The FAA wants to hire 4,300 air traffic controllers in the next five years and those interested have until the end of the day Aug. 2 to get an application in. Every year the agency accepts ATC applications for just a few days. The agency now has more than 14,000 controllers but many are nearing retirement age and there’s some urgency in the latest round of hiring. Senior leadership at the FAA issued statements encouraging anyone interested to apply. “Being an air traffic controller is not only important, but it’s also an interesting and dynamic career,” the chief operating officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, Teri Bristol, said.
The agency also launched a major recruitment push for women, minorities and people from underrepresented communities to apply. The social media and outreach blitz began a week before the application window opened. The FAA has been trying to diversify the population of controllers for more than a decade and this year it created a toolkit for organizations representing those groups to illustrate the opportunities. “Having individuals with diverse backgrounds helps us find ways to continue enhancing aviation safety and efficiency,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. “I hope more people will pursue the opportunity to become an air traffic controller as a result of this effort.”
“Having individuals with diverse backgrounds helps us find ways to continue enhancing aviation safety and efficiency,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson. “I hope more people will pursue the opportunity to become an air traffic controller as a result of this effort.”
How does diverse backgrounds help the FAA find ways to enhance aviation safety? How about enhancing aviation safety through having the best qualified people in positions such as air traffic control as the number one priority? Making an effort to seek out specific specific people groups to add awareness of the job opportunity’s within ATC is admirable. However, long term safety is determined by demonstrated performance in the pressure packed confines of ATC. Diversity does not guarantee performance.
Having narrow windows of the application process available to a targeted group instead of having an open continuous window that allows for all interested parties to investigate and if interested apply, makes no sense at all solving a shortage of controllers. Targeting what is now termed underrepresented groups as a significant potential pool of interested candidates funneled into a narrow time window may improve diversity of those who actually apply. However making the specific effort to add diversity as a primary or significant goal tying that to with enhanced aviation safety is simply another taxpayer funded political correctness marketing venture.
Reach out to everyone via a national marketing effort, simplify the application process, and have continuous training programs in place to have the ATC pipeline of candidates always filled adjusted for need. This will provide satisfying employment for those who successfully gain the qualifications to become part of ATC.
Every job should be available for everyone who can qualify. Not every job available is desirable for everyone. Not every candidate will be able to pass the certification requirements the job demands. Flying is available to everyone. But not everyone wants to fly. To get the best candidates the need for candidates must get to the largest audience.
It’s interesting how a life of having doors open to you because of your gender and race makes it impossible to see what it’s like for people who don’t.
I went with a female (pilot, 500 hours) friend looking for a job to an aviation trade show:
– “Sorry, we’re not hiring women, we’ve already filled our diversity quota”
– “Would you prefer a poster or a toy for your child? Apply for a job? No sweetie, you have to be a pilot to work here.”
– “Tell your husband he can apply online”
And that was in a 10 minute period.
If your world of “best candidate gets the job” existed, we’d all be fine. Spend 10 minutes in the shoes of someone of color or the other gender and you’ll know it’s as much of a fantasy as “diversity solves all problems”.
If you exhibit an airplane at a show, spend some time talking to the crowd of general public that comes by. Girls are told at a very young age they can’t be pilots, and without role models, they believe it.
THAT is the reason pushing for women and people of color to apply makes sense. They should be qualified, no doubt, but letting an underrepresented group in the door opens it for everyone else.
Steve, I don’t disagree with your message one bit, but rather than using
“I went with a female (pilot, 500 hours) friend looking for a job to an aviation trade show:
– “Sorry, we’re not hiring women, we’ve already filled our diversity quota”
– “Would you prefer a poster or a toy for your child? Apply for a job? No sweetie, you have to be a pilot to work here.”
– “Tell your husband he can apply online”
And that was in a 10 minute period.”
…as comments in a trade blog, it needs to be called out on-site at the time it is being said / heard. I have yet to overhear or observe this type of behavior in the aviation field – at least not since the ’80s – yet have attended many of these events.
