Training hold

[Maintainvfr]

So what implications do we think this will have over the next ~5 years? If we assume traffic doesn't get to what it was "pre-covid" for, lets say, another 2 years, do we still allow all those trainees that are current facilities to train or just sit around until traffic gets back up?

If trainees don't get to check out until traffic is back up and it is another 2 years what happens when anyone eligible decides to retire in that time? Is the staffing requirement changed to accommodate for this? Then we are understaffed again in 2 years because now traffic goes back up and we don't have the controllers needed because hiring slowed down?

I haven't been around the FAA long, but have been within the government, so I see what kind of issues can possibly arise from this. I'm early in the training stages and I know this is going to be shitty for me and others in a similar position who thought we would be making good money within 1-2 years. What I'm more curious about is the long term issues this will cause. Staffing will probably get wrecked IMO, which is already an issue as is.

I don't see them changing the staffing numbers. By the time they could even negotiate and implement something like that, traffic will be back to normal. The academy and training being halted will have an impact as usual, but there's not much we can do about that obviously.

Training and checkouts will not be held for two years, but the people that seem to think they should get to train and certify on the current traffic are absolute morons. I understand they want a chance to certify and get their raises, but this is a unique event beyond anyone's control. Once the uptick begins, that's when it should happen. The situation sucks but they aren't being treated unfairly.

Obviously for the VFR towers it's different, I'm sure some of them can train now.

 

[Beyondatc]

Our area in the tracon is still busy with box haulers, practice approaches and vfrs. I can’t train because I need the Indev classroom and sims. I can’t imagine they’re anywhere close to coming back. And no one wants to sit right next to someone and train them for the foreseeable future.

 

[RH316]

I personally think it’ll take about a year from now for traffic to get back to pre-covid. That being said, I think that by the fall, you will see at least half of what you should be doing and at That time they’ll begin training again. It’ll work out good for those in training as traffic ramps up. Unfortunately (fortunately ?), we should be clear of SWAP this summer—- which is also a big factor in training.

 

[ClearanceClarence]

So I think the big question at this point is what’s the cutoff point to determine whether what we’re seeing now with traffic numbers is a temporary downturn, or a glimpse at a new normal. The problem is, nobody knows. Will demand for air travel increase as things get better? I’m sure. But there’s also no telling when all of this is truly going to be over. They’re saying we may never really return to ‘normal’ as a society until there’s a vaccine which could be years.

Not to mention the air carriers are virtually on the brink of bankruptcy at this point. Does anyone need to be checked out tomorrow? No. But there needs to be discussions on how we move forward if traffic numbers do not rebound to pre COVID numbers anytime soon. The idea that people should sit on the sidelines until that day comes (if it ever does) is silly.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

Obviously this can't go on for 2 years, in regards to no training. I am not personally worried about that. At some point they are going to have to train on what they have, even if it's a reduced count. I'm not saying we need to be training right now, but say in a few months it's back up to some sort of trainable traffic, maybe if it's running even short sequences and what's normally "moderate traffic" being "covid busy", they need to train us.

What I am worried about is holding that against trainees because yes, while this is not the same old "it used to be busier" scenario, if this is gonna be the norm for a long while, that's not the fault of the trainees, and at some point you have to just deal with it, use good judgment and know things aren't going to go from 60 percent back up to 100 percent overnight and monitor the new checkouts as traffic increases, just like you would with any newly certed person, just to a longer degree.

The FAA doesn't care about our individual paychecks and retirement hits, but from a NAS health/staffing shortage standpoint, they need to keep the pipeline open and flowing. Any suggestion otherwise that we need to not train for any extended period of time until traffic is back to pre covid levels is nonsense.

 

[ClearanceClarence]

I guess a question for the old timers: how were things handled as far as training goes after 9/11? Unless I’m terribly mistaken, wasn’t there a significant drop in traffic numbers that didn’t fully recover until a few years after the attacks? Did trainees just sit around waiting for traffic numbers to increase to a certain level? Did people certify with lower traffic counts than there had been before 9/11? Are those people shitty controllers today?

 

[StealthChain]

Obviously this can't go on for 2 years, in regards to no training. I am not personally worried about that. At some point they are going to have to train on what they have, even if it's a reduced count. I'm not saying we need to be training right now, but say in a few months it's back up to some sort of trainable traffic, maybe if it's running even short sequences and what's normally "moderate traffic" being "covid busy", they need to train us.

