It's good and bad at the same time. I guess it's good people get to where they want to be off the bat. But they have been screwing over current FAA controllers (this past NCEPT for example) while giving into folks that aren't in the agency yet.
Hire prior experience before ots as far as I’m concerned and fill in the gaps where current faa controllers are leaving.
But it sounds like they are hiring all the private experience controllers that apply. There just aren’t that many
It seems like there are two prior experience bids per year and one off the street.... so I'd agree that they're already hiring as many prior experience controllers as they can.
This is the first year that there are two prior experience bids in one year.
Wether there is 1 or 2 doesn’t matter. The question is are prior experience people applying and not getting hired?
Go look on KSN for the numbers, they were posting them once upon a time, 15/16/17/18/19/20/21 if I recall. It should tell you what year, how many applied, how many were selected, and how many reported to facilities.
I disagree that all priors should be limited to lvl 4-7’s and here’s why: Speaking for the Air Force as an example, we had to go through both tower and radar fundies/labs that was all pass/fail to make it to a first base. Academy for OTS is only tower and then people who pass and wind up at up/downs will go to RTF which (as we all know) is an optional pass/pass course. The other facet to my point is that yes, not all priors should get busy airports right off the bat like what is happening, but that’s not the priors’ faults. The FAA’s placement subject matter experts have access to DoD facility traffic numbers and are supposed to verify experience & offer accordingly. In the end my point stands, some priors should be offered higher levels. Provided the FAA screens priors better and also needs to afford the more experienced priors the same opportunities as OTS academy grads getting dream facilities or lvl 12’s when all they’ve done is pass fundamentals and a tower sim…
counter point: they're still trash controllers with shitty attitudes
Some of them are, absolutely. Partly due to their attitude and more due to the slow facility they may have been at with lackadaisical training environments that don’t fix those things early on in their career. But also counterpoint: some academy grads are just as trash as some priors out there AND they’re guaranteed to have this ?? Much radar experience.
I was in the Air Force so I may be biased but you can be equally as good or trash from any walk of life. Serving in the armed forces, working at subway before hand or going through cti school makes no difference in the end. Only 13 years in though so maybe that opinion will change down the line.
The academy is not limited to beginning in the tower only. The pay system is main issue between the levels and drives movement. It’s horse shit that some of us prior experience get assigned to a lower level and can’t get out while others are assigned to the higher levels from the get go, but only due to the fact of pay. Also, the Air Force isn’t a unicorn and a similar evaluation process happened during my enlistment in the Corps. It still doesn’t mean that you deserve to go to an 8+. The NCEPT program has made a career profession platform out of a career enhancement process. It’s backwards and needs to be removed.
I didn’t say the tech school alone makes priors deserve level 8+ facilities so maybe I misspoke there. I do however think that the Air Force had a higher attrition rate for the fact of comparison between it and the FAA Academy for OTS. Where I think priors deserve those facilities is exactly where you stand on the matter. Some academy grad off the street with a fundies class and a pass/fail tower sim shouldn’t be getting better facilities out the gate than someone who has tower and radar labs for a better foundation and has experience/certification separating real aircraft. And the only reason I say tower only on the FAA side is because everyone I’ve ever talked to that was OTS through the academy said they did tower only and then returned for RTF when it was time.
You guys always seem to gloss over the fact that like 2/3 of the OTS trainees are for enroute
What are these supposed better facilities that ots get that prior exp hires aren’t getting? You should be more upset at the fact washouts with only d sides or no positions at all are getting these better facilities.
Don't forget the OTS N90 guys who was and get offered RSW because "they passed TETRA" and that's what the nest guidance says. Or better yet, the guy back in the day who failed TETRA and was rewarded by going to PBI. I wonder how they turned out.
The guy that went to PBI, if memory serves, was in one of the first TETRA classes. At some point through the N90 process you have to pass career jeopardy. If you pass basics/tower/ and come back for RTF/TSEW or TETRA as any other hire and “fail” at the MMAC your job is not in jeopardy. Objectively we cannot expect someone to not pass a portion of the N90 process after RTF and be fired when others are not. Yes it absolutely sucks for the rest of those looking for country club facilities or highly desired locations but we have standards to ensure a “fair” process, even if it isn’t liked.
