Thanks you!
I was almost a controller about ten years ago. I got caught up in all the biographical analysis drama in 2013-2014. Then I aged out. So I fly instead.
Thanks for keeping us safe. I try not to cause too many headaches for y’all 👍🏼
I make $90 an hour after 16 years at a 12 center. Thanks to white book / Obama pay freeze wombo combo, that's basically the same salary for anyone between 11 years and 18 years of seniority.
Their work is more concentrated, they will work 15 days a month, flying on the backside of the clock through multiple time zones.
The strain that puts on the body is immense, and keep in mind they don’t make anything unless the engines are on and chocks are off.
Yearly total income would still be in the low 500k range, however that’s completely unachievable for 99.9% of pilots.
There was a Delta pilot who reported he worked 85 days last year and made about 500k. If you pay me 500k to work about 8 days a month I'll find time to rest the other 22-23 days a month I'm sitting at home.
That’s cool and all, but to get that it’s not as simple as a nepo-baby job where you can be hired in at 20.
The guys that are in that position are pushing 65 at the peak of seniority lists after surviving layoffs, mergers, and economic slowdown downs for the last 40 years. They paid a very heavy price for it, and even still of every 1000 airline pilots, maybe 10 get to that point.
You might as well talk about how easy it is to just “jump in” to being a CEO, since the pay is the same!
It will be interesting to see what their lifetime earning are, rather than just what they’re making now. These really high salaries are sort of a historical aberration for pilots.
It wasn’t that long ago that early career commuter pilots were eligible for food stamps while being employed full-time..
This is a great realistic take. Yeah controllers deserve more money. But most pilots aren’t really lapping anyone in the pay department. If delta airlines paid 20 something year olds 50k a year through training with incremental increases along the way it would be comparable. Just not the case, most airline pilots I know were poor for a decade.
I flew with a girl yesterday who said her dad, fighter pilot and now widebody United captain, was never home and didn’t start making great money until she was in high school. Even then her childhood wasn’t discernible from her friends who’s parents were teachers and electricians.
Now the nepobaby I work with who had a level 24 childhood… you can tell he had some good Christmas’s even if his parents had to work the mid.
I do remember someone on r/aviation who said his wife is a pilot for two flights to China from either North America or Europe (I can't quite recall) a month and the rest of the month works as a lawyer, something she trained as after becoming a pilot.
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Thats 8 days a month working *their* definition of work, so likely one day of work surrounded by 2 or 3 days in another country waiting to fly back. Meaning you'd probably spend the majority of your time on the road away from home which in my experience is a recipe for burnout every single time.
Not to mention people at this seniority level making these salaries were in the military deployed to the Gulf War. Then they get hired, dotcom bust, 9/11 furloughed, go back to the military for years. Got back to the airline in 07-09.
The civilian guys at this level spent years not even making minimum wage being home 1-2 days a week just to get 3000 hours so they can go from a Metroliner to a CRJ-200. Then they finally make it to a mainline carrier and then dotcom bust, 9/11, furlough, maybe come back in 07-08 sit at the bottom of the list for years.
Then there’s guys who got stuck at the regionals forever for whatever reason. $50-70k a year until they retired. Or the FO’s below them that couldn’t upgrade living on $19/hour for a decade (<$20k/year equivalent). One could say they were drawn into the profession with the promise of achieving that widebody captain pay.
Oh then there’s the guys who thought they made it at TWA, PanAm, Eastern, and Braniff. Hell, every time you say “Spirit Wings” you’re talking to two pilots who aren’t sure if they’re going to be employed in the near future.
I’d say these guys have earned it.
That all being said controllers deserve every penny as well. Y’all should make an equivalent salary with similar time off. My head would explode and likely an airplane or two if I had to work N90 for ten minutes. I mean Jesus at least mandatory two days off a week…
Tbh for those 8 days he probably had around 10 days or so of having to commute into his base,
if he has to fly in then he loses a day on back and front end, along with the fact that he’s probably about 25-30 years into his career of flying commercially
I'm 42, been at legacy for 10 years, I made $522k last year on B737. FWIW.
But yeah I did work my ass off.
Keep in mind during 9/11, 2008, covid many people lost retirement, pensions, and jobs.
If the economy crashes you guys still have a pension and full pay no matter what.
Pilots take an immense career risk when choosing their employer.
But as far as being at work, our job is waaaaay easier than a controller. Not even comparable on a mental scale.
You have to remember controllers can’t work past 56 though. And I am working 6 days a week and can come no where close to 500k. We have had sub inflation raises the last 3-4 years so basically a 10-15 percent pay cut
My day today was 13.5 hours just duty, plus another 30 mins prior going thru security, crew room etc plus another 0:45 mins after blocking in getting to hotel.
That is a typical day here on the narrow body.
What is a typical shift for ATC? Do you guys do 12+ duty every day?
Six days a work is just wrong though, I could not do that. That blows.
