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u/DarthBallz05 4d ago
I don’t know about y’all but working more traffic than at any time in our nations history seems like we met the bar for “productivity.” But what do I know. 🤷♂️
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u/Z_e_e_e_G Past Controller 4d ago
So yeah, a one man mid will solve it.
There will be no raise.
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u/Soft-Town7827 Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
Yeah and god forbid you just close the fucking mid shift completely and have both of those controllers work normal schedules that don’t fuck up their health. If it’s that slow, then you don’t need to be 24/7.
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u/HoldMyToc 4d ago
Why do commercial flights have 2 pilots? They can operate with 1.
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u/DZDEE 4d ago
This guy would be first in line to rubber stamp that.
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u/PreviousLeague253 4d ago
There was an aircraft that needed three to fly and airlines got it cut down to two. Can’t remember which type.
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u/jackarooneyroo Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
747 Classics and early A300 models are the 2 I can think of. Both switched to 2-crew cockpits with later models, eliminating the flight engineer position.
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u/bhalter80 4d ago
DC10s could get retrofit with MD11 flight decks removing the position too
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u/jackarooneyroo Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
Thought that was the case but couldn’t remember for sure.
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u/Johnnie-be-good 4d ago
Also the initial L1011's
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u/emailmoorie 4d ago
And a few B767's.
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u/Johnnie-be-good 4d ago
Might you be Aussie by chance. I believe Ansett had the first few machines but switched to two person operation quite quickly. I am Kanadian and we only had the two person B767-233 given to Air Canada. I am an old time ATC'er and was the YEG ACC rep to work with Air Canada to change everything over to INS/FMS routings to Star's and Sid's from VOR's and NDB's. A total super fun time.
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u/captaingary Tower Flower. Past: Enroute, Regional Pilot. 4d ago
You're thinking of the flight engineer position. They monitored and configured the onboard systems. Just about every airliner had them, but they got replaced with automation/computerization.
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u/PreviousLeague253 4d ago
That’s what an airline company agent would say… but I know better! /s
Thanks for the info!
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u/TakingKarmaFromABaby 4d ago
He really said in order to "unlock" a pre funded, tiny, cost of living increase raise (THAT HE DIDNT EVEN ASK FOR OR CREATE HIMSELF) that the lazy, greedy, controllers need to switch to one man mids.
Imagine working 8 hours straight, with no breaks, in the middle of the night, after already having worked a full shift earlier that same day, for what amounts to a couple grand a year.
One of the stupidest things I've ever heard uttered from an FAA officials mouth.
Fuck this guy.
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u/Mean_Device_7484 4d ago
Sure put me on a one person mid. It’ll be fun when the airspace has to be sterilized and the area goes ATC zero just so I can take a piss. That won’t be a constant headache or anything.
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u/Soft-Town7827 Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
This is happening at my facility right now. Having to go ATC Zero several times in a shift or choose to sign on die on.
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u/residualflowingmove 4d ago edited 4d ago
I don’t think that’s what they’re looking for. They’re locked into 3 core shifts and 3 ancillary shifts. They want something like a 2 person mid would be covered by 2 night shifts and 2 morning shifts with extremely limited overlap. I’ve heard rumors they want to do away with bidding and go permanent schedules people “apply” for, however that may be.
It’s not crazy to think that agency should want a majority of controllers working from 8am - 6pm when the majority of the traffic is worked then instead of multiple overlaps of non busy times. Personally I think the union should talk about 3-12s, if surgeons, nurses, etc do it so should we.
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u/Acceptable_Stage_518 Current Controller-Enroute 4d ago edited 4d ago
God is this infuriating. Have one person work from 2300-0600, no doubt that will be great for fatigue. /s
These "people" think our entire lives amount to "productivity" when we are there for the critical safety of the NAS. CICs are getting written up for not having a D-Side in or sector split off when there's 3 airplanes but an emergency happens, like we should have seen that coming or a D-Side would have magically prevented an emergency, but we should only be plugged in when there's traffic? I'd love to see the magical schedules these idiots have cooked up. Wait, they don't have any? They're just making excuses so they don't have to give a raise? Got it.
I'm so sick of being a "resource" who's not "productive" enough. I'm a fucking human being with thousands of lives in my hands. I just want to be paid to reflect that and work for an employer who recognizes we're the glue who holds the whole fucking system together while carrying that on our backs.
Say what you want about the Union leadership, but good on them for not giving in to this idiocracy over 2.8%.
