The FAA staffing problem that NO ONE is talking about

Acquired Taste

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Alright, so maybe some people are just starting to talk about. But for the most part, most people are thinking Coronavirus is going to result in a huge backlog in training that’s going to leave us short staffed for the rest of our careers. In actuality, it’s going to be the complete opposite. We are about to be grossly overstaffed. Here’s my thesis:
  1. The traffic isn’t coming back. Not next year, or the year after that. Definitely not in the next 10 years but if I was a betting man, which I am, I would go out on a limb and say traffic will never return until there is a shift in policy in Washington (not going down that rabbit hole right now). The economic destruction caused by Coronavirus and the extremely reckless fiscal and monetary policies that follow are going to completely decimate the U.S. consumer. With everything from mass layoffs to mass inflation, very few people are going to be able to afford to fly for leisure. Many people were living paycheck to paycheck before all of this, and aren’t going to be able to be in a rush to go out and spend money. Furthermore as consumers begin to feel the reverse wealth effect (i.e. they start feeling poorer once their 401k is cut in half and their home equity vanishes), the consumers that haven’t lost their jobs will also cut back.
  2. I’d imagine many of the weekend warriors flying out for $100 hamburgers are going to cut back as the economic hardships set in.
  3. Private jets are very expensive to own and operate so many companies will look to cut back on discretionary travel where they can. With the emergence of e-meetings on Zoom, companies are discovering that many of the in-person business meetings that used to occur can be accomplished virtually without much difference in result.
  4. Even if all the restrictions are lifted and the consumer isn’t wiped out as much as I think they’ll be, not many people are eager to hop on a packed plane until a vaccine comes out. I saw a poll that something like 85% of people still won’t be comfortable getting on a plane in close proximity to strangers. To the extent, that airlines try to social distance and space out passengers, the less capacity they will have and the more they will have to charge for individual seats, further crushing whatever little bit of demand there is to fly.
  5. It costs the airlines millions of dollars to store and maintain the planes that are grounded. If they don’t have the demand to fly them, it makes more sense to retire or try to sell many of the older planes in their fleet. You have to think we’ve probably seen the final days of many of these older commercial airliners in favor of the more fuel efficient, newer models. Reduction in fleet sizes will naturally decrease potential amount of flights in the NAS.

    Tl;dr of these top 5 points is that traffic isn’t coming back.

  6. From the FAA side, most facilities are running 5/5 or 5/10 schedules and are actually OVERSTAFFED on these configurations. Take N90 as an example… DankVectorz said his area of 5 sectors is combined up to 1 sector all the time now and they have 4 people on his crew. That’s enough staffing to cover 1 person on sick leave and another could bang out on each shift and they’d still be fine. This is N90! The worst staffed facility in the NAS is suddenly overstaffed overnight even with CPCs there working half of the hours that they used to work. Even if we see a small bounce back in traffic, maybe they have to combine to 2 positions instead of 1 but if that’s the case they would likely be on a normal 5/2 schedule by then and would still be overstaffed. The FAA is about to be very overstaffed at all of the previously understaffed places i.e. N90, C90, LAX, ZNY, etc… One day in the not so distant future, those guys won't remember the days when spot leave was unavailable or what a 1 day weekend looked like.
  7. The FAA isn’t going to suspend training forever. Eventually, training will start back up on whatever traffic we have at that point. With such reduced traffic, success rates at historically difficult places will likely go up. Can you imagine N90 and ZNY success rate going up to like 65%? With the amount of trainees in house right this second, they wouldn’t need any new bodies for a decade.

    I think that pretty much about sums it up. What does that mean for our future? No one can be too sure. As for these trainees bitching about not being able to train and the pandemic delaying your raise… suck it up. You’re about to get certified on easy traffic and make the same money to work maybe 20% of the traffic those before you have worked. You are lucky to even have a job during all of this, not to mention the #bestjobintheworld. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing more and more consolidations and closures all together as result of this. I am definitely expect a complete hiring freeze and while I don’t think they’re going to do early buyouts, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see trainees that are still on probation be let go. It’s an unfortunate situation, but as a self proclaimed realist with a solid understanding of basic economics, this is really the only possible outcome I can see unfolding.​
 
Take N90 as an example… @DankVectorz said his area of 5 sectors is combined up to 1 sector all the time now and they have 4 people on his crew.

no, there’s 5 areas and each area was down to 1 scope. But traffic is already coming up enough to start opening a second scope in some areas.

I think you’re wrong about how long it will take to recover. I think it will be much faster, <5 years. The vast majority of people are still currently employed, just working from home. The vast majority of those currently collecting unemployment are doing so temporarily until their places of employment open up again. I think there’s going to be a surge of airline bookings once things open again as everyone is going to want to gtfo for a bit (I know I will!).
 
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Air traffic isn’t coming back for at least a decade and trainees shouldn’t complain, they should just be happy the faa doesn’t euthanize them, and if they do decide the euthanize them they should be happy they got the opportunity to ever draw a map. Everyone that is under probation is getting fired and there won’t be any buyouts.
 