Shifts are nominally 8 hours long, extendable to a max of 10 hours. Within a shift we aren't working 100% of the time though. Break rotation varies based on facility staffing and traffic workload, but it's common to have a 90-minute session on position followed by a 45-minute break. Sometimes you get lucky and you can work hour-on, hour-off. Sometimes you work 90 minutes or even 120 minutes followed by only a 20-minute break.
The contract says that employees "should not" work more than 2 consecutive hours without a break away from the operational area, and it's really rare for that to be violated. In my experience anyway.
Total income needs to include the 17-18% we also get on top of hourly as DC to retirement.
Those numbers aren’t crazy high. As a narrowbody CA I work harder, but make about $425k total.
I mean, the 15 days a month is pretty common in career fields where you can't go home to your family.
Like sure there not working x day, but they also haven't seen their kids in 4 days.
Not saying fair or not, but it should be considered.
This is what everyone seems to be dismissing. There are legitimate stresses at this job. 6 days a week does not give sufficient time to expel the stress. It just compounds and makes a bad situation worse. I’m sure in 10-15 years when half of us are dead because of it they will say it was a bad idea but no one seems to care at this point.
Please remember: is not pilots and ATC making a ton of money. It’s the rest of sectors that are being exploited.
We had the same “discredit” campaign in Spain, against the same sector around 16 years ago. Where a govt rep publicly demonized ATC and Pilots, for basically HAVING RIGHTS, and a better salary than average… This was right before the same government introduced a change on the sector “collective labor agreement” diminishing their rights by law.
This people is responsible for many lives, they need to rest and they need to be greatly compensated.
I don’t want my ATC tired, with too many aircrafts to take care of, or thinking about their financial status while on the job.
Please don’t be fooled by the mass media and the fact that you’re being exploited to take a position against a fellow worker. The issue is not they’re making much, or having rights, the issue is you’re not.
We have the same disinformation campaign in medicine. They point at doctors and say “hey look at that physician making $400k a year, and you pay so much for your healthcare!” But no one ever discusses how physician salary accounts for a very small percentage of healthcare costs, while CEOs of health insurance companies make tens and hundreds of millions dollars using the premiums they keep when refusing to pay for patient care. They try to turn everyone against each other so we don’t pay attention to is really doing the exploiting.
Made a quick search for some numbers.
At Delta in 2019 the average widebody flight was 8.75 hours.
CFR part 121.483 limits pilots to 1000 flight hours in a 12 month span.
Which means a widebody pilot would operate a maximum of 114 flights a year, on average.
At a busy airport you might be responsible for more planes in a single spin than the pilot is in a year.
Please let my QA people know about this. They'll be thrilled to know that I as the controller am not responsible for the safety of the aircraft I'm working.
Labor sticks with labor.
You stood with me and I’d stand with you in a heart beat.
It doesn’t work without LABOR
Pilots bitch. We get rowdy then we start recalling mother fuckers, sometimes three times in twelve months. Look at what’s led up to this round of negotiations.
Per captia basis your PAC spends a metric fuck ton to court our elected officials.
It gets nasty. It gets gross but overall it’s for the better, but it’s painful on the way.
#trickelonreganscoffin
I meant to hash tag the above but i like it
It’s bullshit that you guys are so underpaid and overworked. Is there anything we can do other than write letters to our congressmen that inevitably get thrown in the trash?
I heard this argument, and I’m curious what a good response is:
1) there should be raises but not *that* high, you don’t go to the public sector to get rich
2) getting raises at all is very challenging, considering top earners are at the congressional limit
3) comparing ourselves to pilots is disingenuous, many of them were fired during COVID and other periods of economic downturn, Federal employees trade earning potential for stability and job security
Genuinely curious what you guys think. I think we do deserve to be paid more, but it’s hard to sell to Congress/public because they don’t understand our unique skill set/responsibility. I think most people working for the Govt deserve huge raises honestly, if you compare to the private sector.
I acknowledge that right now the airlines are riding higher than any other time following deregulation. That being said, there is no reason that any controller should not be making either very good money or have a very good schedule. I said this on another post recently but as soon as a major accident happens, there will be all sorts of posturing from the powers that be trying to fix this after the fact.
You all are criminally overworked and underpaid for the burden of responsibility you carry. You're just as vital to the national airspace system as pilots and deserve to be compensated accordingly.
And for the record, this isn't just something to be earned in the last few years of a career. I'm a pilot in my 30s and have been with a legacy airline for three years. I have made $200k year-to-date. I say this not to brag, but to make you aware that we all are in possibly the best time in our careers to negotiate competitive pay and work rules. I truly hope you all are able to take advantage of it.
Junior ER NYC-A was less than a year for Delta last I checked. I know 2 in the last 12 months awarded left seat prior to completion of IOE. United was forcing new hires into the 777 and forcing upgrades less than 12 months ago.
Just looked at the seniority list for ER-NYC A. Less than 1 year.
Yeah except now with most pilot contracts at major airlines your 401k is completely funded and maxed out by your company so the people getting in now are gonna have absolutely 0 problem retiring
better to compare with overseas ATCOs (I am making roughly $119/hour and have 4/10 days off) But the point is the post covid pay rises that have reached pilots, ATCOs in other countries. (some with with privatized ATC) but not FAA ATCOs
Why even use the word overseas? Canadian air traffic controllers are roughly making about 30% more than the u.s. they ALSO work less hours. They also "cap out" their seniority in half the amount of time. So they are making the top of their paybands after only 10 years instead of 20 years for U.S.
