FAA Releases Bold, New Air Traffic Controller Hiring Plan

It literally says to get rid of the rattler altogether by next year.

  • The 2-2-1 schedule is being eliminated. FAA issued an order in April 2024 to extend minimum rest between shifts. New rules took effect January 2025: 10 hours between all shifts, 12 hours before and after midnight shifts. The 2-2-1 is targeted for full elimination in 2026.
So what will they replace it with? And how it will provide more coverage with the same staffing? With the same bodies?

What i see In a lot of these 2026 numbers is places being lowered to their present staffing. You were short, but now you’re full up, congrats!
 
So what will they replace it with? And how it will provide more coverage with the same staffing? With the same bodies?

What i see In a lot of these 2026 numbers is places being lowered to their present staffing. You were short, but now you’re full up, congrats!
All great questions. I’m guessing nobody will know the answers until December and then every facility is doing their best to finalize a BWS and bid.

Some facilities are lower than their pre CRWG numbers too so who knows.
 
The people who went to Australia were on to something.

I'm setting up job shadows in other careers and focusing on getting administrative certs (PMP etc.) while I'm still young enough to make a career change. My wife gets to say her own schedule, gets twice as much time off, etc. My laziness is my own fault and my own downfall.
 
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No it will be straight shifts. Even the agency doesnt like the reverse bc it limits OT availability. Congrats on Wed/Thu off straight eves.
Been saying this for years. The agency knows that the fix for fatigue and simplicity in scheduling is straight shifts. But this doesn’t mean you’ll work the same start time every day. It will simply be mornings, eves, and a skeleton crew on a mid. Start times will vary though (eve could be 1200, 1330, 1445, 1800).
 
Been saying this for years. The agency knows that the fix for fatigue and simplicity in scheduling is straight shifts. But this doesn’t mean you’ll work the same start time every day. It will simply be mornings, eves, and a skeleton crew on a mid. Start times will vary though (eve could be 1200, 1330, 1445, 1800).
I’m ok with sun/mon straight days.
I’m high enough in seniority to secure it lol
 
Straight shifts require an increased staffing number for most places. People that say straight shifts never actually had to write an ATC schedule. Or they're from the military where efficiency is 6 dudes plugged in working one shitty little tower
 
I’m ok with sun/mon straight days.
I’m high enough in seniority to secure it lol
You are optimistic to believe they wouldn't trash every seniority based system we have and just assign ppl whatever they feel.

Straight shifts require an increased staffing number for most places. People that say straight shifts never actually had to write an ATC schedule. Or they're from the military where efficiency is 6 dudes plugged in working one shitty little tower
M1 was straight shifts. And no, it didnt work. Doesn't mean they wouldn't implement it once the guardrails to their stupidity are gone.
 
M1 was straight shifts. And no, it didnt work. Doesn't mean they wouldn't implement it once the guardrails to their stupidity are gone.
I definitely agree with this sentiment. That's why I don't rule out the reverse rattler. Darkhorse candidate: creating more supes in lieu of CPCs and cracking the whip on the guys that now have no labor protections
 
Straight shifts require an increased staffing number for most places. People that say straight shifts never actually had to write an ATC schedule. Or they're from the military where efficiency is 6 dudes plugged in working one shitty little tower
It shouldn't really assuming that the actual shifts that are assigned aren't changing. Now if they start changing shifts at all, that will affect things obviously. As would if they got rid of the 9 or 10 hr shifts plenty of facilities are using. But just the normal 8 hr shifts, all you're doing is just changing which employee works each shift. For example, a Friday day shift would normally always be worked by a Sat/Sun person on their last day, but with a straight shift schedule, maybe its now a Tue/Wed guy working it while the Sat/Sun is working the night (which would have been the Tue/Wed guys normal shift). Now if they try to just do each person working a single shift all week long instead of the "collection" of shifts (only working a 6 instead of either a 5, 6 or 7 for example for the days) then that would definitely make things more difficult especially when leave starts coming into play.

Obviously, there's no one set schedule that works for everyone and that's why Art 32 and 34 exists. It'll be interesting to see what the agencies brilliant idea will be since they've had so many brilliant ideas lately. I'm assuming bidding and negotiations are just going to suck more than usual.
 
Straight shifts require an increased staffing number for most places. People that say straight shifts never actually had to write an ATC schedule. Or they're from the military where efficiency is 6 dudes plugged in working one shitty little tower
Worked at a military RAPCON for 6 years and everyone worked straight shifts that only changed week to week. Which is frankly better than anything the FAA can offer. What exactly are you dogging on the .mil side about?

It’s the one and only reason we got all the extra trainees we got since.
You can run it on finance’s model just fine if you burn the controllers to the ground with TOP.
Replacing finance’s very shitty idea to run staffing with NATCA’s slightly less but still very shitty idea to run staffing doesn’t fix anything. You can take your union blowhard rhetoric elsewhere.
 
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