The FAA staffing problem that NO ONE is talking about

AnyTrafficPleaseAdvise said:
Okay so when should training come back? When there is a “flattening of the curve”? When there is a vaccine? Traffic isn’t going to return to previous levels any time soon. Major airlines are retiring large percentages of their fleets and parking their aircraft on closed runways. Personally I don’t think traffic counts can play a huge factor for when training restarts or else trainees won’t be in the building until next summer.
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I don’t know the answer, but as long as there’s a risk of infection we don’t need additional exposure to risk. It’s not so much about just the traffic. If an employee gets sick, the facility goes ATC zero. That is the big risk here, a risk to the system, not just a controller getting sick. We saw the chaos a big Z closing down or going to half the areas causes. We don’t need that again, it’s a national embarrassment that it happened to begin with.
 
Bandit117 said:
I don’t know the answer, but as long as there’s a risk of infection we don’t need additional exposure to risk. It’s not so much about just the traffic. If an employee gets sick, the facility goes ATC zero. That is the big risk here, a risk to the system, not just a controller getting sick. We saw the chaos a big Z closing down or going to half the areas causes. We don’t need that again, it’s a national embarrassment that it happened to begin with.
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There is always going to be risk of infection. We don't shut down facilities when people get influenza every year. People need to just start accepting that this virus is going to be a fact of life for awhile. Take precautions, wash hands, good hygiene, stay home if your sick etc. Until the public starts accepting this reality, traffic won't come back that much.

As far as training goes, I don't think anybody has a clue. At some point people will just have to train on whatever traffic there is at the time. I have a feeling it won't be till the holidays/new year.
 
AnyTrafficPleaseAdvise said:
There’s always that one guy who complains and whines, “Boss, I need a break I’ve been on position for 52 minutes.” Then turns right around and says, “Trainees are stupid and worthless.” And before anyone says it, yes I should be fortunate to still be getting a paycheck.
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I don’t say boss, or ask for breaks, we run our own break board, and also work more than 52 min on. Idk who you’re talking about but fuck that guy for the shitty attitude and low TOP. Dirty.
 
Zizia said:
Just playing devils advocate: Not everyone has debit, so that really wouldn't benefit everyone who is "hurting" because of the coronavirus. Don't get me wrong, I would love for my student loans to be forgiven and everyone else's, but then you could argue you are punishing the people who saved and were able to pay for college out of pocket. I just think the only way to do it fairly is with the stimulus checks.
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Count the amount “paid off” as taxable income to stretch over say 5-10 years. So say you get $100K in debt forgiveness at a 20% tax rate. You’d owe an extra $20K stretched over 5-10 years. Those that don’t/didn’t receive debt forgiveness would receive a standard tax credit (say 10% of tax owed) for that same time period.
 
Cus I’m sure everyone is isolating themselves during their 5 off. There’s no way a CPC would ever be exposed to the virus outside of work. I’m sure there is zero ping pong and vidya going on in the break room during this. I bet no one lays down and takes a nap on the same couch someone else just did.
 
Honestly, when should training start back up? Like what percentage of traffic should be present before training fires back up?
 
So new schedule due out this Saturday. Anyone staying 5/10 or going 5/5 or back to normal? Memorial Day weekend coming up. Interesting to see what traffic count will be.
 
5/10 and they moved people at my facility that when people take leave in the summer (if they do), we can keep it 5/10. Sounds like my facility wants to keep staffing status quo reference the schedule.
 
ATOH said:
There is always going to be risk of infection. We don't shut down facilities when people get influenza every year. People need to just start accepting that this virus is going to be a fact of life for awhile. Take precautions, wash hands, good hygiene, stay home if your sick etc. Until the public starts accepting this reality, traffic won't come back that much.

As far as training goes, I don't think anybody has a clue. At some point people will just have to train on whatever traffic there is at the time. I have a feeling it won't be till the holidays/new year.
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Influenza doesn’t have career ending health implications unless you’re one of the .001% who die. Covid, as far as we know scars the lungs quite severely, and dramatically restricts your lung capacity. For how long we don’t know, but doctors report seeing lungs that resemble stained glass windows in recovered patients. Given that the us military has said Covid will ban a potential recruit on a medical basis, I wouldn’t be shocked if OKC started denying medicals based on the same thing. We don’t know the long term effects and so they will play it safe with the standards. Anyone know of any covid positive controllers being allowed to return to work and getting their medicals back? I’m not willing to risk my medical so a trainee can train on fractional traffic. I dont think anyone is struggling with staffing at the moment. It won’t always be this way, but as long as the traffic is down there’s no need to induce more risk into the situation.
 