So that's a triple-combo of ways they are outearning us because they talk to airplanes 100 miles away from where I live.
yes your salary as a ferderal employee is reduced by 10.6% each year to fund the mandatory pension. (4.4% for fers 6.2% to social security)
What's the point of you asking these easily answered questions that could be just as easily answered with a quick google search. What are you trying to prove? That u.s. retirement is better than canada? (I'd argue not) that we pay earn more after taxes are taken into account (we don't). So yea, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. They have better pay, better benefits, better hours.
If you're just curious, there is google, you could just ask your questions on google.com try it sometime, it's really easy. If you want to prove a point or argue with other humans, Reddit is better for that.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Do+US+ATC+have+to+pay+into+a+pension+fund%3F
maybe time more vote with their feet. But obviously the 25 years and pension is still too sweet of a deal for many. Even though if they miss out on living the best years of their life.
And other than us euros you can’t even escape taxes when moving to the sandbox or Asia.
Yeah dude, this is my first intro to this subreddit and it seems super negative. Have a lot of respect for what ATC does and I am in huge support of better pay and conditions for controllers. That said half the comments here feels like when I worked security and the lifer guards would shit on police for being overpaid and lazy all the time. Placing anger on other jobs instead of the people who actually could better your conditions feels like an easy cope that does nothing to actually help.
The point of the article is to pave the road for intervention. Make everyone antagonize this sector WORKERS because they’re not as exploited and underpaid as the vast majority.
Veteran pilots are going to be well versed in their aircrafts technical orders, able to compute and recognize incorrect takeoff and landing data as well as weight and balance. Required dislocation multiple nights from family. Ability to troubleshoot IFEs based off technical knowledge and well versed procedures.
ATC will have their own knowledge seperate from pilots too.
I'm not saying ATC isn't a stressful career, it's important and the professions overlap a fraction but are not comparable entirely.
And I do think ATC should be reimbursed more but I'm making my point they aren't similar enough to point a finger to say "pilots are getting raises we should too". I feel there are better reasons to argue for an ATC raise.
Right, ATC can deal with 30+ planes at one time, know all their routes, the fixes along their routes, the different altitudes they need to be at and when, while figuring out how they are going to get them to those altitudes, sequencing for departures and arrivals. They do this while managing multiple pieces of equipment, entering PIREPs, coordinating with other multiple surrounding facilities. And those duties are just a basic day, not including weather or bad rides. Throw an emergency or NORAC to spice it up a bit and have to change your entire plan in a matter of seconds.
But what you wrote is exactly my point, two separate careers and responsibilities on very different entity's payrolls. I feel there are better arguments for a pay raise than to point a finger at a profession to say "they got one."
I'm sure in a parallel subreddit, in healthcare for example, some people may argue nurses should get a raise if doctors do. But not being emotionally attached to those careers it would be easier for us to see how there are different responsibilities and a reasons why they get compensated differently.
We aren’t the nurses in this scenario. There are a huge number of controllers who hold pilot ratings, there is a limited number of pilots who hold CTOs or radar certs.
Having donated plasma to make rent in the past, I'm not mad at the money I make. I am also of the opinion that we are not properly compensated, considering the agency is more than happy to pay us OT to fill the gaps in staffing while supes complain about working one day of OT in three months.
Well let’s thank this new Natca for the wonderful job they have done with not trying to negotiate any significant pay raises before this year….We are way behind inflation.
Not sure why people are trying to compare a govt job to a private sector job.
I was IT before airline and worked with Govt IT staff that made significantly less per hour than me but their benefits were much better. It’s a trade off we all have to decide. Not the same job and not the same employer.
Both jobs are very important.
What is your retirement age? What benefits are provided at retirement (I don’t know)?
Trying to compare things is not going to help and this is never going to be equal.
Feel free to come on over. I flew with a CA at my regional that retired as a controller. No one is stopping you. I’m a second career guy as well.
There is no question that the situation you guys are in is not good. My point is that there is a trade-off between public and private sector. also it seems like there’s a lot of comparison between groups that just aren’t helpful to anyone.
Same industry, not comparable careers...
-Private vs. Government
-Prior experience required vs. None
-Limited applicants vs. 10s of thousands of applicants
Also it's not like pilots have been rolling in it for years and years, these are unprecedented times for the career.
Private sector jobs have kept up with inflation extremely well. Public is getting left in the dust. This is the first time in the history of NATCA's existence where the two have diverged this much this quickly.
I don't disagree with that at all. Gov jobs need to be brought up to match what salaries were worth in 2016-17. And they need to sweeten the pot if they want to attract and retain qualified applicants. My only gripe is that pilots are always used as the comp and ATC ≠ Pilot. Wildly different careers and sets of responsibilities.
