CBC coverage- Pilot’s frustrated ATC rant

[nine sixteenths]

Not a good look for a professional pilot to be ranting about another aviation profession like this. Frustrations and emotions run high but this isn’t a good response, particularly the rumour fuelled accusations.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6773978

[itsgrosswhatinet]

We really need to start getting paid for duty time instead of flight time. Ground delays are getting out of hand due to the competency crisis.

[redbusdriver]

Not a good look for a professional pilot to be ranting about another aviation profession like this. Frustrations and emotions run high but this isn’t a good response, particularly the rumour fuelled accusations.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6773978

It's a world class rant. Since we don't have world class pay, the world class ranting is all we have left

[CpnCrunch]

Not a good look for a professional pilot to be ranting about another aviation profession like this. Frustrations and emotions run high but this isn’t a good response, particularly the rumour fuelled accusations.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6773978

It's a world class rant. Since we don't have world class pay, the world class ranting is all we have left

I'm pretty sure I've seen that particular rumour here on avcanada. Seems like a bad idea to be airing it in public when there isn't any actual evidence. Better to stick to the facts: this has been an issue since long before covid, and then poor decisions during covid just made it infinitely worse. Previously it mostly just affected GA, but now it's mostly the airlines (as most of the rest of us have long since given up on YVR terminal).

[Me262]

We really need to start getting paid for duty time instead of flight time. Ground delays are getting out of hand due to the competency crisis.

We are rooting for the FAs trying to make that change this year. Maybe they will show us how it's done.

[ACYYC]

So is anything actually being done about it? This has been an issue for a long time. Clear sunny day in YVR and yet ground holds and inbound flights stuck in holding patterns. Or in typical rinky dink Canadian fashion as long as nobody gets hurt it's "good enough"?

[northernpilot2]

You get PAID the same regardless of TIME, so shut the hell up and just go with the flow. If you go to work, don't takeoff, and come home, then its worth the time.

[itsgrosswhatinet]

We really need to start getting paid for duty time instead of flight time. Ground delays are getting out of hand due to the competency crisis.

We are rooting for the FAs trying to make that change this year. Maybe they will show us how it's done.

The knee-jerk reaction I've heard from other pilots is that if the FAs are doing it it must be a dumb idea.

[Me262]

You get PAID the same regardless of TIME, so shut the hell up and just go with the flow. If you go to work, don't takeoff, and come home, then its worth the time.

Because you end up going home a few hours later. Because you end up missing your commute. Because because. But you must be a me me me person. Doesn't affect you, you no care

[northernpilot2]

You get PAID the same regardless of TIME, so shut the hell up and just go with the flow. If you go to work, don't takeoff, and come home, then its worth the time.

Because you end up missing your commute.

To hell with your commute.

[pelmet]

You get PAID the same regardless of TIME, so shut the hell up and just go with the flow. If you go to work, don't takeoff, and come home, then its worth the time.

Because you end up missing your commute.

To hell with your commute.

One can see why AI a robots are the future. Zero concern for the average person. Railway and port unions literally willing to screw over the economy by partially shutting it down. Postal strike despite a billion dollars of losses. Never ending ATC shortage. Sclerotic massive government payroll, teachers politicizing education. A revolution is coming but attitudes will make it come faster.

The flow will be changing.

[pelmet]

Meanwhile, it would be no surprise if they are falling behind on the staffing front due to how they choose their candidates leading to a high washout rate resulting in poor ATC service….

“ NAV CANADA is committed to building a skilled, diverse workforce reflective of Canadian society. As a result, it promotes employment equity and encourages candidates to indicate voluntarily and clearly on the subject line of their application if they are a woman, an Aboriginal person, a person with a disability or a member of a visible minority group.”

You get what you vote for.

[mmm...bacon]

Meanwhile, it would be no surprise if they are falling behind on the staffing front due to how they choose their candidates leading to a high washout rate resulting in poor ATC service….

