Leading up to the strike the controllers did a lot of stupid crap.
For example, telling me to do a 360 in place in my 172 with a student next to me 10 miles in trail of a lone 727 on final to a large airport. For “spacing”.
Not another airplane in the sky that Sunday morning.
Or asking an Eastern jet to slow to 180 knots 70 miles north of the airport crossing a fix on the arrival route. The captain of that flight didn’t hesitate to tell them what he thought of that stupid stunt.
On the morning of the strike, we flew a twin over to the big airport. Only supervisors on the frequency. They said, “make right base traffic and you’re cleared to land”...15 miles out.
Then nothing else. Just fly your airplane, you’re the Pilot in Command, Big Guy. So do.
How refreshing.
Somewhere in between armies of unionized line controllers and a few high capability supervisors is the right number.
But the PATCO controllers really screwed the pooch cuz they had no clue where that line was, and how useless a lot of their guys were.
That was a very interesting story. Thanks for posting.
As a controller who worked through the strike, I can assure all that your views on the matter are wrong on many levels.
I didn't do a lot of stupid crap when I was a controller. I only had a few heated exchanges in my career. We got our jollies when we were able to place two C-5s down on parallel runways at the same time. I was in Germany during the strike, so I did not get deployed, but I knew some people who did. Those PATCO guys had a no strike clause, so they screwed up. It opened up a ton of jobs for USAF controllers to go FAA, and it took the Air Force many years to recover.