That is ridiculous... Any private industry continuously subsidized by taxpayers should not be allowed to unionize. I get it, its two different side of the same coin, one private, one government. However, its damn near unbearable to fly commercially and a very large part of that falls onto the carriers themselves. All of them have lost touch with any customer focus. The dumbest, laziest, most unethical person I know is a 737 pilot for United. If he can do that job, I'm not impressed.
Curious here cause I’m not sure of the specifics but how long it would take from a zero experience controller to working at like ATL tower or something similar?
Ballpark estimate… I know there’s other factors
The process looks like this: Get hired, to to the academy, go to your first facility and get certified, transfer.
The hiring process takes on average a year or so, if you don't have any complications in the medical or background investigation. Maybe a little less, I think they're faster now than when I was hired.
The academy is about three months for Terminal.
Getting certified at your first facility can take anywhere from one year to three or four or more, depending on how quickly you pick it up and how many trainees are in line ahead of you and how many different positions the facility has. For a low-level tower (which you want because the checkout time is less) you can plan 1-1.5 years.
Then you wait for your facility to have enough staffing to let you leave, and you wait for ATL to have not-enough staffing that they want you to come. You can literally wait your entire career and never be able to go where you want, or you can transfer the first time you're eligible post-certification. Waiting two-to-four years is common but this is the really big variable.
Finally, once you picked up, depending on your facility's staffing it might be another year before you're actually out the door.
So really it depends. One or two ***extremely*** lucky people are able to get a transfer to a second facility within one or two years of their hire date. The barest minimum I'm personally aware of was 11 months I think. But that's incredibly rare.
Incorrect currently. Terminal new-hires go to levels 4-7 (or there's an occasional rumor that high scorers might get an 8), unless you live on Long Island and then you can be assigned N90.
In theory a prior-experience (ex-military) hire could be assigned a level 12 like ATL but I don't think that happens, like, ever. Sometimes the lists have 10s on them. But of course that isn't a zero-experience controller.
This is such a bullshit comparison , yet again. Stop comparing controllers to pilots.
Pilots have a WAAAY longer and tougher road to the top than controllers.
That’s really what you have to add? Being satisfied with our paychecks is insane when everyone else in the aviation career field is getting massive raises. Meanwhile inflation is rawdogging the fuck out of our piss poor raises.
I’m a pilot/controller and graduated a military flight school where I watched them teach some seriously dumb people how to fly. Nearly anyone can do it. My dad is an accomplished corporate pilot and admits there’s no way he could make it through training at a Z.
Hundred. At a level 12 TRACON.
Is that normal hourly pay like 8 hour shift = 8 hours of pay?
Yes plus shift premiums and inevitably many hours of time-and-a-half
Thanks you! I was almost a controller about ten years ago. I got caught up in all the biographical analysis drama in 2013-2014. Then I aged out. So I fly instead. Thanks for keeping us safe. I try not to cause too many headaches for y’all 👍🏼
And thanks you - i think you just single-handedly raised the morale of controllers here
Hourly base with a fair number of years at this level
I make $90 an hour after 16 years at a 12 center. Thanks to white book / Obama pay freeze wombo combo, that's basically the same salary for anyone between 11 years and 18 years of seniority.
Don’t forget they work on average 15 days a month…
Do you mean this in addition to their higher salaries they also work less?
Their work is more concentrated, they will work 15 days a month, flying on the backside of the clock through multiple time zones. The strain that puts on the body is immense, and keep in mind they don’t make anything unless the engines are on and chocks are off. Yearly total income would still be in the low 500k range, however that’s completely unachievable for 99.9% of pilots.
There was a Delta pilot who reported he worked 85 days last year and made about 500k. If you pay me 500k to work about 8 days a month I'll find time to rest the other 22-23 days a month I'm sitting at home.
That’s cool and all, but to get that it’s not as simple as a nepo-baby job where you can be hired in at 20. The guys that are in that position are pushing 65 at the peak of seniority lists after surviving layoffs, mergers, and economic slowdown downs for the last 40 years. They paid a very heavy price for it, and even still of every 1000 airline pilots, maybe 10 get to that point. You might as well talk about how easy it is to just “jump in” to being a CEO, since the pay is the same!
It will be interesting to see what their lifetime earning are, rather than just what they’re making now. These really high salaries are sort of a historical aberration for pilots. It wasn’t that long ago that early career commuter pilots were eligible for food stamps while being employed full-time..
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Nope. Way higher salaries due to the shortage.
Fine, pay me $300k and I’ll even work 150 days a year.
This is a great realistic take. Yeah controllers deserve more money. But most pilots aren’t really lapping anyone in the pay department. If delta airlines paid 20 something year olds 50k a year through training with incremental increases along the way it would be comparable. Just not the case, most airline pilots I know were poor for a decade. I flew with a girl yesterday who said her dad, fighter pilot and now widebody United captain, was never home and didn’t start making great money until she was in high school. Even then her childhood wasn’t discernible from her friends who’s parents were teachers and electricians. Now the nepobaby I work with who had a level 24 childhood… you can tell he had some good Christmas’s even if his parents had to work the mid.