Air traffic isn’t coming back for at least a decade and trainees shouldn’t complain, they should just be happy the faa doesn’t euthanize them, and if they do decide the euthanize them they should be happy they got the opportunity to ever draw a map. Everyone that is under probation is getting fired and there won’t be any buyouts.

Oh then here is my real reply

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I think you’re wrong about how long it will take to recover. I think it will be much faster, <5 years. The vast majority of people are still currently employed, just working from home. The vast majority of those currently collecting unemployment are doing so temporarily until their places of employment open up again. I think there’s going to be a surge of airline bookings once things open again as everyone is going to want to gtfo for a bit (I know I will!).
There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program. None of the people collecting unemployment are going to rush back to work when many are making more money being unemployed and they don't have to sit in traffic or pay for gas or childcare. Additionally, no politician is going to vote to end those benefits before the election. That would be political suicide. Many of the jobs lost are service sector jobs that simply aren't coming back. The fact is that even when things begin to open back up, many of the small businesses that had low margins and were barely getting by before stand no chance of staying in business with reduced consumer demand and increased government restrictions to comply with. Some states like FL GA and TX are already opening up and I'm not seeing anyone race to buy tickets to vacation there.

Clickbait title, sensationalist content

If the experts are forecasting 2021-2023 to reach current numbers why would your numbers be more accurate? It came back after 9/11 didn't it? There was shit like this going around back then too
Doom and gloom nonsense. OMG we’ll never recover
The "experts" in 05-07 also said the economy was great and there was nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. Truth is experts don't know shit. They don't understand the economic impacts of all of this. The economic fallout was inevitable. The coronavirus is simply the pin that pricked the biggest credit bubble in history and will ultimately accelerate the timeline to the same result that was coming anyway. Or maybe I'm just an idiot and you guys are right. I forgot to price in our savior J Powell coming to rescue us all with his unlimited money printer BRRRRRRRR! V shaped recovery ahead!. If you look at the stonk market, you can clearly see that coronavirus is canceled!
 
The reason “No oNe Is TaLkInG aBoUt ThIs” is because there’s nothing to talk about. We can all be scared, but there’s no data to confirm or deny any of the fun claims this makes.
This would be one hell of a Netflix documentary, though.
 
Alright, so maybe some people are just starting to talk about. But for the most part, most people are thinking Coronavirus is going to result in a huge backlog in training that’s going to leave us short staffed for the rest of our careers. In actuality, it’s going to be the complete opposite
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  1. The traffic isn’t coming back. Not next year, or the year after that. Definitely not in the next 10 years but if I was a betting man, which I am, I would go out on a limb and say traffic will never return until there is a shift in policy in Washington
Based on zero evidence,

Even if all the restrictions are lifted and the consumer isn’t wiped out as much as I think they’ll be, not many people are eager to hop on a packed plane until a vaccine comes out. I saw a poll that something like 85% of people still won’t be comfortable getting on a plane in close proximity to strangers. To the extent, that airlines try to social distance and space out passengers, the less capacity they will have and the more they will have to charge for individual seats, further crushing whatever little bit of demand there is to fly.

No source to verify, I saw a poll that something like 99% of this post is a load of shit. Also the vaccine isn't going to stop you from getting the beer virus, hence why there's an annual flu vaccine but people still get the flu. Figger it out.

The FAA isn’t going to suspend training forever. Eventually, training will start back up on whatever traffic we have at that point.

What a hot fuckin take.

As for these trainees bitching about not being able to train and the pandemic delaying your raise… suck it up. You’re about to get certified on easy traffic and make the same money to work maybe 20% of the traffic those before you have worked. You are lucky to even have a job during all of this, not to mention the #bestjobintheworld.
Ok boomer please regale us of how traffic was in the old days pre-whatever the fuck.

I am definitely expect a complete hiring freeze and while I don’t think they’re going to do early buyouts, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see trainees that are still on probation be let go. It’s an unfortunate situation, but as a self proclaimed realist with a solid understanding of basic economics, this is really the only possible outcome I can see unfolding.
yourefired.gif
Low quality shitpost. 2/7
 
There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program. None of the people collecting unemployment are going to rush back to work when many are making more money being unemployed and they don't have to sit in traffic or pay for gas or childcare. Additionally, no politician is going to vote to end those benefits before the election. That would be political suicide. Many of the jobs lost are service sector jobs that simply aren't coming back. The fact is that even when things begin to open back up, many of the small businesses that had low margins and were barely getting by before stand no chance of staying in business with reduced consumer demand and increased government restrictions to comply with. Some states like FL GA and TX are already opening up and I'm not seeing anyone race to buy tickets to vacation there.



The "experts" in 05-07 also said the economy was great and there was nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. Truth is experts don't know shit. They don't understand the economic impacts of all of this. The economic fallout was inevitable. The coronavirus is simply the pin that pricked the biggest credit bubble in history and will ultimately accelerate the timeline to the same result that was coming anyway. Or maybe I'm just an idiot and you guys are right. I forgot to price in our savior J Powell coming to rescue us all with his unlimited money printer BRRRRRRRR! V shaped recovery ahead!. If you look at the stonk market, you can clearly see that coronavirus is canceled!
hey the 12 dollar an hour people on unemployment can finally afford to go on vacation. Airline traffic record high incoming.
 
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