By Michael J. Schoen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Air traffic controllers are dangerously demoralized – that was the message delivered today by Paul Rinaldi, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), during the Aero Club of Washington DC\u2019s monthly luncheon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a somber speech that was at times tinted with\nsadness, Rinaldi revealed that, at the height of the recent Federal shutdown,\nthe U.S. air traffic control system \u201cwas on the verge of unravelling.\u201d To\nillustrate, he candidly shared that veteran controllers were not only making\nmistakes \u2013 but mistakes that they had never before made in their entire careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rinaldi elaborated by pointing out that air traffic control facilities are made to be as distraction free as possible. Yet the shutdown caused tremendously stressful, and very personal, distractions to controllers. \u00c2\u00a0He noted that these highly-trained professionals were resorting to food banks<\/em> in order to feed their families. And many were wearing themselves out by taking second jobs before and after their ATC duty shifts. For example, driving for Uber, and waiting tables. Similarly, they were maxing out their credit cards while making tough decisions such as, \u201cDo I buy gas so I can get to work? Food for my family? Or medicine for myself?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NATCA chief also warned that it will be years before we\nknow the full extent of the damage caused by the shutdown. He observed that air\ntraffic controllers take a long time to train. But the shutdown caused many trainees\nto drop out \u2013 and many more to begin reconsidering whether to continue their\ntraining. Also, 30% of the existing controller workforce is eligible to retire\ntoday. But many had planned to keep working, especially in light of the\nstaffing shortage that already afflicts the NAS. Yet after being \u201c[held]\nhostage\u201d by \u201cCongress and the White House\u201d (an act Rinaldi compared to\n\u201cterrorism\u201d), many controllers are reevaluating their retirement plans \u2013 or\nsimply deciding to call it quits now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid this cut you deep enough to make you push to find a\ndifferent way to fund aviation?\u201d Rinaldi asked the crowd of several hundred\nmembers of DC\u2019s aviation community. \u201c[We] and the public must demand stable,\npredictable funding\u201d for air traffic controllers, and the FAA. \u201cStand up for\nyourselves \u2013 and for the United States!\u201d he said, with real urgency in his\nvoice. After all, the government is only funded until February 15th<\/sup>\u201c\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Michael J. Schoen Air traffic controllers are dangerously demoralized – that was the message delivered today by Paul Rinaldi, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), during the Aero Club of Washington DC\u2019s monthly luncheon. During a somber speech that was at times tinted with sadness, Rinaldi revealed that, at the height […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Paul-Rinaldiedit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11744"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11747,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744\/revisions\/11747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}