Training hold

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A sup at my center advised me to talk to my natca area rep and said this definitely counts as a training delay. Anyone know where specifically to read up on training delays and what we might be entitled to due to them?

And yes I am thankful to still be going to work and not losing my edge completely, but I was on my last 2 sectors and will now miss the permanent June raise so I'm just curious. The sup brought this up with me randomly so I'm not sure if there was other conversation he was involved in with other management to have randomly shared that with me yesterday.
 
phrenetik said:
A sup at my center advised me to talk to my natca area rep and said this definitely counts as a training delay. Anyone know where specifically to read up on training delays and what we might be entitled to due to them?

And yes I am thankful to still be going to work and not losing my edge completely, but I was on my last 2 sectors and will now miss the permanent June raise so I'm just curious. The sup brought this up with me randomly so I'm not sure if there was other conversation he was involved in with other management to have randomly shared that with me yesterday.
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This won’t count as a training delay. FAA/NATCA collaborated on this.
 
Another thing to think about regarding traffic levels, fleet retirements. American has parked the 75/76, E190, and the A330/2/3 (-200 was announced to the pilots last night). Delta is parking the MD’s at the end of this month. Granted all of those were already on some sort of chopping block, but added to that are furloughs. The only one I know for certain is United. If things don’t change, they will furlough 4500 pilots. I’m sure the others are looking at the same type of thing come 10/1 (end of CARES money)

So there’s no possible way things return to any sort of normal anytime soon. There literally won’t be the metal available to get us back to pre Covid levels. And even if there was, it’s going to be parked in the desert until the airlines feel they can be useful again.
 
Horny4Vectors said:
Another thing to think about regarding traffic levels, fleet retirements. American has parked the 75/76, E190, and the A330/2/3 (-200 was announced to the pilots last night). Delta is parking the MD’s at the end of this month. Granted all of those were already on some sort of chopping block, but added to that are furloughs. The only one I know for certain is United. If things don’t change, they will furlough 4500 pilots. I’m sure the others are looking at the same type of thing come 10/1 (end of CARES money)

So there’s no possible way things return to any sort of normal anytime soon. There literally won’t be the metal available to get us back to pre Covid levels. And even if there was, it’s going to be parked in the desert until the airlines feel they can be useful again.
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Eh all the airlines has a ton of planes on order. People come back from furlough. But yah it’ll take months and months to ramp up.
 
FAA leaders want to utilize simulators to certify people going forward. They are worried about facilities using extremely busy simulated traffic to fail someone in the lab, when that traffic isn't realistic anymore. If a trainee is caught up to where they were before the training hold, they're already better than any traffic they'll likely see before summer of 2022.
Certify on what they see, not on what traffic used to be.
 
Stinger said:
FAA leaders want to utilize simulators to certify people going forward. They are worried about facilities using extremely busy simulated traffic to fail someone in the lab, when that traffic isn't realistic anymore. If a trainee is caught up to where they were before the training hold, they're already better than any traffic they'll likely see before summer of 2022.
Certify on what they see, not on what traffic used to be.
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This is the age old question. I agree that I hate to see anyone wash out in a lab, as no matter how good the lab is it’s still not all that close to realistic. But since it’s not realistic it’s risky to certify in a lab or mostly based on lab performance too.

I’ve always been a huge advocate for certify on the real traffic that is there, not what used to be or what might be. This situation tests that like never before but I still think that is the best way to go.
 
The Natca leaders "weren't opposed to it."
Which I interpreted to mean they either didn't say anything about it, or didn't like the idea but said they'll think about what it means.
 
As stated the issue is the reliability and realism of the simulators. I’ve yet to run a busy problem at any facility that went smoothly. RPOs having issues keeping up, airplanes doing dumb shit in all stages of flight etc. I’m all for using it as a training aid, run the shit out of those 110% problems, but would prefer to avoid it as a means to certification.
 
StealthChain said:
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.
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The point I was trying to make and maybe it didn’t come across clear was that, given the current traffic levels paired with corona still being an issue, I don’t see training happening or schedules returning to normal, until one of those two things change. Doesn’t mean traffic has to get back pre corona numbers. But right now the traffic is barely warranting some facilities even being open and at centers, areas that normally operate with 12-15 people barely need 2 right now. Now I also don’t mean corona needs to go away completely. But there has to be something that warrants bringing people back into the building. Either an uptick in traffic that warrants having extra bodies in the building despite corona concerns or a reduced public health risk that makes it reasonable to have extra people in the building despite not really being needed from a traffic standpoint.
 