What I am worried about is holding that against trainees because yes, while this is not the same old "it used to be busier" scenario, if this is gonna be the norm for a long while, that's not the fault of the trainees, and at some point you have to just deal with it, use good judgment and know things aren't going to go from 60 percent back up to 100 percent overnight and monitor the new checkouts as traffic increases, just like you would with any newly certed person, just to a longer degree.

The FAA doesn't care about our individual paychecks and retirement hits, but from a NAS health/staffing shortage standpoint, they need to keep the pipeline open and flowing. Any suggestion otherwise that we need to not train for any extended period of time until traffic is back to pre covid levels is nonsense.

That's the part I'm curious about. Wonder what the difference will be over the time "lost", depending on how long it takes to now get certified compared to what it would have typically taken if this weren't to happen.

 

[32andBelow]

So I think the big question at this point is what’s the cutoff point to determine whether what we’re seeing now with traffic numbers is a temporary downturn, or a glimpse at a new normal. The problem is, nobody knows. Will demand for air travel increase as things get better? I’m sure. But there’s also no telling when all of this is truly going to be over. They’re saying we may never really return to ‘normal’ as a society until there’s a vaccine which could be years.

Not to mention the air carriers are virtually on the brink of bankruptcy at this point. Does anyone need to be checked out tomorrow? No. But there needs to be discussions on how we move forward if traffic numbers do not rebound to pre COVID numbers anytime soon. The idea that people should sit on the sidelines until that day comes (if it ever does) is silly.

Bookings are starting to increase and July and august so far look a lot better from what I’ve been told.

 

[FightingIrish2012]

Even if we could train right now I’d have no way of evaluating whether someone could do the job with how traffic is. I’m totally on board with check out on the traffic you see but this is something else entirely.

Oh, so you are one of those "you could never have worked the pre-9/11 traffic I was brought up on so I won't check you out for a couple years" lol

 

[Spoony90]

Check everyone out so I can ERR and move on from my facility. ATC is not that hard. I really don’t get the “we gotta wait till pre COVID traffic” or the “you need to train until you use all your hours” mentality. Just check em out, they learn more in one hour alone vs months on training

 

[spider]

I wasn't around 9/11. But I'll say that there is nothing to train on. We don't even have trainable configurations for the overwhelming majority of trainees right now. I started reading LOA's again because I'll be the first to admit that I need to refresh because let's face it...we're on mid rules 24/7 right now. Traffic isn't going to be at pre-virus levels anytime soon but I think we can all agree it's going to go to something much higher than what it is now and it will probably be over a relatively short period of time (30-60 days maybe).

I'm sure there will be plenty of CPC's that will be very rusty (I will be) but we'll eventually get through it. But how do you expect a trainee, who has never worked on significant traffic, to now pick back up at the same pace?

 

[CF]

Oh, so you are one of those "you could never have worked the pre-9/11 traffic I was brought up on so I won't check you out for a couple years" lol

Yeah, totally.

 

[BCHOOSIER]

That's the part I'm curious about. Wonder what the difference will be over the time "lost", depending on how long it takes to now get certified compared to what it would have typically taken if this weren't to happen.

This is the funniest part about this whole situation. I keep hearing controllers throughout the NAS, (controllers on here/previous facility/current facility/etc.) act like it's not "right" to certify people if traffic is down. Many of these same controllers certified in between 9/11 and the Great Recession working numbers well below the level they certified at. Look at the numbers on the aap website over the years and see the downgrades.
Many act like they worked all the traffic back in the "busy" days but the truth is numbers across the NAS were down and people were checking out at facilities that were in the process of getting downgraded or downgraded shortly after certifying. If you walked in the door and your facility was running numbers one or two levels below your entry level you could still checkout after a downgrade to the bottom of the higher ban within so much time. So essentially you never worked traffic levels at the level you check out in but got paid as if you did. Again this happened regularly throughout the NAS and everyone involved said/say shit like, "they were lucky" or "I got in at the right time".
Okay, cool no one is hating that all these people lucked out, good for them. Honestly I want everyone to earn as much as they can and I don't worry about counting other people's money. But why is this situation any different? Why do you care if people get paid. If anything this could help you get out and transfer because numbers should improve faster.

