Air-traffic controllers, many of which are just beginning to reach retirement age, are retiring at a much faster rate than expected. Though it was known that many controllers are becoming eligible for retirement given the mass hiring that took place following the 1981 firing of 12,000 air-traffic controllers by President Reagan, the pace of the exodus is far higher than anyone predicted. The crisis has not only led to more delays in air travel, it is a major cause for concern over the safety of airline travel. In a recent New York Times article, a retired air-traffic controller stated that, “It’s amazing that [a catastrophic accident] hasn’t happened so far. The staffing issue has a direct impact on the safety of the public. It has to.”
Staffing emergencies have been declared in ‘high-intensity facilities’ that include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Southern California. Staffing issues in general are being blamed for about 25% of the travel delays around the country. It is a horrific development and brings a whole new intensity to the alarms being sounded over the issues surrounding retiring baby-boomers.
(By the way, I tried to link to the story in the New York Times, but my multiple attempts to find the story on that site failed. Why does the New York Times have one of the worst search engines of any major media site on the web? It is absolutely horrendous…..maybe Marc Andreessen is correct).