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Air traffic controllers receive $0 paychecks as government shutdown stretches
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Who's he going to replace them with? There is already s massive shortage of ATCs with most airports below FAA guidelines prior to the shutdown.
I think when Reagan fired all the ATCs, they were temporarily replaced with military trained ones until they could hire and train replacements. But that was a time when there was significantly less air travel and less ATCs than we have and need now.
So maybe they might have the military take over some positions? There's no way they could fill every single airport and I doubt that they even have the same training and skill set as commercial ATCs.
But having a military take over of airports is the kind of dictator move that probably makes someone like trump salivate.
This actually isn't true, at least the "have" part.
There were ~14k ATC controllers employed before the Reagan strike. There are currently ~10,600 controllers. The required staffing level to fully staff all 313 facilities is ~14,600.
Interesting those numbers have largely not changed in 40 years. Honestly I was guessing that we needed way more ATCs since the strike because air traffic has increased so much since then. Do you happen to know why the need for ATCs hasn't really changed?
GPS, modern navigation and logistics technology is the biggest reason.
there apparently is less now, 4000 down from before.
The military is also not currently being paid.
But at least they can rely on the billionaires to throw them a bone, since they are the ones benefiting most from this arrangement. There was one just the other day that dropped $130 million just to keep the troops out of the red. I don't know if there are any billionaires with a soft spot for ATCs but i suppose we'll find out soon enough!
100$/soldier isnt exactly going to keep them out of the red. its just a bribe to trump.
That money'll go a lot farther if it's only covering ~10,000 ATCs rather than ~1,000,000 service members.
Well, then i guess we might just see another billionaire bailout. This is the stupidest fucking timeline
I mean, they should be the ones funding this stuff all the time (it should just be involuntary on their part)
Fully agreed. The billions they're hoarding is money that should be funding all the things the taxpayers need--the basics like food/shelter/healthcare... Things that countries with much smaller GDPs don't have nearly as much difficulty figuring out.
I also think it's worth noting that the states receiving the most SNAP benefits include New York, California, and Texas--it's very possible Trump is doing this especially because it stands to affect 2 states he's not entirely thrilled with. Across the country, 42 million people have been relying on the SNAP benefits they were receiving, which average approx $190/mo per person. Where are the billionaires lining up to help these folks in need?
Texas is thier sacrificial lamb and collateral damage they are willing to do.
they cant since the military also needs thier own ATCs to manage thier airfields and bases.
That was a problem in Reagan's time too. It didn't stop him firing them all. Air traffic control in the USA is still suffering the after effects of Reagan's action, as the generation that trained up to replace the workers he fired is all retiring at the same time.
Military ATCs is what they did in the 80s
nobody since, you cant exactly hire scabs on the fly, plus it take a couple years to train a atc, and source them from a program to do it. its a long grueling process, plus its super competitive, which is a natural gatekeeping for the ATC job. probably dont want to lower physical/medical standards to just ensure more would apply either.