FAA tees up $875M AI tool to help manage air traffic congestion

So a quick search suggests air traffic controllers make around $75,000 annually. $875 million would pay the salaries of 11,666 air traffic controllers for a decade at that wage.

Even considering inflation, training, medical, etc that $875,000,000 could pay for thousands of hired Amemricans for a decade. Republicans are literally the worst.

$75,000 annually

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports about double that as the median pay ($148,080).

I still agree with the rest of your math and think the investment is worth it, but just clarifying the number.

the other issue is aparently it’s hard to get people to do that job.

I do believe its considered top 2 most stressful jobs, not hard to see why

I was listening to live ATC broadcast this evening for O’Hare ground control.

Jesus tapdancing Christ, no idea how they do it.

All you hear is a steady stream of instructions like “j1234, approach 10L and hold, then sierra sierra golf tango tango alpha” which are “directions” for pilots to taxi to a gate.

They are ripping them off at hyperspeed, no mistakes. The audio quality of some pilots is just terrible but somehow they know wtf they said. They have dozens of planes on the ground at a time, organizing the chaos of them all without blinking. In the hour I listened, I heard one dude doing it all, though I think there are two different ground controllers.

Planes blocking taxiways, pilots misunderstanding instructions, someone is taking too long to push back from the gate and they’re making changes and adapting on the fly.

Holy shit y’all.

Listen for yourself and try to figure it out. Audio: www.liveatc.net/play/kord1n2_gnd_in.pls Ground mapd: www.flightaware.com/resources/airport/ORD/…/pdf

Good luck.