 

[ATOH]

There is definitely a difference between training with lower traffic numbers and having nothing worth training on. For example, at busier facilities, especially tracons, you need to know how to feed the guy working the sector next to you in different configurations, etc. How can you teach running a sequence if the sequence is always one or two airplanes? How can you train those things if everything is always combined to one sector and traffic is 10-25% of what it normally is? At my facility we have a few who were well on their way to washing out, who might now get checked out because traffic has fallen off so much. Its not fair to the trainee, the facility, or the flying public.

There is no easy answer to this. You can't delay someone's career progression forever waiting for traffic that might come back at some point but you can't check out people who have no business working the old traffic levels (in theory).

Hopefully everything picks up soon so it all becomes relatively moot.

 

[FlimFlam]

This is the funniest part about this whole situation. I keep hearing controllers throughout the NAS, (controllers on here/previous facility/current facility/etc.) act like it's not "right" to certify people if traffic is down. Many of these same controllers certified in between 9/11 and the Great Recession working numbers well below the level they certified at. Look at the numbers on the aap website over the years and see the downgrades.
Many act like they worked all the traffic back in the "busy" days but the truth is numbers across the NAS were down and people were checking out at facilities that were in the process of getting downgraded or downgraded shortly after certifying. If you walked in the door and your facility was running numbers one or two levels below your entry level you could still checkout after a downgrade to the bottom of the higher ban within so much time. So essentially you never worked traffic levels at the level you check out in but got paid as if you did. Again this happened regularly throughout the NAS and everyone involved said/say shit like, "they were lucky" or "I got in at the right time".
Okay, cool no one is hating that all these people lucked out, good for them. Honestly I want everyone to earn as much as they can and I don't worry about counting other people's money. But why is this situation any different? Why do you care if people get paid. If anything this could help you get out and transfer because numbers should improve faster.

BCHOOSIER, you list your facility as MBS. If that's the only place you've been you have no understanding of how busy it can get at the very big facilities. This is not a knock against you. Some of the best controllers may be at level 4,5, and 6's and haven't gotten the opportunity to realize, or show their talent. There's a legitimate chance that if you were to certify someone at one of the busiest facilities, and they don't have the ability to work what would be considered normal traffic, it could end in disaster. You asked why this situation is different. It's not only different, it's unprecedented. There's no reference point for this in aviation history. Even after 9/11 there were still pushes at the busy places. They didn't last as long and the peak was a little slower, but you could still find situations where you could tell if someone could do the job. This is not happening at the moment. There is no push. There is no peak. There is no way to tell if someone will go so far down the tubes they may kill people.

 

[Super Salt]

Check everyone out so I can ERR and move on from my facility. ATC is not that hard. I really don’t get the “we gotta wait till pre COVID traffic” or the “you need to train until you use all your hours” mentality. Just check em out, they learn more in one hour alone vs months on training

?????? Towards this causing folks to retire to open spots for my ERR’s (and PAC increases)!

 

[BCHOOSIER]

BCHOOSIER, you list your facility as MBS. If that's the only place you've been you have no understanding of how busy it can get at the very big facilities. This is not a knock against you. Some of the best controllers may be at level 4,5, and 6's and haven't gotten the opportunity to realize, or show their talent. There's a legitimate chance that if you were to certify someone at one of the busiest facilities, and they don't have the ability to work what would be considered normal traffic, it could end in disaster. You asked why this situation is different. It's not only different, it's unprecedented. There's no reference point for this in aviation history. Even after 9/11 there were still pushes at the busy places. They didn't last as long and the peak was a little slower, but you could still find situations where you could tell if someone could do the job. This is not happening at the moment. There is no push. There is no peak. There is no way to tell if someone will go so far down the tubes they may kill people.

I don't work at MBS but please keep telling what I do and don't know about how busy facilities work. I'm not saying check everyone out tomorrow but whenever they bring trainees back you should bring them back to do their jobs...which is to train. The idea of waiting a year or two in the hopes that numbers return to check someone out is ridiculous. By the time they decide to bring trainees back and Art. 67 time gets completed, realistically summer will be over and training won't even start until the fall. I think we can all agree or at least hope traffic will be busier then compared to now.

 

[32andBelow]

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Is this with NATCA or FAA? That’s awesome that someone is doing something for your guys. I don’t see how it could be optional since we are on admin leave.

 

[32andBelow]

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Let us know if you find anything out

 

[Phillyman2633]

Maybe the FAA will create some new positions for all of us who are sitting at home right now...like slap me in a Tyvek suit to hose the tower down when someone tests positive for the China Flu, or send us down to ZJX to eat the grass with the goats.