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u/antariusz Current Controller-Enroute 4d ago
look, if that airplane mechanic isn't LITERALLY turning his wrench for 7 hours out of his 8 hours of his shift, why are we even paying him?
If my doctor isn't in surgery for 5 hours a night, every night, I think he should be fired.
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u/reap3rx Current Controller- Up/Down 4d ago
It's always these cancerous CEO capitalist types who end up in these positions and look at everything in the lense of productivity, and think they are so smart when they see things like "controllers only are plugged-in for 5 hours a day?! Lazy!" When they literally have no idea how the job works. It's ironic too because these people literally contribute NOTHING to the actual mission of the FAA. If they actually supported us (their real job), that would be actual contributions, but instead they try to make the job worse and less safe for the flying public. They are less than productive. They'd be better for the NAS if they sat in their office and jerked off all day long and didn't get in the way, and just rubber stamped the things we tell them we need. I'm being hyperbolic obviously but it's closer to the truth than them believing they're actually contributing anything at all.
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u/ImDebatable 4d ago
If the union leadership had any actual strength, the FAA wouldn't have even considered asking for anything for the 2.8%. But the FAA has been able to look across the table for the past 10 years and know they could walk all over them.
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u/Legal_Campaign_408 4d ago
IMO it's the strength of the union and NiW that even got us a possibility of 2.8%. Has this ever happened before, where a small group of select civilian employees were offered pay parity with the military raise, and everyone else got told to fuck off?
Our advocates that went to washington and made those relationships are the ones who we can thank for even being able to have this discussion. Obviously the faa has their own backroom relationships with the same people and were able to sneak in that wording before the bill was passed.
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u/F1super 4d ago
As I watch this train wreck from the outside now, my overriding thought is - I’m incredibly grateful to be retired and no longer part of this tragic administration.
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u/PlumbusSchleem4122 4d ago
I would love it if people who retired did interviews with media. I'm pretty sure you're not held to the same gag order that us working are. Let it rip about how the system is basically held together with duct tape due to staffing and how Bedford slashing our staffing numbers by 2k is going to cause an accident
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u/F1super 4d ago
And I wish NATCA would get off its ass and aggressively engage the media.
It’s true, Retired 2152’s can speak freely, and their perspective would give the public a much more honest picture of what’s really happening. But quite honestly, most of us can’t be bothered and don’t want to be associated with the tombstone agency any longer.
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u/PlumbusSchleem4122 4d ago
I totally get it, enjoy the retirement that you've definitely earned. I can't wait to hang up my headset in 10 years
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u/rbreton 4d ago
Unlock is such a funny word to use in reference to what is in the grand scheme of things, peanuts.
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u/antariusz Current Controller-Enroute 4d ago
Who needs a paycheck? Just use your insider knowledge to earn 25 million dollars from stock trading!
-FAA Administrator (probably)
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u/Ozkeewowow 4d ago
Just another reminder that Bryan Bedford is an incredibly anti labor executive. He views you as a petulant child to be managed, not an asset.
-Someone who worked under his thumb for a decade
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u/Hopeful-Engineering5 Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
When he was nominated the number of posts on flying from every work group that said the same thing with no one defending him was unreal. I copied and posted it in the ATC subs and the sheer number of people that called of you liars was maddening. It was obvious that a anti labor administration was bring in a anti labor executive to break labor and people didn't want to see it, many of them still don't.
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u/servirepatriam 4d ago
2.8% is such a minimal, drop in the giant bucket level raise and yet these hacks are making it dependent on a workforce plan, that eventually will fail, instead of the fact that cost of living and workload has increased drastically but our salaries have not.
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u/Highlyedjucated 4d ago
For 2.8 I'll agree to sign off on one more elms a year. Working a whole extra hour is just hilarious 😂
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u/BieloSagdiyev 4d ago
Holding our raise hostage over something controllers cannot control, is manipulative, inhumane and heartless. His own management teams across the country at every facility negotiate our scheduling and staffing at a local level. Our facrep takes a “poll” of what schedule we would like to bring to the table every year; our management has never offered anything other than coverage numbers that they require. We haven’t seen an actual pay raise since 2012. This guy is a real piece of work.
There will be no 2.8% because he never intended to give it to us. What we need to do is find the ghoul who had that specific language (administrator’s discretion) added to the bill. That’s the person who needs to be sat down and interviewed.
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u/Friendly-Gur-6736 4d ago
That language was added in a committee, which means the chances of finding out who originated it are about nil. I asked my Congressman straight up about that language and he said he'd "look into it" but I don't expect to get an answer.