“ NAV CANADA is committed to building a skilled, diverse workforce reflective of Canadian society. As a result, it promotes employment equity and encourages candidates to indicate voluntarily and clearly on the subject line of their application if they are a woman, an Aboriginal person, a person with a disability or a member of a visible minority group.”

You get what you vote for.

Oh, horseshit, pelmet! Show how DEI affects the washout rate negatively? Don’t forget NavCan has skin in the game also - it costs a fair amount to onboard and train people, so their interest is in selecting the individuals most likely to succeed…

[pelmet]

People really should just accept my arguments:


A critical shortage of 3,800 air traffic controllers is because of the Federal Aviation Administration’s DEI practices leaving a “gaping hole” in recruitment, a lawyer claimed to The Post.

Over 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers were wiped out from consideration overnight because of diversity and inclusion hiring targets suddenly being implemented, according to the lead lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against the FAA.

Michael Pearson told The Post his clients had completed all their training at FAA-approved institutions before they were placed in a direct hiring pool for air traffic controllers — as was standard at the time.

Within months of graduating, they were informed by the FAA they would need to pass a new “biographical assessment” which, he claimed, awarded extra points to people with “no aviation experience.”

“The FAA basically decided the students were too white and the schools too elite, so in 2013 knocked them off the preferred hiring list they had trained and worked hard to get onto — all because of their race,” Pearson claimed.

According to the attorney, 95 percent of the previously qualified candidates he represents then failed the biographical assessment questionnaire — essentially a personality test — and were “screened out.”

“They had the training and the passion and they were ready to be hired,” he said.

The air traffic control issue was sharply brought into focus on Jan. 31 when an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter collided at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC, killing 67 people in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost 25 years.

The air traffic control tower was operating with 19 full-time staff, two-thirds of the 30 recommended by the FAA. Nationwide there are 10,800 air traffic controllers (ATCs), but 14,600 are needed to meet the current demand, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

“The FAA engaged in staffing suicide. It takes two to five years to train as an air traffic controller and a long time to get these people through,” Pearson claimed.

“Losing them meant a gaping hole was left in the ATC talent pool.”

Simultaneously, a four-year near-freeze on air traffic controller hiring was also underway as the DEI policies were introduced, according to Pearson, a former air traffic controller and trainer.

“The FAA, because of DEI policies, stopped hiring for three to four years and that directly correlates to the lack of staffing, and controllers being overworked and getting fatigued and burned out,” he told The Post.......

......The aviation agency and US Department of Transportation are fighting the class-action suit, filed in 2015, which is slated to go to court early next year.
https://www.allsides.com/news/2025-02-1 ... utting-too

[pelmet]

".......That is why it is particularly disturbing to learn that the FAA is pursuing an identity-based hiring strategy that places an individual’s personally identifiable characteristics over their merit,” the senators wrote.

Increasing diversity in the FAA workforce has long been a focus of administrators, but the efforts were spearheaded during the Obama administration by the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), whose earliest advocacy to the FAA on diversifying air traffic control dates back to at least 2008, the class action lawsuit shows.

In late 2008 and early 2009, NBCFAE commissioned an analysis of data that it obtained from the FAA from its reporting to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal division that works to uphold the directives of the Civil Rights Act. NBCFAE concluded from this data that the FAA was the “least diverse” agency.

The coalition then sent letters to the FAA administration alleging “disparate treatment” and “underrepresentation” of minorities, according to a talking points memo obtained as part of the lawsuit.

By 2010, NBCFAE had begun to build “a coalition of supporters from entities, outside the FAA, that possess the power to influence the FAA to do what is legally required, and right for its employees,” according to the memo. The first organization to sign up was Rainbow PUSH, the social justice organization founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson to advocate for African Americans.

In 2012, after letters from the NBCFAE and meetings with its outside partners, the FAA conducted a barrier analysis of the Air Traffic Control Specialist hiring process to find ways to promote more diverse hiring.

The barrier analysis found that the AT-SAT cognitive and skills-based test was a so-called “barrier” to African Americans, Women, Asians, and Hispanics applying to become air traffic controllers. In an internal FAA presentation, the FAA Office of Civil Rights recommended that the agency “revise or replace the ATSAT,” because it represented a significant barrier to diversity.

