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Posted on 04/10/2026 6:34:47 PM PDT by Libloather
WASHINGTON — The FAA is seeking out gamers to become air-traffic controllers.
A video released by the federal Department of Transportation on Friday targeted the video-game enthusiasts as part of the government’s hiring surge aimed at adding close to 9,000 more air-traffic controllers by 2028.
The video asks the gamers whether they’re “up for the challenge” of becoming an ATC but cautions that the job isn’t just a “game” — it’s a “career.
“You’ll keep millions of people safe every day,” the video says, while touting average salaries of up to $155,000 by your third year on the job.
The hiring blitz comes after the tragic crash of an Air Canada flight into a firetruck on the runway at LaGuardia in New York City that killed the jet’s two pilots in March.
NTSB probers are trying to determine whether an air-traffic controller stepped away to answer an emergency phone call before the deadly collision and if staffing problems may have contributed to the horror.
Exit interviews with air-traffic controllers who leave the job show gaming is a hobby for many and shares similarities with their work, officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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This job will be taken by Ai in the next four years
So crashing planes into one another should be fun...
Yes.
And it’ll be safer (no human error) as well as more reliable that way (strikes, government shut downs, Covid, etc).
That is a perfect candidate for automation with human “oversight.”
If the FAA would lax their hiring and employment standards just a bit, they would have all the controllers they would need. My son just spent four years as an ATC for the US Navy, but yet he can’t get an FAA position because he’s now too old via FAA guidelines. That really sucks and now all that time and energy training will be lost.
Gamers…who live for new lives every time they lose to the game. No thanks. Give me military ATCs every time.
Reminds me of the old Bobcat Goldthwait bit where he talked about Reagan firing the air traffic controllers after they went on strike. In the bit Bobcat joked that when they hired replacements, one of the qualification questions was whether the person played Space Invaders.
Speed running the air traffic could be helpful.
This could be an improvement! Remember how during Biden the FAA had regulations that said it was OK to hire mentally unstable individuals.
A quarter century ago, a friend of mine told me of a friend of his whose son was good at really only one thing — he was highly-skilled at working a joy stick. My friend remarked that probably one day the kid would have a job doing that. He might have been on to something.
Translation: it's not a viable job.
Go hire the Indian truckers that have been killing drivers on the roadways. I'm sure they can do better in aviation. Maybe some other illegal aliens also.
It's all okay though. By 2029, the magical "artificial intelligence" will run air traffic control.
The gaming experience might be a plus. But they also have to be serious - because a mistake in a game means restart the game. A mistake in air traffic control may mean the death of hundreds of people.
But as long as they have the mindset, being able to juggle multiple events at the same time would be a great thing. It’s not extremely different from running a transmission system on the power grid in the respect that you have to strive to be perfect, there are many checks and balances, and you sometimes have a LOT going on at the same time.
“Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg similarly sought to boost ATC applications — but with a focus on encouraging submissions “from women, minorities and individuals in underrepresented communities,” according to a July 2021 press release.
That move came as part of a push within the DOT under former President Joe Biden that handed out more than $80 billion for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-focused initiatives.”
Oof!
The FAA and the USPO have the same management, idiots.
What could go wrong?
The part where the guy throws his hands up in frustration and just sets all the planes to crash into each other while he wants to go home to see if his mother finished making supper, won’t go over well.
A person in my family found work at nvidea testing video cards that handled high def video. All he did was play games. He stayed with the company and was paid with stock. Now, he works as an engineer and has more money than he knows what to do with.
Somebody should upload the scene from Airplane II where the kid treats the aircraft controller’s monitor like a video game - with disastrous results…
One thing I think that gets overlooked with gamers is how skilled they are at lots of things moving very quickly on the screen, and making decisions based on how quickly they can process it. I tried watching my son playing a first person shooter game and I had difficulty following what was going on. Meanwhile, he wasn’t fazed in the least. Perhaps this is a skill that translates to ATC?
“So crashing planes into one another should be fun...”
And won’t they be surprised when the game doesn’t reset? People learning how to do work similar to ATC in their parents’ basement is not on a scale and doesn’t indicate the seriousness of what they will be doing. And having over 200 aircraft and hundreds of lives in the scopes and many different speeds and possibilities of those aircraft is well outside of playing MS PACMAN. They probably won’t be able to wear their cap backwards with the headset on, anyway.
wy69
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