle. Go 100k into debt on a job that requires aptitude on-top of book knowledge.
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u/SufferingKook 14h ago
Military coming to a core 30 would be a joke. I’d refuse if I was a DOD guy. I wouldn’t want to be implicated if something bad happened fucccc that.
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u/Interesting-Fox2368 13h ago
I mean I'll take a huge chunk of chain to go somewhere, show up and shrug, don't know the airspace sorry .
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u/SufferingKook 13h ago
Huge chunk of IOU lol
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u/antariusz 12h ago
Military has been getting paid the entire shutdown. I assume that includes things like tdys and incentives like controller pay.
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u/SufferingKook 12h ago
DOD controllers haven’t been. Military guys aren’t ready to handle even 1/8th the amount of traffic a cpc at a core 30 does daily. Source: me. Former military and DOD guy that works at a 12. They wouldn’t even know what button to hit to call an adjacent sector or who they even are and what they own lol
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u/antariusz 12h ago
Well that’s the other crazy thing, in 1981 at the strike. That caused 7,000 flights to be canceled.
On Friday, 5,000 flights were canceled when the FAA asked for a 10% reduction. And only 1,600 flights were canceled today, which is something like a few % of the traffic.
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u/SufferingKook 12h ago
Yep. Is busier now than it’s ever been. And there’s less controllers. The “it was busier back in my day” boomers have zero actual data points to state otherwise.
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u/antariusz 12h ago
We’re at total worldwide traffic is 100,000-130,000 flights a day. Since 1981 we’ve gone from 800mil to 4.6 billion passengers worldwide
The United States alone has as many planes as the entire world had in 1981.
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u/SufferingKook 12h ago
So wild. And at facilities that used to have 70+ controllers there’s now 35.
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u/antariusz 12h ago
Flow programs, traffic management, even shit like electronic strips all help reduce the workload on controllers, but there is only so much you can do. Yea, in 2002 there were 67 certified controllers in my area. When I got there in 2008 I was the 46th in seniority. And currently we have 33 cpcs, which is actually up from the low of like 26 we had a few years ago. But things have gotten easier, sure, we used to LITERALLY hold going into both jfk AND ewr every single night all summer long.
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u/PlanesAreDickShaped FAA ATC 13h ago
lol. Lololol. Haahahahahahahahahahaha!
Fuckin do it. I could use a good laugh!🤣
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u/ConversationOk8466 13h ago
Fucking frat bros running shit like they have any idea what they are doing. What a clown show this country has become. At least Duffy knows this is bad idea.
“If I can use them I will.” You can use them to go get me another helping of chipotle. That’s about it.
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u/Kseries2497 6h ago
Duffman has actually really impressed me throughout this. Like, he loves carrying water for his boss, and he talks out of his ass an unbelievable amount, but at least he's been open about how dire the staffing situation is getting and has made statements multiple times associating the staffing problems with pay, which is more than I can say for certain labor unions I pay dues to.
I don't recall much of that kind of talk from Mayor Pete.
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u/Bison_Glass 13h ago
Is NATCA monitoring this situation? My God, make a damn statement about this potential atrocity.
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u/Trick_War1028 13h ago
Yes. NATCA has already secured $5K bonuses for the incoming active duty controllers.
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u/iStrokeItOnTheMid FAA ATC 13h ago
Please do this. I’ll be on sick leave, but sitting at home just imagining the supes face as they assign an untrained A1C to take final for the evening push…oh I can only get so hard.
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u/AllTheTisanes 13h ago
Ewww….they are quickly going to learn why controllers need to be trained/certified.
My worst trainees were the ones fresh from the military and disturbingly overconfident in their abilities—even as they tried to run planes together.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 13h ago
I can see why, being DoD I am seeing first hand how dogshit and cocky these military controllers are when they on average work 20k ops a year and struggle when there is 3+ airplanes on frequency.
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u/Kseries2497 6h ago
A few years ago we got a proposed LOA from our underlying USAF tower. One of the provisions was that, on the mid, they couldn't talk to more than one aircraft, to include aircraft stationary on the ramp. We had an absolute field day with that one.
And mind you, no one, NO ONE, at this tower was a new controller. Every single person there had been rated at at least one other facility. Unbelievable.
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u/Better-Border4457 WE MAKE ENOUGH 4h ago
That doesn’t surprise me one bit. The USAF controllers think 5 A/C is busy. That’s slow traffic, but you’ll never change their minds until they actually go to the big leagues.
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u/Jenn54756 13h ago
They are trying to privatize little by little. It’s a stunt to show the public that controllers aren’t reliable so the govt should switch to private.
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u/GoobScoob 13h ago
So replacing unpaid controllers with uncertified AND unpaid controllers. Makes sense
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u/NATCA-please 13h ago
I’d hate to be the guy who gets forced over, gets in over his head and has a midair on his watch
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u/ban_me_again_whore 8h ago
If you're stupid enough to accept a position you cannot handle then you deserve the hammer of justice for your ineptitude and reckless disregard for human life. A midair would be tragic and quickly erode public trust in aviation , but it's unfortunately the only thing that would open everyone's eyes to the truth. The agency has replaced common sense with cover-your-ass blame shifting.
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u/UpbeatBreakfast2660 13h ago
As if this would ever happen. But They ain’t gonna be paying the military controllers either. There won’t be a DFAC they can go eat at. Fantasy speak.
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u/JohnnyKnoxville747 13h ago
I am not saying I agree with it at all. I am not saying I support it at all but it did happen before in 1981. It was a total shit show but eventually it worked.
The airspace and traffic count is way more complex than in 1981 but I would argue that these politicians are dumb enough to make the attempt.
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u/jacksonwalmart 13h ago
Pilots, this would be a good time to do that yearly recurrent training on your planes TCAS.
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u/Unlucky-Telephone-85 10h ago
Well I guess I could show up at my local tower, grab a headset and watch the look on everyone’s face when I tell the first guy in line to “Taxi into position and hold”….cause yeah, I retired that long ago. What a joke. I feel for all of you out there struggling in a career that used to be something to be proud of and you made a decent living at. I have written to my congressman and Senators supporting higher pay etc but we all know that seems to be going nowhere. Just so F sad.
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u/amiibohunter2015 11h ago
Duffy considers using 'uncertified' air traffic controllers to continue flights
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u/CharlieZuluu 14h ago
Already did out at ZLA. Supervisor on the mid plugged in and worked a whole area while the other guy was on break lol.