It’s not as simple as “we hired gamers.”
A Government Accountability Office study released in January found just 2% of applicants will become certified air traffic controllers. So for every 1,000 applicants, 20 will become controllers.
In the next few years, staffing is set to go off the cliff by half of all 11,000 employees departing or not making it through the years-long certification process.
The union and the FAA agreed several years ago to address staffing by hiring enough trainees that in several years’ time, the FAA would have 14,500 certified controllers, but Duffy and Bedford adjusted those levels down by 2,000 controllers. Duffy and Bedford then declared there was no staffing shortage after reducing the number of controllers needed.
Meanwhile, controllers are buckling under the scheduling requirements. Every controller who spoke with the Washington Examiner, alongside more than 100 who sent private messages, reported a long-term trend of getting just four days off per month. Shifts regularly span 10 hours. Instead of working a standard four-day, 40-hour week, controllers are assigned two mandatory overtime shifts per week, forcing them into six-day workweeks that often devastate family and personal life, as well as complicate mental health.
The back-to-back shifts can also hurt sleep cycles. Rather than working stable hours, controllers cycle through chaotic shifts, often working an overnight block and returning to the facility just 10 hours later, only for the following day’s shift to start at a different time of day or night.
On top of that, a small 2.8% annual raise Congress funded in April is being by the FAA on the basis that the agency needs to “unlock” more productivity from controllers.
https://t.co/iAp9fahKXE
Trump won in 2024 because voters hated inflation & woke overreach.
Then the postliberal freak show moved in, redirecting the entire WH agenda to tariffs and fake "populism" that wasn't popular with anybody.
And now those voters hate inflation, tariffs, & woke (right) overreach
This is a *perfect* example of what Senate hearings have become: opportunities for politicians to get cheap dunks for the camera so they can go viral—when they often have no idea what they're talking about. We are living in Veep. 10/10, no notes.
@not_our_guy@JeremyDBoreing@SpencerKlavan Judgment is for God. Christians are to share and live the Gospel, to love their neighbors, and to pray for their enemies and those they believe to be in sin. This post is not Christian.
The U.S is losing a war.
Gas prices are up 50%.
Interest rates are nearing 20-year highs.
Inflation remains elevated.
Budget deficits are nearly $2 trillion
Trump is declaring trade wars on allies.
ICE is killing Americans.
Corruption is rampant.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate:
A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now. ‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it is not enough now.
In Sep. 2023, Charles Haywood - who has given @ClaremontInst $390,500 since 2022 - said "classical liberalism is merely a subset of left poison."
The classical liberalism Haywood detests is more commonly referred to as..... conservatism.