I don’t think Reagan’s strategy of firing them all and hiring a new bunch of air traffic really works in this day and age because the job is significantly harder than it used to be and the pool of people who can and want to do it is not much larger than the existing pool of air traffic controllers.
DuckDuckGo search assist (don’t have time to confirm accuracy) tells me there were 5,000 flights in the air at any given time over the US in 1989, and there’s are 10,000 at any given time over the US today.
I feel like an entire 1989s worth of planes is a lot, a quick search shows there were 11,000 controllers in 1981 and only 9,500 today, so double the planes for less controllers. Apparently the methods used for control have not changed much since the Reagan era as well.
I don’t think Reagan’s strategy of firing them all and hiring a new bunch of air traffic really works in this day and age because the job is significantly harder than it used to be and the pool of people who can and want to do it is not much larger than the existing pool of air traffic controllers.
How much traffic are now compared to that day?
DuckDuckGo search assist (don’t have time to confirm accuracy) tells me there were 5,000 flights in the air at any given time over the US in 1989, and there’s are 10,000 at any given time over the US today.
I was expecting a lot more grew.
I feel like an entire 1989s worth of planes is a lot, a quick search shows there were 11,000 controllers in 1981 and only 9,500 today, so double the planes for less controllers. Apparently the methods used for control have not changed much since the Reagan era as well.
They still use little placards on a tray to organize flights. It’s bonkers.
Systems are outdated AF, probably haven’t changed much
I’d guess there are larger planes than they had then too
Larger and maybe faster
Perhaps harder and stronger
Soo 3dB?
Yeah Reagan had a large pool of fresh Vietnam vets to pull from as scabs.