So You Wanna Be An Air Traffic Controller
Filed in archive Careers and Money on May 29, 2008
Forbes had an article last week about "surprising" six-figure jobs, or at least jobs where it's possible to make $100,000 or more, even if not everyone makes that much. Among the bigger surprises were casino manager, flight attendant, and farm manager. I don't know what was so surprising about a network systems analyst being paid well, though. Think of how much power these techies have - if the computer system goes down, does the CEO have any clue how to get it back up? Nope. Those guys/girls are priceless.
Anyway, one of the most interesting careers to me was air traffic controller. Where some of the jobs had top salaries over $100K but many people made less than that, air traffic controllers make $107,780 on average and the top 10% make over $140,000. That's good money.
So what does it take to become an air traffic controller?
According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, you have to get started before age 30. So if you're over 30, keep looking. (You have to retire as an air traffic controller at age 56, so I guess they won't hire you if you don't have the potential to work 25 years at the job.)
There are 14 universities that serve as foundations to become an air traffic controller programs. After graduating from one of them, you still have the Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Academy to contend with, then a whole lot of on-the-job training as an assistant before you're full-fledged. (It's nice to see that a lot of training is required here. I'll feel better next time I'm up in the sky.)
(Here's a simulator if you want to practice as a controller. I have no idea how it works.)
So it's not exactly a breeze to become a controller. Which is probably why they get paid so much. (Not to mention the stress. Did you ever see Pushing Tin?) But if you're looking for a career path with good money and early retirement, there you go.
Permalink: So You Wanna Be An Air Traffic Controller
Tags: jobs controller traffic 2007 would traffic+controller wanna+traffic would+never
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Vote for So You Wanna Be An Air Traffic Controller:
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Rating: 7.22 out of 9 vote(s) cast.
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Response from:
John
(05/29/08 7:33pm)
Response from:
Jimmie
(05/30/08 12:14am)
I bought into this in 2005 when I gave up another lucrative career and earned a degree I was told would be necesary to get this job. Today, I am tens of thousands of dollars poorer, while the FAA has cut the pay dramatically and eliminated the need for a degree to get hired (you can imagine my rage.) Before you jump on this bandwagon, consider that these high figures are inflated by a very senior work force, working in the highest cost-of-living areas in the country. If $40 thousand a year in New York City sounds newsworthy, by all means, apply.
Response from:
jay
(05/30/08 5:19pm)
Might be a job to consider if ATCS ever get a contract, are given the "right" to strike or, protection for their jobs as Title V used to give. See faafollies.com for more detailed info.
Response from:
Paul Cox
(05/30/08 5:55pm)
I've been an air traffic controller for over 17 years. I routinely tell people asking about it or considering it "don't do it".
I wouldn't take this job again for what I make NOW, let alone the new pay scales (which are not yet reflected in the Forbes article's numbers- those numbers came from the Department of Labor from previous years and don't show the 30%+ pay cuts that the FAA implemented.)
The hours suck, years of working weekends and evenings and overnight shifts play havoc with family life, you can't get a day off unless it's scheduled months in advance as vacation time, and the FAA believes that controllers- working in dark radar rooms or control towers segregated from the public eye, guarded by armed security people- need a dress code to do their jobs better.
Which brings me to the only redeeming part of being a controller- the job itself. We're a weird breed; even those of us who hate our employer (a majority of us these days) and can't stand the BS that comes with working for the FAA tend to love the actual job.
Plugging your headset in and moving metal around the sky, jets pointed at each other with closure rates of over a thousand miles an hour, hundreds of lives at stake if you say "left" instead of "right" and don't catch your own error- for whatever reason, the job itself can be an awesome rush and a ton of fun.
And yet... thanks to the FAA's (and Bush Administration's) war on its own employees and on unions, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to take this job. You won't make over a hundred grand for years (controller trainees start out at under 9 bucks an hour for several months) and even if you are lucky enough to be placed in a higher-level facility (almost two-thirds of the facilities in the nation have pay scales that top out around 85 thousand now- and that's after decades of work) the odds of getting through the rigorous training program are quite low.
Nope. Plugging in and working traffic? Good gig. Working for the FAA for what they pay and put you through? Not worth it, not even at $150K a year, which you'll never make.
The only reason most of us stay is that we're just a few years from retirement and can walk away with a healthy pension. We've sank this much time in; might as well finish it off now.
I wouldn't take this job again for what I make NOW, let alone the new pay scales (which are not yet reflected in the Forbes article's numbers- those numbers came from the Department of Labor from previous years and don't show the 30%+ pay cuts that the FAA implemented.)
The hours suck, years of working weekends and evenings and overnight shifts play havoc with family life, you can't get a day off unless it's scheduled months in advance as vacation time, and the FAA believes that controllers- working in dark radar rooms or control towers segregated from the public eye, guarded by armed security people- need a dress code to do their jobs better.
Which brings me to the only redeeming part of being a controller- the job itself. We're a weird breed; even those of us who hate our employer (a majority of us these days) and can't stand the BS that comes with working for the FAA tend to love the actual job.
Plugging your headset in and moving metal around the sky, jets pointed at each other with closure rates of over a thousand miles an hour, hundreds of lives at stake if you say "left" instead of "right" and don't catch your own error- for whatever reason, the job itself can be an awesome rush and a ton of fun.
And yet... thanks to the FAA's (and Bush Administration's) war on its own employees and on unions, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to take this job. You won't make over a hundred grand for years (controller trainees start out at under 9 bucks an hour for several months) and even if you are lucky enough to be placed in a higher-level facility (almost two-thirds of the facilities in the nation have pay scales that top out around 85 thousand now- and that's after decades of work) the odds of getting through the rigorous training program are quite low.
Nope. Plugging in and working traffic? Good gig. Working for the FAA for what they pay and put you through? Not worth it, not even at $150K a year, which you'll never make.
The only reason most of us stay is that we're just a few years from retirement and can walk away with a healthy pension. We've sank this much time in; might as well finish it off now.
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The FAA cut pay for air traffic controllers by 30% in September of 2006. Go see http://faaimposedpayrules.natca.net/paybands.htm
and understand that only the most senior controllers in the most complex facilities will make more than 100k in base pay now.
As a controller myself, the current pay is simply not worth it to perform the job.