In the same period that the FAA civil rights division conducted its reviews and called the AT-SAT into question, an FAA-commissioned study found that CTI program graduates achieved certification as air traffic controllers at a rate much higher than recruits coming from other pools of applicants.

Later, in 2013, the same year the final barrier analysis findings were presented, another internal study determined that an applicant’s score on the AT-SAT test was an accurate predictor of how well those recruits would perform in training to become air traffic controllers.

The study recommended that the FAA continue to use the AT-SAT, prioritize test takers who scored in the “well-qualified” benchmark, and, if the agency needed recruits from the “qualified” benchmark, to give CTI program graduates priority.

Despite these internal studies, the findings of the barrier analysis took precedence over the continued emphasis on the skills-based, cognitive test.

Shortly after the findings that the AT-SAT presented a barrier to minority applicants, the FAA would work with an outside contractor to develop the biographical questionnaire that disqualified many of the CTI applicants.

The class action lawsuit, which was filed in the name of one of the CTI recruits who did not pass the biographical questionnaire—Andrew Brigida—alleged that the questionnaire was designed to deemphasize the skills-based AT-SAT test, while prioritizing more subjective measurements and weighted certain questions in a way that appeared to favor African Americans.

Covering a variety of subjective topics, like learning styles, sports played, and grade school performance in certain subjects, each question had its own weight, which would determine what value that an answer would contribute to a candidate’s success or failure in the biographical questionnaire portion.

For example, the questionnaire asked the applicants to choose the class for which they received the lowest grade in high school. However, if an applicant chose “Science,” their answer would be disproportionately weighted compared to other subjects, like math and history.

The class action cited educational data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing Black students national average scale score in science was lower than any other race to allege that the test was designed to favor certain minorities over other applicants.

An email between FAA officials and the outside company tasked with designing the questionnaire showed that this and other weights were explicitly constructed to screen out a significant proportion of the candidates, in total, 70% of them.

According to the lawsuit, the questionnaire eliminated over 85% of the CTI-educated candidates for air traffic control positions, despite these very candidates being the most likely to succeed according to the FAA’s own studies, regardless of whether they had already passed the AT-SAT.

Sean Nation, the Deputy General Counsel of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which is representing Brigida and others in the class action, told Just the News prioritizing the biographical questionnaire over the AT-SAT assessment was “intended to alter the racial makeup of the hiring pool” of Air Traffic Control Specialists.

“In air traffic control where there is zero opportunity for failure, the focus should be on purely merit based hiring. Efforts to alter racial makeup is the lowest priority. The highest priority must be safety and efficacy,” Nation said.

In 2019, Congress took action and ended the use of biographical questionnaires for air traffic controller recruitment. Yet, the FAA has not been deterred in its push to diversify the workforce, with new plans to implement diversity quotas under the Biden Administration.

In a case referenced by the Senators in their letter last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently implemented a recruitment quota for 3% of the FAA workforce to identify as an individual with a “targeted disability,” according to the letter.

This includes individuals who experience total deafness or blindness, who are missing extremities, or have severe intellectual disabilities.

More broadly, the FAA’s strategic plan for 2022 to 2026 emphasizes the need for the agency to “rethink” its hiring practices to ensure a workforce that more closely resembles broader U.S. demographics. But, what lengths will the FAA go to to bring diversity to its ranks? According to the plan, it will “reevaluate the skills” needed for an FAA employee and “refine the interview process,” to meet its hiring goals."

https://tennesseestar.com/news/analysis ... 024/02/05/

[5degrees]

People really should just accept my arguments:

I didn't know the FAA governed hiring at Nav Can. We get it, you're triggered by the term DEI.

[goingnowherefast]

The rant was unprofessional, but I do appreciate the frustration.
100% throw NavCanada under the bus, it is absolutely the fault of NavCanada management. But leave it at that. No conspiracy theories or rumours necessary. Those just ruin the credibility.

"We're delayed due to ATC, and chronic short staffing of ATC controllers" stop there. Done.