The big social media outreach aimed at under represented groups began a whole week ahead of the deadline? Wow, they were really planning ahead! If the FAA is so desperate to hire new controllers, why not have a continuous application process, even if they only select candidates a few times a year. I understand that they need to have the applicants available to fill a training class, but restricting the process to just a few weeks each year seems to work against their need to effectively recruit applicants. Missed the deadline? Ooh too bad, come back next year. Not exactly a great way to attract new applicants.
I think you misread. The outreach began “a week before the application window opened”. That’s “opened”, not “closes”.
MAYBE they should take a page from the book of OTHER government agencies–like the Armed Services recruiters!
They advertise the job–they are taking applications all year long–they take any person of any race or gender–they let everyone know what the promotion. benefits, and retirement programs are. The military pays a LOT less than the ATC system–but THEY get good applicants!
The military seems to have adequate staffing–EVEN IN THE VERY SAME ATC POSITIONS! (“Oh, the IRONY!”)
Or–maybe they should be like the FAA Administrator, and “Study” it for four years! (sarcasm off)
“Girls are told at a very young age they can’t be pilots, and without role models, they believe it.”
This is my 60th year in aviation–and my 52nd in the FBO business. I’ve never heard anyone in the flight training business say that “girls can’t be pilots.” I attend a LOT of aviation trade shows–I’ve never heard anyone say that “girls can’t be pilots.” I just came back from Oshkosh, and as has been the case for years, women are ENCOURAGED to be pilots–with special organizations and scholarships open ONLY to women.
“Virtue Signaling” and “Quotas” is SO “Turn of the last Century”. What the “quota advocates” seem to ignore is that for every person SELECTED PURELY BY QUOTA–a BETTER applicant is displaced from being hired. THINK about that the next time a controller fumbles a clearance or handoff!
We need to be like the military, and be color and gender blind–the military doesn’t care what color or gender you are (except for close quarters–like submarines)–they just want able, willing, and trainable PEOPLE! Perhaps applications should have a “code number” instead of a name and photo–let the application show only education and accomplishments, and pick the applicants on their MERITS–not their skin color or gender.
Hmmm… Has the FAA aimed any of its outreach efforts toward ATC personnel who have recently served or are about to leave military service? If not, why not?
I am going to share some hearsay information I got from on older retired airline pilot who was also a naval aviator. From his age, he was flying from carriers in Vietnam. He flew airliners for Piedmont, then TWA and retired from American. He is my GA flying buddy and we had a very unprofessional almost clueless controller in a very rural area. I asked him the same logical question you wondered: Why not hire people with controller experience out of the service? His answer: FAA doesn’t want to have to break all their bad habits (Obviously there are different standards between military and civil controlling). And I replied “they took you with your bad habits” and his response, “yeah but I can fly a plane”. So take that from it what you will. I tend to believe every word of it and agree FAA can be a bit behind the times. Hopefully they have improved in the years since this guy retired from civil aeronautics.
As a retired controller I am out of the loop to some extent but I do believe that the FAA still prefers applicants with military experience. I was a controller in the Marine Corps and our standards were, at least stateside, closely monitored by FAA personnel. I respectfully refuse the “bad habits” argument above and the assertion that the FAA rejects military controllers. It doesn’t.
During my years in the FAA I observed hiring strategies come and go but the end result was, ultimately, a proficient, safety oriented and professional workforce. Controlling is a team sport and the proficiency of the person at the adjacent sector or facility can make your day at work heaven or hell. Controllers train their associates who make that day whatever it is so they are, as a rule, careful to weed out the marginal candidate.
Ability to perform ATC duties at the higher levels of volume and complexity is completely aptitude related. Just as some people can fly an airplane but can never grasp instrument flight, some controllers got it and some ain’t. As to who should have the opportunity to try, I believe the four day window to apply is not benefitting anybody but some HR wonk at FAA HQ.