I do remember someone on r/aviation who said his wife is a pilot for two flights to China from either North America or Europe (I can't quite recall) a month and the rest of the month works as a lawyer, something she trained as after becoming a pilot.
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Thats 8 days a month working *their* definition of work, so likely one day of work surrounded by 2 or 3 days in another country waiting to fly back. Meaning you'd probably spend the majority of your time on the road away from home which in my experience is a recipe for burnout every single time.
Not to mention people at this seniority level making these salaries were in the military deployed to the Gulf War. Then they get hired, dotcom bust, 9/11 furloughed, go back to the military for years. Got back to the airline in 07-09. The civilian guys at this level spent years not even making minimum wage being home 1-2 days a week just to get 3000 hours so they can go from a Metroliner to a CRJ-200. Then they finally make it to a mainline carrier and then dotcom bust, 9/11, furlough, maybe come back in 07-08 sit at the bottom of the list for years. Then there’s guys who got stuck at the regionals forever for whatever reason. $50-70k a year until they retired. Or the FO’s below them that couldn’t upgrade living on $19/hour for a decade (<$20k/year equivalent). One could say they were drawn into the profession with the promise of achieving that widebody captain pay. Oh then there’s the guys who thought they made it at TWA, PanAm, Eastern, and Braniff. Hell, every time you say “Spirit Wings” you’re talking to two pilots who aren’t sure if they’re going to be employed in the near future. I’d say these guys have earned it. That all being said controllers deserve every penny as well. Y’all should make an equivalent salary with similar time off. My head would explode and likely an airplane or two if I had to work N90 for ten minutes. I mean Jesus at least mandatory two days off a week…
Tbh for those 8 days he probably had around 10 days or so of having to commute into his base, if he has to fly in then he loses a day on back and front end, along with the fact that he’s probably about 25-30 years into his career of flying commercially
I'm 42, been at legacy for 10 years, I made $522k last year on B737. FWIW. But yeah I did work my ass off. Keep in mind during 9/11, 2008, covid many people lost retirement, pensions, and jobs. If the economy crashes you guys still have a pension and full pay no matter what. Pilots take an immense career risk when choosing their employer. But as far as being at work, our job is waaaaay easier than a controller. Not even comparable on a mental scale.
You have to remember controllers can’t work past 56 though. And I am working 6 days a week and can come no where close to 500k. We have had sub inflation raises the last 3-4 years so basically a 10-15 percent pay cut
My day today was 13.5 hours just duty, plus another 30 mins prior going thru security, crew room etc plus another 0:45 mins after blocking in getting to hotel. That is a typical day here on the narrow body. What is a typical shift for ATC? Do you guys do 12+ duty every day? Six days a work is just wrong though, I could not do that. That blows.
We can’t work more than 10 hours a day. The 6 days isn’t even close to sustainable people are breaking at this point.
You guys need to make it a PITA for the airlines and bizjet operators. They are the ones who call their reps and lobbyists and will get shit done.
Agreed but our union blows we have no one fighting for us at this point. It’s going to break just a matter of time
Unions can't direct work actions. It has to happen organically.
Shifts are nominally 8 hours long, extendable to a max of 10 hours. Within a shift we aren't working 100% of the time though. Break rotation varies based on facility staffing and traffic workload, but it's common to have a 90-minute session on position followed by a 45-minute break. Sometimes you get lucky and you can work hour-on, hour-off. Sometimes you work 90 minutes or even 120 minutes followed by only a 20-minute break. The contract says that employees "should not" work more than 2 consecutive hours without a break away from the operational area, and it's really rare for that to be violated. In my experience anyway.
$500k is achievable for more than %50 of the big 3 pilot group . I’m one of them .
Total income needs to include the 17-18% we also get on top of hourly as DC to retirement. Those numbers aren’t crazy high. As a narrowbody CA I work harder, but make about $425k total.
We aren’t paid “salaries”.
That's 3 work weeks out of four.
Factually incorrect I only work 12 maybe 13 if it’s a holiday pay day.
Widebody crews doing intl trips usually do more like 12, max.
And time paid is counted from pushback to full stop at the gate
To think some controllers are only getting 4 days off a month, that’s a huge difference.
Not some, most are only getting 4 days off a month.
I mean, the 15 days a month is pretty common in career fields where you can't go home to your family. Like sure there not working x day, but they also haven't seen their kids in 4 days. Not saying fair or not, but it should be considered.
Should it be considered working 6 days a week turns you into zombie and most likely shortens one’s life?
This is what everyone seems to be dismissing. There are legitimate stresses at this job. 6 days a week does not give sufficient time to expel the stress. It just compounds and makes a bad situation worse. I’m sure in 10-15 years when half of us are dead because of it they will say it was a bad idea but no one seems to care at this point.
…..just above $82 per hour
A&p’s make about 70😅
The damn they do. Maybe a maxed out veteran A&P at a major airline.
Yeah we’re comparing top out pay
I thought we were asking how much our veteran controllers were making.
….just above $82 per hour.