Easybreezybeautiful said:
well here you go:
Neither you nor your other account can provide any data that says how bad this will actually be, but your claim says exactly how bad this will be. You can’t take a qualitative assessment of “they sold some planes” and say “years of supply chain damage.” Even if you end up being correct, it’s not knowledge; it’s a total guess and nothing more.
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First of all, it's understandable for people to want to be anonymous on here. No one is trying to reveal who they are and where they work when debating these things. Just because someone posted from a new account doesn't mean they're trying to do what you're accusing.

Next, of course the people taking the "long view" on this are just making predictions (same as is the other side). They're not claiming to "know" exactly how bad it will be. And obviously neither side is presenting quantitative data about a future for which there is no precedent -- it's impossible.

As far as I can tell, the people taking the "short view" on traffic recovering have not made any convincing rebuttals to the OP or mrmr. Even in the news industry experts are predicting 2022-2023, and that's assuming a lot of things go well from here out. Adding another couple years to that if things don't go well isn't that big of a stretch.
 
hitbit said:
First of all, it's understandable for people to want to be anonymous on here. No one is trying to reveal who they are and where they work when debating these things. Just because someone posted from a new account doesn't mean they're trying to do what you're accusing.

Next, of course the people taking the "long view" on this are just making predictions (same as is the other side). They're not claiming to "know" exactly how bad it will be. And obviously neither side is presenting quantitative data about a future for which there is no precedent -- it's impossible.

As far as I can tell, the people taking the "short view" on traffic recovering have not made any convincing rebuttals to the OP or mrmr. Even in the news industry experts are predicting 2022-2023, and that's assuming a lot of things go well from here out. Adding another couple years to that if things don't go well isn't that big of a stretch.
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That’s for a full recovery. That doesn’t mean we won’t be at 70/80/90% much sooner. Plus domestic is going to come back way faster than intl
 
Bandit117 said:
Influenza doesn’t have career ending health implications unless you’re one of the .001% who die. Covid, as far as we know scars the lungs quite severely, and dramatically restricts your lung capacity. For how long we don’t know, but doctors report seeing lungs that resemble stained glass windows in recovered patients. Given that the us military has said Covid will ban a potential recruit on a medical basis, I wouldn’t be shocked if OKC started denying medicals based on the same thing. We don’t know the long term effects and so they will play it safe with the standards. Anyone know of any covid positive controllers being allowed to return to work and getting their medicals back? I’m not willing to risk my medical so a trainee can train on fractional traffic. I dont think anyone is struggling with staffing at the moment. It won’t always be this way, but as long as the traffic is down there’s no need to induce more risk into the situation.
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My facility has had several controllers get infected and all were back after the 14 days. Covid is harmless to the vast majority of people under age 70 who aren't extremely unhealthy.
 
I can maybe understand the argument about "well maybe this isn't as bad as we first thought." But the comparisons to the flu are completely stupid. The flu kills between 10 and 60 thousand per year in the US and we don't do anything to mitigate it. COVID has killed 90,000 in a couple months and we have shut down large sections of society to slow it down. Can we just stop with this comparison?
 
ATOH said:
My facility has had several controllers get infected and all were back after the 14 days. Covid is harmless to the vast majority of people under age 70 who aren't extremely unhealthy.
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Still not worth the risk, when no facility is hurting for bodies and the traffic is at record lows. You want to be the one that winds up with half lung capacity for the rest of their life Bc your trainee coughed on you? Scar tissue on the lungs is no joke. You have an official standard from CAMI that a covid diagnosis won’t effect future medicals?

Part of Our job is risk management. We don’t add unnecessary risks to the system when it’s not required, nor should we start doing so.
 
Bandit117 said:
Still not worth the risk, when no facility is hurting for bodies and the traffic is at record lows. You want to be the one that winds up with half lung capacity for the rest of their life Bc your trainee coughed on you? Scar tissue on the lungs is no joke. You have an official standard from CAMI that a covid diagnosis won’t effect future medicals?

Part of Our job is risk management. We don’t add unnecessary risks to the system when it’s not required, nor should we start doing so.
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I haven’t seen much about the lung since since this all started. Like in March there were a lot of stories about the lung damage. Now, not so much. Has this been confirmed or they just thought this at first?

also just require mask usage during training
 

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