Posted on 02/28/2025 2:17:03 AM PST by Libloather
Air traffic controllers are set to receive a 30% pay hike as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to boost recruitment Thursday.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement during a press conference at the air traffic controller’s academy in Oklahoma on Thursday.
He argued that the pay structure and the technology air traffic controllers are forced to use are outdated.
“Currently, students are paid $17.61 an hour. By the way, you might be able to go to Walgreens and make that, right? So we’re going to bump it up to $22.84 an hour,” Duffy said.
“And again, I think making sure people have a wage that can allow them to live while they’re going through school. But the real incentive is, again, three years out of this academy, and you’re certified, on average, $160,000 a year. So you can be 24 years old, 23 years old, making a great salary, as an air traffic controller.”
Duffy noted that the pay increase plan will require Congress to approve “billions” in additional funding for the DOT.
Elon Musk also sent out a request for retired air traffic controllers to return to work.
The announcement comes after a string of air travel disasters in recent weeks, though few of them were blamed on air traffic control.
Most recently, a Southwest airliner narrowly avoided a collision with a Flexjet business jet on a runway in Chicago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
This is how the Free Market works.
Skilled labor and/or specialty labor is typically 3-4 times the minimum wage. You pay someone $15 an hour to flip burgers, you can expect to pay $50-60 an hour for top tier labor. That’s how our economy works.
Get out the ear plugs or turn off your hearing aids because the demonratcommieblmantifaterrorscumfeminaziguanopathicpedophilegoatrapers are gonna be screaming, crying and throwing temper tantrums because the ATC is getting more money and a huge chunk of the (blowted) .gov employees (notice I didn’t say workers because they don’t) are getting removed from their jobs.
Well, you won’t be paying burger flippers that for long.
That’s also how the economy works.
Should have Been 100 percent 22.50 is a joke for that job
For the stress involved and the responsibilities they bear as air traffic controllers, they deserve good pay.
And I want good, qualified ATCs.
Can I move to your labor market? Around here, starting wages for non-skilled laborers are around $8 to $12/hr, and for skilled labor, around $20.
Democrat Reaction: “More welfare for whites.”
“Should have Been 100 percent 22.50 is a joke for that job”
But you do have a bit of Upward Mobility if you don’t wash out, as the rate appears to rise to around $80.00/hour after 5 years.
For new hires focus on men and women...of any color...who worked air traffic control in the Air Force or Navy.
.
I retired as a pipefitter from the Houston area and moved to Alabama over 10 years ago. The prevailing wage then was about $30 an hour. I was approached here in Al to go to work as a pipe foreman and was asked what kind of money I would need to have. After giving some thought about the area and the wages I told him somewhere in the mid $20’s, I was told they don’t pay that around here so I said too bad find someone else. I know some fitters and welders now that won’t take a job less than $35 with at least 60 hours a week plus per diam if on the road and that’s in the warm states especially in winter, they will go north in the summer where they can get $40 plus. But I am talking about pipe welders not junk iron better known as structural. Good labor will cost you but cheap labor will cost you more.
It takes lots of hard, difficult work to become a air traffic controller and, before the person is left to work on his own, it may take 8 years.
Hire on merit.
Pipe fitters have a union.
They most likely get paid more because they know more.
It’s not the job yet, it’s school.
There is a lot of non union jobs out there.
So he took the crappy ground assignments the air force had to offer and completed his higher education over the next seven years. He got his break in 1981 when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers who decided not to take him seriously about reporting back for work. Because of his ground control experience, he moved right into a vacant job at the local airport and was promoted within a matter of MONTHS, not years, due to the situation at hand.
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