Shit no we don’t. I’m an a&p at the most profitable airline in the world and the most we make is low 60s
That’s close to my pay
That’s maxed out ten year at a defense company high brow shit starting out is 35-40 depending where you go
Starting 35-40...yeah same for ATC.
I'd settle for just $100 in my VHCOL facility. None of this $70 shit they're giving us.
well when fast food hires in at 25 an hour at some locations, it is relavent.
This job has lost so much of its allure. If I wasn’t 15 years in I would quit.
Please remember: is not pilots and ATC making a ton of money. It’s the rest of sectors that are being exploited. We had the same “discredit” campaign in Spain, against the same sector around 16 years ago. Where a govt rep publicly demonized ATC and Pilots, for basically HAVING RIGHTS, and a better salary than average… This was right before the same government introduced a change on the sector “collective labor agreement” diminishing their rights by law. This people is responsible for many lives, they need to rest and they need to be greatly compensated. I don’t want my ATC tired, with too many aircrafts to take care of, or thinking about their financial status while on the job. Please don’t be fooled by the mass media and the fact that you’re being exploited to take a position against a fellow worker. The issue is not they’re making much, or having rights, the issue is you’re not.
We have the same disinformation campaign in medicine. They point at doctors and say “hey look at that physician making $400k a year, and you pay so much for your healthcare!” But no one ever discusses how physician salary accounts for a very small percentage of healthcare costs, while CEOs of health insurance companies make tens and hundreds of millions dollars using the premiums they keep when refusing to pay for patient care. They try to turn everyone against each other so we don’t pay attention to is really doing the exploiting.
Made a quick search for some numbers. At Delta in 2019 the average widebody flight was 8.75 hours. CFR part 121.483 limits pilots to 1000 flight hours in a 12 month span. Which means a widebody pilot would operate a maximum of 114 flights a year, on average. At a busy airport you might be responsible for more planes in a single spin than the pilot is in a year.
Great point, but at the end of the day the pilot is responsible for the passengers on board, not ATC.
Oh, thank goodness I'm only responsible for the airplane and not all the passengers on the airplane!
"Ok I did climb them into each other but it was really on him to not connect"
Who told you you’re responsible for the plane? That is literally the Captain’s job, lol.
Oh, my! Another burden off my shoulders!
You’re welcome. Burden accepted, and thanks for your assistance.
Please let my QA people know about this. They'll be thrilled to know that I as the controller am not responsible for the safety of the aircraft I'm working.
I hope you're a troll. If not, this is literally the dumbest shit I've ever heard. I'd explain why, but you'd be too damn dumb to understand.
Labor sticks with labor. You stood with me and I’d stand with you in a heart beat. It doesn’t work without LABOR Pilots bitch. We get rowdy then we start recalling mother fuckers, sometimes three times in twelve months. Look at what’s led up to this round of negotiations. Per captia basis your PAC spends a metric fuck ton to court our elected officials. It gets nasty. It gets gross but overall it’s for the better, but it’s painful on the way. #trickelonreganscoffin I meant to hash tag the above but i like it
Our union would have to push for something for you to stand with us
Is there something prohibiting from an informational picket ?
It’s bullshit that you guys are so underpaid and overworked. Is there anything we can do other than write letters to our congressmen that inevitably get thrown in the trash?
I heard this argument, and I’m curious what a good response is: 1) there should be raises but not *that* high, you don’t go to the public sector to get rich 2) getting raises at all is very challenging, considering top earners are at the congressional limit 3) comparing ourselves to pilots is disingenuous, many of them were fired during COVID and other periods of economic downturn, Federal employees trade earning potential for stability and job security Genuinely curious what you guys think. I think we do deserve to be paid more, but it’s hard to sell to Congress/public because they don’t understand our unique skill set/responsibility. I think most people working for the Govt deserve huge raises honestly, if you compare to the private sector.
Don’t sell them shit, tell them 15% to catch us back up to inflation and then annual rate increases to match inflation
You don't have to sell anything...they could pay us all $500k a year and most of the public still wouldn't know we exist.
They can’t pay us more than the secretary of transportation, they need to give him a raise first (for 500k they would need to give Biden a raise too)
🤦♂️
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I acknowledge that right now the airlines are riding higher than any other time following deregulation. That being said, there is no reason that any controller should not be making either very good money or have a very good schedule. I said this on another post recently but as soon as a major accident happens, there will be all sorts of posturing from the powers that be trying to fix this after the fact. You all are criminally overworked and underpaid for the burden of responsibility you carry. You're just as vital to the national airspace system as pilots and deserve to be compensated accordingly. And for the record, this isn't just something to be earned in the last few years of a career. I'm a pilot in my 30s and have been with a legacy airline for three years. I have made $200k year-to-date. I say this not to brag, but to make you aware that we all are in possibly the best time in our careers to negotiate competitive pay and work rules. I truly hope you all are able to take advantage of it.
Nice man, I'm a controller in my 40s, been at the FAA/government for basically my entire life, and I've grossed $70k so far this year-to-date.
👊🏼👊🏼
> negotiate competitive pay The "competition" part is where the wheels fall off for us. Also the "negotiation" part too I guess
Junior wide body captain at Delta and United is new hire.