[pelmet]

People really should just accept my arguments:

I didn't know the FAA governed hiring at Nav Can. We get it, you're triggered by the term DEI.

I was asked to show cause and effect. Irrelevant arguments do not make you right. I am triggered by the actions of DEI and follow the beliefs of Martin Luther King.

[CGFCK]

Pelmet is an anti union, pro corporation, its DEI's fault shill.

His existence hurts the profession

[‘Bob’]

".......That is why it is particularly disturbing to learn that the FAA is pursuing an identity-based hiring strategy that places an individual’s personally identifiable characteristics over their merit,” the senators wrote.

Increasing diversity in the FAA workforce has long been a focus of administrators, but the efforts were spearheaded during the Obama administration by the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), whose earliest advocacy to the FAA on diversifying air traffic control dates back to at least 2008, the class action lawsuit shows.

In late 2008 and early 2009, NBCFAE commissioned an analysis of data that it obtained from the FAA from its reporting to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal division that works to uphold the directives of the Civil Rights Act. NBCFAE concluded from this data that the FAA was the “least diverse” agency.

The coalition then sent letters to the FAA administration alleging “disparate treatment” and “underrepresentation” of minorities, according to a talking points memo obtained as part of the lawsuit.

By 2010, NBCFAE had begun to build “a coalition of supporters from entities, outside the FAA, that possess the power to influence the FAA to do what is legally required, and right for its employees,” according to the memo. The first organization to sign up was Rainbow PUSH, the social justice organization founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson to advocate for African Americans.

In 2012, after letters from the NBCFAE and meetings with its outside partners, the FAA conducted a barrier analysis of the Air Traffic Control Specialist hiring process to find ways to promote more diverse hiring.

The barrier analysis found that the AT-SAT cognitive and skills-based test was a so-called “barrier” to African Americans, Women, Asians, and Hispanics applying to become air traffic controllers. In an internal FAA presentation, the FAA Office of Civil Rights recommended that the agency “revise or replace the ATSAT,” because it represented a significant barrier to diversity.

In the same period that the FAA civil rights division conducted its reviews and called the AT-SAT into question, an FAA-commissioned study found that CTI program graduates achieved certification as air traffic controllers at a rate much higher than recruits coming from other pools of applicants.

Later, in 2013, the same year the final barrier analysis findings were presented, another internal study determined that an applicant’s score on the AT-SAT test was an accurate predictor of how well those recruits would perform in training to become air traffic controllers.

The study recommended that the FAA continue to use the AT-SAT, prioritize test takers who scored in the “well-qualified” benchmark, and, if the agency needed recruits from the “qualified” benchmark, to give CTI program graduates priority.

Despite these internal studies, the findings of the barrier analysis took precedence over the continued emphasis on the skills-based, cognitive test.

Shortly after the findings that the AT-SAT presented a barrier to minority applicants, the FAA would work with an outside contractor to develop the biographical questionnaire that disqualified many of the CTI applicants.

The class action lawsuit, which was filed in the name of one of the CTI recruits who did not pass the biographical questionnaire—Andrew Brigida—alleged that the questionnaire was designed to deemphasize the skills-based AT-SAT test, while prioritizing more subjective measurements and weighted certain questions in a way that appeared to favor African Americans.

Covering a variety of subjective topics, like learning styles, sports played, and grade school performance in certain subjects, each question had its own weight, which would determine what value that an answer would contribute to a candidate’s success or failure in the biographical questionnaire portion.

For example, the questionnaire asked the applicants to choose the class for which they received the lowest grade in high school. However, if an applicant chose “Science,” their answer would be disproportionately weighted compared to other subjects, like math and history.

The class action cited educational data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing Black students national average scale score in science was lower than any other race to allege that the test was designed to favor certain minorities over other applicants.

An email between FAA officials and the outside company tasked with designing the questionnaire showed that this and other weights were explicitly constructed to screen out a significant proportion of the candidates, in total, 70% of them.

