Summary
Elon Musk called on retired air traffic controllers to return to work, citing a shortage amid heightened scrutiny of the FAA under Trump’s second term.
With DOT Secretary Sean Duffy’s support, Musk’s DOGE attempts to “upgrade” aviation systems despite recent FAA job cuts.
The AP reports fired employees included radar and navigational aid maintenance personnel, though Duffy insisted no “critical safety personnel” were terminated.
Musk’s appeal comes amid increased public concern over recent aviation incidents, though experts consider the uptick an anomaly.
There’s no such thing as a labor shortage, especially if it’s been long enough to train more ATCs. If the pay is high enough, then people will come out of the woodwork.
The work is difficult, and the expectations and stress are high. They 100% need to pay better, but the pool of qualified candidates is already fairly small.
It’s also difficult to qualify for. As I recall the civilian route to become an ATC is at least six months of full time training (also - usually you need to have already had some work experience/college background) and the test has at least a 50% failure rate.
Sounds like they need to increase pay and reduce the number of hours worked while still getting a salary and benfits to entice more people to the position and make the stress more bearable for those they can get to fill the position. It’s not a matter of how many people are qualified it’s a matter of how many people want to make the tradeoffs to work there and be upskilled to meet the requirements. If your deal is not enticing enough, you need to restructure how the position works in order to entice more people for the position.
Yet it’s larger than the number of people required.