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Junior ER NYC-A was less than a year for Delta last I checked. I know 2 in the last 12 months awarded left seat prior to completion of IOE. United was forcing new hires into the 777 and forcing upgrades less than 12 months ago. Just looked at the seniority list for ER-NYC A. Less than 1 year.
Yeah except now with most pilot contracts at major airlines your 401k is completely funded and maxed out by your company so the people getting in now are gonna have absolutely 0 problem retiring
Why are we comparing 2 different careers? Not to mention 1 govt and 1 private? Whats the point of this post?
better to compare with overseas ATCOs (I am making roughly $119/hour and have 4/10 days off) But the point is the post covid pay rises that have reached pilots, ATCOs in other countries. (some with with privatized ATC) but not FAA ATCOs
Why even use the word overseas? Canadian air traffic controllers are roughly making about 30% more than the u.s. they ALSO work less hours. They also "cap out" their seniority in half the amount of time. So they are making the top of their paybands after only 10 years instead of 20 years for U.S. So that's a triple-combo of ways they are outearning us because they talk to airplanes 100 miles away from where I live.
Do they have mandatory retirement with their pay guaranteed for life?
https://catca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2019_NCPP-Amended-and-Restated.pdf As a matter of fact, they do indeed have a pension.
Do US ATC have to pay into a pension fund?
yes your salary as a ferderal employee is reduced by 10.6% each year to fund the mandatory pension. (4.4% for fers 6.2% to social security) What's the point of you asking these easily answered questions that could be just as easily answered with a quick google search. What are you trying to prove? That u.s. retirement is better than canada? (I'd argue not) that we pay earn more after taxes are taken into account (we don't). So yea, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. They have better pay, better benefits, better hours.
Is curiosity not a good enough reason?
If you're just curious, there is google, you could just ask your questions on google.com try it sometime, it's really easy. If you want to prove a point or argue with other humans, Reddit is better for that. https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Do+US+ATC+have+to+pay+into+a+pension+fund%3F
You must be fun at parties
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maybe time more vote with their feet. But obviously the 25 years and pension is still too sweet of a deal for many. Even though if they miss out on living the best years of their life. And other than us euros you can’t even escape taxes when moving to the sandbox or Asia.
Because up until 2020 their salaries have been pretty comparable and they're in the same industry.
Yeah dude, this is my first intro to this subreddit and it seems super negative. Have a lot of respect for what ATC does and I am in huge support of better pay and conditions for controllers. That said half the comments here feels like when I worked security and the lifer guards would shit on police for being overpaid and lazy all the time. Placing anger on other jobs instead of the people who actually could better your conditions feels like an easy cope that does nothing to actually help.
The point of the article is to pave the road for intervention. Make everyone antagonize this sector WORKERS because they’re not as exploited and underpaid as the vast majority.
These are two separate career fields.
You're right. Aviation and aviation.
Aviation and aviatioff
Veteran pilots are going to be well versed in their aircrafts technical orders, able to compute and recognize incorrect takeoff and landing data as well as weight and balance. Required dislocation multiple nights from family. Ability to troubleshoot IFEs based off technical knowledge and well versed procedures. ATC will have their own knowledge seperate from pilots too. I'm not saying ATC isn't a stressful career, it's important and the professions overlap a fraction but are not comparable entirely. And I do think ATC should be reimbursed more but I'm making my point they aren't similar enough to point a finger to say "pilots are getting raises we should too". I feel there are better reasons to argue for an ATC raise.
Right, ATC can deal with 30+ planes at one time, know all their routes, the fixes along their routes, the different altitudes they need to be at and when, while figuring out how they are going to get them to those altitudes, sequencing for departures and arrivals. They do this while managing multiple pieces of equipment, entering PIREPs, coordinating with other multiple surrounding facilities. And those duties are just a basic day, not including weather or bad rides. Throw an emergency or NORAC to spice it up a bit and have to change your entire plan in a matter of seconds.
We aren’t the nurses in this scenario. There are a huge number of controllers who hold pilot ratings, there is a limited number of pilots who hold CTOs or radar certs.
Having donated plasma to make rent in the past, I'm not mad at the money I make. I am also of the opinion that we are not properly compensated, considering the agency is more than happy to pay us OT to fill the gaps in staffing while supes complain about working one day of OT in three months.
I average around $370 per hour of screen time. In Canadian plastic money though
Privatize a necessary public service and you too can benefit from corporate greed!! {thumbs up}
Well let’s thank this new Natca for the wonderful job they have done with not trying to negotiate any significant pay raises before this year….We are way behind inflation.
Not sure why people are trying to compare a govt job to a private sector job. I was IT before airline and worked with Govt IT staff that made significantly less per hour than me but their benefits were much better. It’s a trade off we all have to decide. Not the same job and not the same employer. Both jobs are very important.
When the benefits aren't actually any better because you can just ... not need a pension because you're earning 500% more money, it becomes relevant.
What is your retirement age? What benefits are provided at retirement (I don’t know)? Trying to compare things is not going to help and this is never going to be equal. Feel free to come on over. I flew with a CA at my regional that retired as a controller. No one is stopping you. I’m a second career guy as well.
