lawd. My inlaw is an air traffic controller. There is a reason there is a shortage despite pretty decent pay. It is a punishing job with grueling hours. Oh and you're banned from striking, so...
lawd.
My inlaw is an air traffic controller. There is a reason there is a shortage despite pretty decent pay. It is a punishing job with grueling hours. Oh and you're banned from striking, so they'll just keep piling on you.
This will have two consequences:
More dead people
A continued long term shortage of ATC because of burnout.
Going against the grain a bit, but I don't see this as a bad thing. There's still years of intense training to weed out anyone who can't handle the job. There's plenty of people out there with the...
Going against the grain a bit, but I don't see this as a bad thing. There's still years of intense training to weed out anyone who can't handle the job. There's plenty of people out there with the focus to happily put thousands of hours into complex strategy games with lots of moving parts. I'd be willing to bet that it's no more difficult to take a class of those gamers and teach them to be professional than it is to take a class of professional people and teach them to have that level of focus and multitasking.
And yes I am aware that I am using generalizations and stereotypes here. There's also plenty of people who are already both avid gamers and perfectly reasonable professional workers. I like to think I'm one of them. I think that only furthers my point though, in that these people are out there and any recruiting drive that might help find them is a good thing.
Of course, none of that addresses the real concern that working for the ATC is miserable. You want to really fix the staffing shortages, work on that.
They should do something like The Last Starfighter and have an ATC game they use for recruitment evaluations. ETA: Looks like there are several ATC simulators out there, it would be neat if any of...
They should do something like The Last Starfighter and have an ATC game they use for recruitment evaluations.
ETA: Looks like there are several ATC simulators out there, it would be neat if any of them are official or unofficial feeders into the ATC recruitment pipeline.
Depending on the type of games they play, this actually makes sense. I can already see a lot of overlap in the skills (though it's 3:30 am and my brain is not cooperating enough to actually...
Depending on the type of games they play, this actually makes sense. I can already see a lot of overlap in the skills (though it's 3:30 am and my brain is not cooperating enough to actually name/describe said skills).
I remember someone posted on Reddit about ATC enrollment years ago before the exodus, both hoping to recruit people and also explaining the full details and downsides of the job. I think it may have been this AMA, which apparently became an annual series. In any event, one key note is that acceptance into the academy isn't a guarantee people will graduate and enter the field. They need to pass evaluations, and the training is rigorous. I assume that standard will continue to hold true.
With the relaxing of rules, I can see this going badly. A lot of the current training is to instill a professional mindset, and I can only assume that they're targeting gamers with the idea of...
With the relaxing of rules, I can see this going badly. A lot of the current training is to instill a professional mindset, and I can only assume that they're targeting gamers with the idea of bypassing/reducing some aspects of training. Sure, gamers may be adept at picking out patterns and potentially having quick reflexes, but they're operating on an entirely different set of principles. I can't realistically see this current administration doing anything to address that discrepancy.
Will the gamer actually stick it out when it no longer feels like play? Will they remain vigilant, and not divide their attention onto farming on passive games, and/or shitposting on Reddit/4chan? Will they not turn the ATC tower into a gooner cave? How will they handle themselves in an emergency? What if that emergency gets worse, beyond their control? Will they not inadvertently compromise security over the promise of a vial of gamer girl bathwater?
As the article alluded to, you can't just "rage quit" out of a bad situation, and I really, really hope they're filtering those kinds of guys out. I know that not every person who lives with the label "gamer" is that far gone, but is a two-year training program really going to be effective enough to weed out the dummies?
Lastly, none of this is still addressing the main problem: atc guys are being overworked and underpaid. Now they're just doing the same thing but with gamers at a reduced training regimen.
Yeah the air traffic control industry will be one to watch for a while. I will not claim that I know anything about this work and industry because I don't, at most I've just seen videos on YouTube...
Yeah the air traffic control industry will be one to watch for a while. I will not claim that I know anything about this work and industry because I don't, at most I've just seen videos on YouTube showing ATC doing their work. Even on a normal day, there is a ton of traffic for a controller to manage at the US's bigger airports. I wonder how other countries are dealing with this problem, if they even have it in the first place.
I literally have a friend, a gamer(we're all gamers), who recently applied for an ATC position. He took the test and passed. I think he has a TJO pending background checks, but if that all goes...
I literally have a friend, a gamer(we're all gamers), who recently applied for an ATC position. He took the test and passed. I think he has a TJO pending background checks, but if that all goes well, then he'll go to ATC school.
In some ways, I think it makes sense to recruit gamers for roles like this. Depending on the types of games one plays, I imagine there's some crossover in terms of skills and abilities.
Which is what he also said when I asked why the hell he wanted to be an ATC, knowing how insane the workloads and hours and stress can be. Plus, I never heard him ever express wanting to be an ATC before (his background is CS), even if we both occasionally watch Airforceproud95...
For more than a decade there has been a shortage of air traffic controllers in the U.S., which has resulted in flight delays and increased risks for air travelers. And the Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to video game enthusiasts to help fill those gaps.