RavenYZF-R6 said:
As stated the issue is the reliability and realism of the simulators. I’ve yet to run a busy problem at any facility that went smoothly. RPOs having issues keeping up, airplanes doing dumb shit in all stages of flight etc. I’m all for using it as a training aid, run the shit out of those 110% problems, but would prefer to avoid it as a means to certification.
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I've seen them used, and used them myself, as a way to get recommended on positions. The current 50% problems are the new 100% traffic, and it seems like those run smoothly 90% of the time because there's less to keep up with.
Even on the 110% scenarios when some commands get mistyped, they're still realistic initially because real traffic will miss instructions or have delays in taking instructions that have to be worked around. After that and when mistakes still get made, I just pause the problem and ask the trainee what their plan is. If it's adequate and workable, that suffices for me and I remove the airplanes that are causing issues and continue on with the problem.
 
As a new trainee at one of the Zs on AG pay I'm just happy to still be getting paid. After going through last years shutdown as an RPO and sitting that long while not getting paid and not qualifying for unemployment (circumstances), I'm extremely grateful for still having a paycheck. While it sucks that I was scheduled to get through the TTL and to the floor by early June to start D-sides in a summer heavy Area, I could be sitting without a paycheck. How long would they keep us at home being paid before saying "enough is enough"? This is my real concern short-term.

In the meantime I'll keep studying on my iPad; LOAs, SOPs, and my map. Between that and some side hustle on the food delivery apps I have plenty to keep me busy. I might even come out of this whole thing with some debt paid off.

Turn lemons into lemonade.
 
Atl24Atc said:
The point I was trying to make and maybe it didn’t come across clear was that, given the current traffic levels paired with corona still being an issue, I don’t see training happening or schedules returning to normal, until one of those two things change. Doesn’t mean traffic has to get back pre corona numbers. But right now the traffic is barely warranting some facilities even being open and at centers, areas that normally operate with 12-15 people barely need 2 right now. Now I also don’t mean corona needs to go away completely. But there has to be something that warrants bringing people back into the building. Either an uptick in traffic that warrants having extra bodies in the building despite corona concerns or a reduced public health risk that makes it reasonable to have extra people in the building despite not really being needed from a traffic standpoint.
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It was clear, I thought. What I was more getting at were the long term effects of the situation. Everyone is concerned about short term (when trainees can go back, when schedule is back to norm, etc.), which is understandable, but I am looking at this career wise and what happens when CPC's retire and we aren't certifying trainees for a while and they slow down hiring because facilities don't need more controllers since traffic doesn't require it.
 
GulfCharlie said:
I've been home since March 19th, you spying on me boyo... I'll blow signal up with pictures of your mum...
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StealthChain said:
It was clear, I thought. What I was more getting at were the long term effects of the situation. Everyone is concerned about short term (when trainees can go back, when schedule is back to norm, etc.), which is understandable, but I am looking at this career wise and what happens when CPC's retire and we aren't certifying trainees for a while and they slow down hiring because facilities don't need more controllers since traffic doesn't require it.
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Agreed. Like I said in my other post, the long term effects on staffing due to this could go on for a long long time if they decide to put training on hold indefinitely.

That said.... I'm enjoying my 5 on 5 off and if it goes thru the summer I won't be too upset. I'm counting on lots of lake days.
 
StealthChain said:
It was clear, I thought. What I was more getting at were the long term effects of the situation. Everyone is concerned about short term (when trainees can go back, when schedule is back to norm, etc.), which is understandable, but I am looking at this career wise and what happens when CPC's retire and we aren't certifying trainees for a while and they slow down hiring because facilities don't need more controllers since traffic doesn't require it.
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Oh yea, this for sure gonna back things up. Not sure how bad but guess that depends on how long it lasts. I don’t think a few months will dramatically back things up long term wise but who knows haha
 
BCHOOSIER said:
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.
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Agree to an extent, but no one wants to work next to someone who certified working operations that are not typical. Example, if you work “Pre-COVID” in triple arrivals most hours of the day, but now are only in duals, that’s a hard sell, esp since it’s completely different working trips vs duals. So it’s a facility by facility basis and I think if you’re seeing normal operations at a lower volume it probably works but if you are not seeing things that make your facility what it is, ex. Pattern traffic, helis, military, practice apps, converging runway ops whatever isn’t normal then I think that it should at least be evaluated.

Horny4Vectors said:
Another thing to think about regarding traffic levels, fleet retirements. American has parked the 75/76, E190, and the A330/2/3 (-200 was announced to the pilots last night). Delta is parking the MD’s at the end of this month. Granted all of those were already on some sort of chopping block, but added to that are furloughs. The only one I know for certain is United. If things don’t change, they will furlough 4500 pilots. I’m sure the others are looking at the same type of thing come 10/1 (end of CARES money)

So there’s no possible way things return to any sort of normal anytime soon. There literally won’t be the metal available to get us back to pre Covid levels. And even if there was, it’s going to be parked in the desert until the airlines feel they can be useful again.
Click to expand...
Exactly, get ready for the downgrades.

Let’s just enjoy these days that SDF feels important since it’ll be the only time they’re in the Top 30
 
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