Leadership Is the Key to Fixing Our Air Traffic Control Crisis | The American Spectator

President Trump has made it clear that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to bring its Air Traffic Control (ATC) system into the 21st century. The Director — Sean Duffy — has a huge job in front of him. The system is a mishmash of late 20th-century technology with some recent AI, as well as computer software and hardware patches cobbled on. But perhaps the greatest challenge will be the human side. Older controllers are retiring, and recruiting is a mess. Retention of new controllers is at a crisis level due to a toxic training atmosphere among trainees in their “on-the-job training assignments.” If the ATC culture cannot be changed, we may reach an untenable tipping point. (RELATED: The Collision of Ideals After the DC Plane Crash: Why DEI Policies Threaten Our Safety)

The job of an Air Traffic Controller is as high-stress as that of a combat soldier or a cop on the beat. The difference is that the lives of the controllers are not at stake. Rather, it is the lives of aircrews and passengers that hang in the balance — all day, every day.

There is a significant difference between the current ATC training regime for high-stress environments and that of the military and law enforcement agencies. Those entities that are authorized to use firearms have a basic three-phase approach. The details differ, but the philosophy is the same.

Phase one is basic training. Whether called boot camp, police academies, or the FBI Academy. There are two objectives. The first is to weed out trainees who lack the aptitude or ability to function in the organization. The second is to teach the basic skills necessary to function in the job. This is necessarily high stress except for one area, and that is weapons skills. When on the basic firing range, military recruits and police trainees are subject to less stress. The object is to make the individual completely comfortable with the weapon that he or she can aim, fire, load, and reload without thinking. It needs to become instinctive.

The second phase is generally realistic high-stress training. Much of this is live-fire, but some is in simulators. Again, there is an element of elimination. The FBI’s famous Hogan’s Alley is a good example, as is the Navy’s Top Gun program. Some individuals just cannot handle high stress. The FAA also uses simulators for such training. So far, so good.

The third element is on-the-job training, where the new personnel are integrated into an operating unit. In the military, this generally means a squad, section, or squadron. In law enforcement, the new officer is generally partnered with a seasoned veteran of the force. Here is where the individual is integrated into the team and picks up on its culture. The unit leader is held responsible for building the team and for its ultimate performance. This is where the FAA diverges from the military and security services.

Fraternal or ‘Fraternity’?

According to a report in the Washington Post, this phase of training more often resembles fraternity hazing than team building. I graduated from an aeronautical-oriented university, and that coincides with stories I have heard from fellow alumni who made careers in the FAA.

Many senior controllers reportedly use abusive language toward their probationary teammates and see it as their duty to weed out those that they personally feel are unfit. This is the diametrical opposite of the mentoring approach taken by the military and law enforcement. It probably goes a long way toward explaining the ATC recruiting and retention problem. It may also be the source of some of the ATC-related safety incidents that have proliferated in the past year. Individuals who are so afraid to make a mistake that they do nothing are a menace to the whole system.

Mr. Duffy will find it much easier to solve equipment problems — if he can get the money from Congress — than to address the training problem, as it is apparently ingrained in the culture of the institution. Raising starting salaries and offering signing bonuses may help recruiting, but an abusive on-the-job training environment will continue to be corrosive to retention.

The best way to change the culture is to hold the leadership accountable. The manager of each center should be made responsible for retention. In turn, he should hold his subordinate supervisors responsible for properly mentoring their probationary subordinates. In any organization, an occasional individual will make it through the first two phases of training but not be able to handle real-world pressures; however, that should be a very small minority. Centers with a higher-than-average attrition rate should have their leadership scrutinized and changed if necessary

Changing an organizational culture is the greatest challenge that a leader can face. But poor leadership is the crux of the problem here. Throwing money at it will help, but accountability is the key to change.