The DOT first launched a program in 2025 to recruit gamers. Now Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is extolling the success of that program on social media.
Reaching out to gamers, he wrote on X, has resulted in the DOT meeting 94% of its hiring goal for new controllers, a record-setting pace. More than 2,000 people have been hired, he said, with candidates “reaching the Academy quicker than any class before them.”
To be clear, that doesn’t mean those gamers are already guiding actual aircraft through takeoff and landing. Even with the streamlined hiring process the DOT has enacted, it takes two years for a trainee to complete the air traffic controller training program. And roughly one in three trainees drops out before completing the program.
Still, gamers remain an area of interest for the DOT as it looks to fill empty seats. In a past interview, Duffy said “they problem solve. They’re spatially aware. They do multiple things at the same time.”
[...]
While Duffy celebrated reaching 94% of the hiring goal, it’s worth noting that the FAA, in May, cut its staffing target for air traffic controllers from 14,633 to 12,563. It said, at the time, that modernized staffing models were behind the change. But the agency actually increased the amount of time employees spent managing air traffic, to avoid the overtime bills the FAA ran up in 2024, which totaled approximately $200 million.
lawd.
My inlaw is an air traffic controller. There is a reason there is a shortage despite pretty decent pay. It is a punishing job with grueling hours. Oh and you're banned from striking, so they'll just keep piling on you.
This will have two consequences:
Going against the grain a bit, but I don't see this as a bad thing. There's still years of intense training to weed out anyone who can't handle the job. There's plenty of people out there with the focus to happily put thousands of hours into complex strategy games with lots of moving parts. I'd be willing to bet that it's no more difficult to take a class of those gamers and teach them to be professional than it is to take a class of professional people and teach them to have that level of focus and multitasking.
And yes I am aware that I am using generalizations and stereotypes here. There's also plenty of people who are already both avid gamers and perfectly reasonable professional workers. I like to think I'm one of them. I think that only furthers my point though, in that these people are out there and any recruiting drive that might help find them is a good thing.
Of course, none of that addresses the real concern that working for the ATC is miserable. You want to really fix the staffing shortages, work on that.
They should do something like The Last Starfighter and have an ATC game they use for recruitment evaluations.
ETA: Looks like there are several ATC simulators out there, it would be neat if any of them are official or unofficial feeders into the ATC recruitment pipeline.
Depending on the type of games they play, this actually makes sense. I can already see a lot of overlap in the skills (though it's 3:30 am and my brain is not cooperating enough to actually name/describe said skills).
I remember someone posted on Reddit about ATC enrollment years ago before the exodus, both hoping to recruit people and also explaining the full details and downsides of the job. I think it may have been this AMA, which apparently became an annual series. In any event, one key note is that acceptance into the academy isn't a guarantee people will graduate and enter the field. They need to pass evaluations, and the training is rigorous. I assume that standard will continue to hold true.
With the relaxing of rules, I can see this going badly. A lot of the current training is to instill a professional mindset, and I can only assume that they're targeting gamers with the idea of bypassing/reducing some aspects of training. Sure, gamers may be adept at picking out patterns and potentially having quick reflexes, but they're operating on an entirely different set of principles. I can't realistically see this current administration doing anything to address that discrepancy.
Will the gamer actually stick it out when it no longer feels like play? Will they remain vigilant, and not divide their attention onto farming on passive games, and/or shitposting on Reddit/4chan? Will they not turn the ATC tower into a gooner cave? How will they handle themselves in an emergency? What if that emergency gets worse, beyond their control? Will they not inadvertently compromise security over the promise of a vial of gamer girl bathwater?
As the article alluded to, you can't just "rage quit" out of a bad situation, and I really, really hope they're filtering those kinds of guys out. I know that not every person who lives with the label "gamer" is that far gone, but is a two-year training program really going to be effective enough to weed out the dummies?
Lastly, none of this is still addressing the main problem: atc guys are being overworked and underpaid. Now they're just doing the same thing but with gamers at a reduced training regimen.
Yeah the air traffic control industry will be one to watch for a while. I will not claim that I know anything about this work and industry because I don't, at most I've just seen videos on YouTube showing ATC doing their work. Even on a normal day, there is a ton of traffic for a controller to manage at the US's bigger airports. I wonder how other countries are dealing with this problem, if they even have it in the first place.
Willing to bet other countries didn't have a generation of them fired in order to cripple union power back in the 80s.
They also have way better public transit which alleviates air traffic considerably.
Canada has the same issue right now and didn't have massive DOGE firings, so it's no isolated to the US unfortunately.
I literally have a friend, a gamer(we're all gamers), who recently applied for an ATC position. He took the test and passed. I think he has a TJO pending background checks, but if that all goes well, then he'll go to ATC school.
In some ways, I think it makes sense to recruit gamers for roles like this. Depending on the types of games one plays, I imagine there's some crossover in terms of skills and abilities.
Which is what he also said when I asked why the hell he wanted to be an ATC, knowing how insane the workloads and hours and stress can be. Plus, I never heard him ever express wanting to be an ATC before (his background is CS), even if we both occasionally watch Airforceproud95...
From the article:
[...]