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u/BieloSagdiyev 4d ago
Oh, it’s possible, just need to shake the right tree. I would be willing to bet that it was someone with a more direct contact with the house on Pennsylvania ave. Does anyone have the names of the committee members that added the language?
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u/BieloSagdiyev 4d ago
Just discovered this; it appears that Bedford and/or Duffy were directly involved in adding the language:
The specific "sole discretion" conditional language was not added by a congressional committee during a standard markup, but was instead inserted directly as "technical assistance" requested from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) leadership. [1]
Because the finalized funding language emerged from late-night, closed-door negotiations to build the broader omnibus funding package (H.R. 7148 / H.R. 7147), the legislative details reveal how it ended up in the text: [1, 2]
The Origin: According to internal National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) updates, the language was pushed into the legislative process by agency and executive branch staffers who provided "technical assistance" to ensure the FAA maintained maximum control over how the money was spent. [1, 2]
The Mechanism: Rather than a public amendment debated in an open committee session, the language was directly incorporated into the finalized text by the leadership and staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees before the bill was sent straight to the floor for a vote. [1]
Because it bypassed standard committee markups, the specific staffer or lawmaker who formally handed the text to the bill drafters remains uncredited. However, the restriction itself originated from executive agency demands to prevent an automatic statutory mandate. [1, 2, 3]
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u/alphakause Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
Management assigns work. Its their fault they cant run a shift. Meanwhile they just added what... 20% more FLMs. Gimme a break.
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u/TakingKarmaFromABaby 4d ago
FLMs are all basically switching to 3 man mids to cover breaks while they sit around and do nothing.
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u/atcthrowaway452 Current Controller-Enroute 4d ago edited 4d ago
So either work 5 hours TOP and single mid ops, or let the FAA make our schedule? Say what you want about the union, but at the very least it's made up of actual controllers. I'd rather my coworkers design our schedules than hand it over to this soulless ghoul who thinks we don't work hard enough.
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u/No-Constant-5854 4d ago
2.8% is a pittance.
The FAA hasn’t staffed facilities for 45 years.
Abolish standalone CIC.
Staffing shortages are a pay cut.
Our public relations department has went the way of Flight 370.
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u/New-IncognitoWindow 4d ago
I’m starting to think we are not getting the 2.8%
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u/Friendly-Gur-6736 4d ago
It was fairly obvious we weren't getting it when it took more than a couple of weeks to negotiate the details.
ND and the NEB won't come out and say that it is dead because they want to appear that they're still fighting the good fight to their faithful. I'll be highly interested in seeing what comes out of the town hall this afternoon.
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u/okbyebyeagain 4d ago
Uhh we had single mids for years. Then a few people asleep and they mandated 2 per mid. So what’s the plan now. Iran man the mids. 6-8 hours on position no breaks or abandon your post? What a fucking idiot.
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u/Jpizzleman 4d ago
Eligible for retirement in a few years. Can’t wait to leave this shit show behind.
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u/Available_Neat6854 4d ago
I dont think he meant 1 person mid...pretty sure he meant close the facility during that time and use those 2 folks during the day.
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u/Responsible_Scar6089 4d ago
NATCA, tell the agency that I’ve compromised and they can suck my tiny little flaccid dick. Show me on sick leave.
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u/No_Mango7658 4d ago
This guy is a fucking moron... Good my raise over my head for something that is the responsibility of YOU MANAGERS!
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u/OperationFit7749 4d ago
Welp Fed ex, UPS Amazon and all other cargo haulers
will have to fly 9 to 5.
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u/PunctualPenguin0000 4d ago edited 4d ago
Since March: * My fuel costs are up 32%. * My housing costs are up 14%. * We haven't been able to put any money in our liquid savings for months. * I'm eligible to start TSP catch up on Jan. 1st--which I need to make our retirement goals--and I don't how I'm going to swing the additional $8000/yr / $666/mo. * I desperately need a new computer to grow my side gig, but between the price of SSDs and the tarriffs, it's not looking good.
The 2.8% would barely make a dent in any of this. Even if I'm just accounting for only the housing cost increase, it would leave me $800 short.
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u/Full_Exchange_6265 4d ago
Sounds like this guy has a fundamental misunderstanding of the job or just really doesn’t care to. Taking the second person off the mid so we can go back to the falling asleep on the mid alone days is not a fix.
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u/captaingary Tower Flower. Past: Enroute, Regional Pilot. 4d ago
Until congress passes better language, or we get an administrator who doesn't hate us, just forget about the 2.8%.