According to the lawsuit, the questionnaire eliminated over 85% of the CTI-educated candidates for air traffic control positions, despite these very candidates being the most likely to succeed according to the FAA’s own studies, regardless of whether they had already passed the AT-SAT.

Sean Nation, the Deputy General Counsel of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which is representing Brigida and others in the class action, told Just the News prioritizing the biographical questionnaire over the AT-SAT assessment was “intended to alter the racial makeup of the hiring pool” of Air Traffic Control Specialists.

“In air traffic control where there is zero opportunity for failure, the focus should be on purely merit based hiring. Efforts to alter racial makeup is the lowest priority. The highest priority must be safety and efficacy,” Nation said.

In 2019, Congress took action and ended the use of biographical questionnaires for air traffic controller recruitment. Yet, the FAA has not been deterred in its push to diversify the workforce, with new plans to implement diversity quotas under the Biden Administration.

In a case referenced by the Senators in their letter last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently implemented a recruitment quota for 3% of the FAA workforce to identify as an individual with a “targeted disability,” according to the letter.

This includes individuals who experience total deafness or blindness, who are missing extremities, or have severe intellectual disabilities.

More broadly, the FAA’s strategic plan for 2022 to 2026 emphasizes the need for the agency to “rethink” its hiring practices to ensure a workforce that more closely resembles broader U.S. demographics. But, what lengths will the FAA go to to bring diversity to its ranks? According to the plan, it will “reevaluate the skills” needed for an FAA employee and “refine the interview process,” to meet its hiring goals."

https://tennesseestar.com/news/analysis ... 024/02/05/

That looks like a lot of words.


Too bad I’m not reading them.

[pelmet]

That looks like a lot of words.


Too bad I’m not reading them.

As expected. But for decent people that actually believe in fairness, it will be read.

[khedrei]

I'm not an airline pilot, but this seems like an excessive and inappropriate rant to make on the PA. Regardless of the amount of truth to it.

Does AC have rules or guidelines on what should and shouldn't be said on the PA? Is it possible management gives this guy a hard time or even tries to issue discipline for this?

[DHC-1 Jockey]

One can see why AI a robots are the future. Zero concern for the average person. Railway and port unions literally willing to screw over the economy by partially shutting it down. Postal strike despite a billion dollars of losses. Never ending ATC shortage. Sclerotic massive government payroll, teachers politicizing education. A revolution is coming but attitudes will make it come faster.

The flow will be changing.

You bash all of these other organizations for "screwing over the economy by partially shutting it down" but you do realize Air Canada pilots were more than willing to strike during their last contract talks, right?

Would you be bashing Air Canada pilots for going on strike too, or is it just whoever is the flavour of the week that merits your outrage?

[Me262]

I'm not an airline pilot, but this seems like an excessive and inappropriate rant to make on the PA. Regardless of the amount of truth to it.

Does AC have rules or guidelines on what should and shouldn't be said on the PA? Is it possible management gives this guy a hard time or even tries to issue discipline for this?

Why would AC do anything to him? AC is losing money because of Nav Canada, so this CA just did them a favor by bashing Nav Canada. They won't condone it either since if it goes out it's not good for them, but silence is bliss.

[pelmet]

One can see why AI a robots are the future. Zero concern for the average person. Railway and port unions literally willing to screw over the economy by partially shutting it down. Postal strike despite a billion dollars of losses. Never ending ATC shortage. Sclerotic massive government payroll, teachers politicizing education. A revolution is coming but attitudes will make it come faster.

The flow will be changing.

You bash all of these other organizations for "screwing over the economy by partially shutting it down" but you do realize Air Canada pilots were more than willing to strike during their last contract talks, right?

Would you be bashing Air Canada pilots for going on strike too, or is it just whoever is the flavour of the week that merits your outrage?

An AC pilot I know got about a 100K raise with the new contract. I am quite happy for him and he deserves it. AC is doing quite well and should share the wealth. But when both rail unions go on strike or the port workers that will literally put the country in a depression, I have a problem with that. You should too. And yes, I do have a sibling that owns a business that needs supplies to survive.