“I used to have about four controllers retire a day before the shutdown. I’m now up to 15 to 20 a day are retiring,” Duffy told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “So, it’s going to be harder for me to come back after the shutdown and have more controllers controlling the airspace.”
“So, this is going to live on in air travel, well beyond the time frame that this government opens back up.”
Air traffic controllers are set to miss their second consecutive paycheck on Tuesday, with many missing work and taking second jobs. Duffy added that 81 controller staffing shortages were reported at facilities across the country on Saturday, an increase of 20 such instances relative to Oct. 31.
Hmm, I think even 4 retiring every day seems to be a lot…
I guess there are over 14,000 controllers normally, so if 20 retire a week that’s a turnover of about 1000 per year, or about 7%, just through retirement. That seems high.
But at 20 a day, we might have run through that number just during the shutdown.
Given how long it takes to train them, this is going to take a bit to recover from.
If only they could adjust the requirements or figure out a way to make it easier…