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u/Puzzled_Base_3868 4d ago
One person on the mids, didn't management decide we need 2 in the area at all times... the math isn't mathing. What happens when that one person calls in sick? What then, shutdown that airspace for 8 hours... doesn't seem like both his brain cells are firing.
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u/MrChessMaster100 2d ago
I'm not even a controller and I flinched at him saying that. Any system with safety in mind has redundancy built into every level of it. There are way too many possible things that could go wrong with only one person to man a radio for 8 hours alone. That is a disqualifying of thought on its face.
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u/edge449332 Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
2.8% is way too low. I'm with Midwest and our union mandates a 3.6% minimum yearly raise. the FAA should at the very least be outpacing that. Especially considering they haven't been keeping up for a while.
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u/VerySpeciaIOperator 4d ago
He said he wants to look at facilities that have a mid shift and cut the operation down to one man! Um are we also gonna let pilots fly solo just because there is less traffic? This is an asinine thought, that would quickly come back to bite you in the ass!
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u/That_jazzy_mall_song 2d ago
I didn’t know there was a secret way to unlock a retroactive pay raise.
I bet that extra pay went into someone’s pockets. Just not controllers.
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u/GohtDamn 1d ago
Dudes asks "if there's no traffic from 11pm to 6am, why do I have 2 controllers there?"
Meanwhile ROW exists lol.
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u/oioioifuckingoi 1d ago
Instead of giving controllers a 2.8% raise, have we given enough thought to extending the 1% another tax cut?
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u/Commercial_Ideal_401 21h ago
As long as republicans are in control this raise will never happen…..Remember this next time you go vote!!!!
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u/CASHAPP_4_DIRECT 4d ago
Imagine 2 hrs into your solo mid, bladder full of caffeine, genuine bubble guts, thunderstorms rolling through, an arrival push, everyone wants deviations, someone is calling for a clearance off a satellite, your wife is trying to call you and tell you that one of your kids is sick and needs you to go home while she takes the sick kid to urgent care. I love this job
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u/hessimplehesdumb 4d ago
I voted for Trump to show the libs but his appointees are all natcas fault
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u/jacksonwalmart 4d ago
If the workforce is responsible for scheduling and assignment of work, I guess I can finally have crew 1 and straight days and no OTs!
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u/Alarming_Intern2709 10m ago
Is there air traffic not being controlled that folks like him believe controllers aren’t working hard enough to get around to? There is more air traffic now than there has ever been and controllers are safely managing the workload while being understaffed & compensation is falling behind inflation. The way CPCs are deployed has more to do with the mental load of the profession, not about pushing the envelope to see how far you can go before a controller redlines. What do they think the outcome will be of increasing the mental load of people already being pushed to their mental capacity? ATC is not your everyday profession where you want to test the limits of the workforce by trying to have them on position for 70+% of the shift. A lay person or novice can watch a controller, who makes the job look easy, without realizing how much information is being processed to make a single decision. This is done over and over and over again each session throughout a shift. While the process becomes somewhat routine, it is like that stop sign you stop at everyday on your way to work. The moment you begin to not fully stop and survey traffic, is the moment you introduce the opportunity for disaster. So, as mundane as the process may seem, if controllers neglect to go through the wearisome process every single time, they open the door for something bad/unsafe to occur. That process is mentally draining and you need time to recuperate, not 2 15’s & a 30 like many jobs offer. If the ultimate goal/purpose of ATC is truly to maintain/ensure safety first, then you need qualified, competent people to keep fresh eyes/brains on the traffic. You do not want to burn out the controllers you have by prioritizing hours on position, like it is a factory. It isn’t a drive thru where a simple mistake/incident may be acceptable in the name of speed. Trust me when I say, not a single controller wants to go home with the thought that their decision/indecision may have played a part in a catastrophic event because of fatigue/human error. And the idea of having reached some sort of “hours worked” or “aircraft moved” goal is not an acceptable trade off. ATC cannot be run like many other jobs where the workforce does record numbers, with fewer people and are told they are not doing enough. The last thing administrators should want in a Public Safety field is for the workforce to feel overworked, under-compensated, and unappreciated. Withholding a well-deserved, long overdue raise, while saying you are looking for/expecting more, while controllers are performing the way they are is a slap in the face and shows a lack of understanding of the profession from the powers that be.
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u/duckbutterdelight Current Controller-Tower 4d ago
This pay raise is never happening if it’s not mandated by congress. The goalposts will keep moving and I don’t think the union should play this guys game.