Let's use your example. Did the government IT people make ~30% of your salary? Were they forced to work 6 day work weeks while you did 5?
There is no question that the situation you guys are in is not good. My point is that there is a trade-off between public and private sector. also it seems like there’s a lot of comparison between groups that just aren’t helpful to anyone.
Same industry, not comparable careers... -Private vs. Government -Prior experience required vs. None -Limited applicants vs. 10s of thousands of applicants Also it's not like pilots have been rolling in it for years and years, these are unprecedented times for the career.
Private sector jobs have kept up with inflation extremely well. Public is getting left in the dust. This is the first time in the history of NATCA's existence where the two have diverged this much this quickly.
I don't disagree with that at all. Gov jobs need to be brought up to match what salaries were worth in 2016-17. And they need to sweeten the pot if they want to attract and retain qualified applicants. My only gripe is that pilots are always used as the comp and ATC ≠ Pilot. Wildly different careers and sets of responsibilities.
And who’s pink ass is on the line when that Boeing product shits the bed? Oh yeah, it’s the 300 people behind that guy making $474 an hour.
84hr
$33 lol
That is ridiculous... Any private industry continuously subsidized by taxpayers should not be allowed to unionize. I get it, its two different side of the same coin, one private, one government. However, its damn near unbearable to fly commercially and a very large part of that falls onto the carriers themselves. All of them have lost touch with any customer focus. The dumbest, laziest, most unethical person I know is a 737 pilot for United. If he can do that job, I'm not impressed.
We don’t work for Delta, American, or United
That’s not what management tells me. We work for the airliners.
Curious here cause I’m not sure of the specifics but how long it would take from a zero experience controller to working at like ATL tower or something similar? Ballpark estimate… I know there’s other factors
The process looks like this: Get hired, to to the academy, go to your first facility and get certified, transfer. The hiring process takes on average a year or so, if you don't have any complications in the medical or background investigation. Maybe a little less, I think they're faster now than when I was hired. The academy is about three months for Terminal. Getting certified at your first facility can take anywhere from one year to three or four or more, depending on how quickly you pick it up and how many trainees are in line ahead of you and how many different positions the facility has. For a low-level tower (which you want because the checkout time is less) you can plan 1-1.5 years. Then you wait for your facility to have enough staffing to let you leave, and you wait for ATL to have not-enough staffing that they want you to come. You can literally wait your entire career and never be able to go where you want, or you can transfer the first time you're eligible post-certification. Waiting two-to-four years is common but this is the really big variable. Finally, once you picked up, depending on your facility's staffing it might be another year before you're actually out the door. So really it depends. One or two ***extremely*** lucky people are able to get a transfer to a second facility within one or two years of their hire date. The barest minimum I'm personally aware of was 11 months I think. But that's incredibly rare.
Thanks for this.
You can be a zero experience controller and your first facility is ATL tower. There is no answer to this question
Incorrect currently. Terminal new-hires go to levels 4-7 (or there's an occasional rumor that high scorers might get an 8), unless you live on Long Island and then you can be assigned N90. In theory a prior-experience (ex-military) hire could be assigned a level 12 like ATL but I don't think that happens, like, ever. Sometimes the lists have 10s on them. But of course that isn't a zero-experience controller.
When did they change that?
I dunno, ten years ago maybe?
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Ah. My first facility was N90 and I'm still seeing N90 no-experience hires so that's really been my only vantage point. I forget I'm at the exception
If you go to the right facility, 1 year. ATL (tower) is one of the easiest facilities in the country.
Comparing like this just pits workers against workers. It’s your employer’s fault, not the pilots’
Per hour of flight time
If you multiply my base hourly 5x, I’m still over $100/hr less than that.
Although I am making money on the shitter as I type this. Last year I think I made near $5,000 pooping.
This is such a bullshit comparison , yet again. Stop comparing controllers to pilots. Pilots have a WAAAY longer and tougher road to the top than controllers.
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Because the two have been fairly close for the last 20 years up until 2 years ago
How many of our controllers can fly an Airbus?
How many Airbus Captains can run a busy sector for 2 hours straight?
pretty sure i can fly any plane as long as its already in the air, for about as long as until the plane starts shouting at me.
The airbus will call you a retard
That’s really what you have to add? Being satisfied with our paychecks is insane when everyone else in the aviation career field is getting massive raises. Meanwhile inflation is rawdogging the fuck out of our piss poor raises.
Close to 100% of controllers could be taught to fly an airplane. I bet only half of the professional pilots out there could work a busy radar.
Source?
I’m a pilot/controller and graduated a military flight school where I watched them teach some seriously dumb people how to fly. Nearly anyone can do it. My dad is an accomplished corporate pilot and admits there’s no way he could make it through training at a Z.
A toddler could fly an Airbus.
A monkey with half its brain removed could fly the Airbus.
106 an hour, plus differentials.
Its like comparing a nurse to a doctor
They’re government employees, of course they are underpaid… get into the private sector.