r/atc2

Next week, we will receive our annual 1.6% “raise.” However, no amount of mental gymnastics can change the reality of our economic condition. 1.6% is not a raise. Not when we observe what has happened to our pay over the past two decades.

For years we have been told to be patient. Trust the process. Collaboration will deliver results. We must extend. If we aren’t at the table, we’ll be on the menu. No amount of platitudes, clichés, or self-congratulatory messaging can change the undeniable truth:

This profession is moving backward.

There was a time when air traffic control was widely recognized as one of the premier careers in the country. It was a job that provided financial security, upward mobility, and the ability to build a comfortable life for your family. Today, that reality is slipping away. Controllers hired within the last decade face higher costs, diminished purchasing power, and fewer economic opportunities than the generation that preceded them. If you were hired within the last ten years, you are not standing on the shoulders of those who came before you.

You are standing ten feet behind them. 

For brevity, all values listed below are without locality:

In 2004, a CPC at the bottom of the level 12 ATSPP band was making $96,531 under the Green Book. Had that pay kept up with inflation, the same controller would be making $173,579 today. The bottom of the 2026 level 12 ATSPP pay band currently sits at $131,514.

A level 12 controller today is making over $40,000 less than would be required to simply maintain the same purchasing power that existed 22 years ago.

The situation is just as dire at the other end of the spectrum. Had our pay kept up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a CPC at the bottom of the level 5 band today would have a base pay of $91,607. It is currently $69,408.

To take it a step further: The median home price since the inception of the Slate Book has risen by roughly 72%, increasing from $235,500 in 2016 to $405,000 today.

And that isn’t even the worst of it.

In 2006, the FAA imposed the infamous White Book. A Level 12 CPC under the White Book had a minimum base pay of $74,950. Adjusted for inflation, that figure would be $123,016 today.

Twenty years after the White Book imposition, after countless promises that collaboration would restore what was lost, the minimum pay at a Level 12 facility is only $8,498 higher than the inflation-adjusted pay the FAA imposed on controllers during one of the darkest periods in our profession's history - 6.9% above the imposed pay bands.

We are currently living under White Book 2.0 pay, and you are being criminally under compensated.

After two decades, we should not be measuring our success against the White Book. Yet here we are.

Inflation has crushed our purchasing power. Housing costs have exploded. Healthcare costs have exploded. Childcare costs have exploded.

Virtually every major cost category that defines middle-class life has dramatically outpaced controller pay growth since 2004, yet leadership has extended our current contract twice without a vote.

Do not be fooled by the myth that locality increases, January raises, and June raises since 2016 have sufficed. They did not create substantial real wage growth relative to inflation, housing, or overall economic productivity, and don’t come anywhere close to getting us back to where we were over twenty years ago.

This profession is becoming harder to recruit for, harder to retain for, and increasingly unsustainable for the very people the system depends on.

Every day, air traffic controllers manage the flow of an aviation system that – according to the FAA’s own numbers - supports 9.4 million jobs, $1.8 trillion in economic activity, and drives 4% of U.S. GDP. The American economy recognizes the value of aviation.

Yet the men and women who make that system possible have spent the last two decades watching the career they were promised become less capable of providing the life it once guaranteed - a good home, financial security, and the confidence that hard work would leave the next generation better off than the last.

The current path is not sustainable.

Controllers are tired of watching the value of this profession erode while leadership continues defending the very strategy that is allowing it to happen.

We must fight for the pay we deserve. We must achieve real pay reform via legislative action. And we must deliver a modern contract that members will be proud to vote for.

Nicholas & Stephen

Asked what his top three accomplishments were he says the new CRWG numbers and getting more controllers into the workforce. Also how he plans on moving that further to even more. Well looks like he’s down to two accomplishments now, time to go east

Let’s take a reread of nicks victory email. Try and find all the lies it’s a fun game.

Let’s keep all those arguments up about how other people running don’t have experience though.

If this is what experience gets us give me someone straight out of the academy running this union.

I don’t understand how this is an update.

Also 4-6 weeks is now we don’t know what the ask
Is of when it will be proposed.

Well yesterday was interesting.

I’ll start by acknowledging that when you put your name behind your words - rather than hiding behind aliases like u/BarExotic2861 or u/UnitedCEO - you open yourself up to criticism. That’s part of the deal, and I’m perfectly fine with it.

What I can’t help but notice is that the same people who claim to be “pro-union” and routinely criticize the “negative voices” have no problem disparaging entire groups of BUEs when it suits them. In this case, TMU. Just an observation.

Parsing through this person’s crash out from last night, the only “lie” I’m supposedly guilty of telling concerns the Executive Orders. So let’s address that directly:

I have consistently stated from the beginning that I did not support the last extension. More importantly, the vast majority of members polled did not support it either. My point all along has been that a contract extension is essentially a new contract, and that membership should have the right to vote on it. I am pursuing every possible avenue to secure that right, including constitutional challenges and amendments.

While I have my own beliefs on how this union should operate, I don’t claim to have all the answers. In fact, I have repeatedly sought input from as many members as possible, as it is the job of any leader to act on the will of people they claim to represent. I do not have the luxury to travel the country on NATCA’s dime, and Reddit - along with our website - has provided a good avenue to collect that input.

Our problems go far beyond the most recent extension. Our economic condition has degraded to the point where our pay now sits just 6.9% above White Book bands. Housing prices have increased 72% since the Slate Book was signed. Childcare costs, healthcare costs, everything has exploded.

Meanwhile, status quo leadership extended the Slate Book twice without a membership vote. They made a series of decisions that contributed directly to where we find ourselves today, then tell members there’s no value in discussing the past. The problem with that argument is that the past is exactly how we got here.

Status quo leadership does not fight. They don’t negotiate. They collaborate and capitulate, to the detriment of our workforce.

When told we had to send 5-point emails every week in apparent violation of our CBA, NATCA capitulated. They even sent us templates.

When $10,000 bonuses were handed out to 300 controllers - a clear union busting tactic, at a time when the rest of the workforce was working 6-day workweeks without pay - NATCA offered no meaningful public opposition.

When the agency wanted to implement MOUs that gave money to AGs and those eligible to retire, leaving the overwhelming majority of the workforce out to dry, NATCA couldn’t wait to sign. As a dues-paying member, I expressed my contention to that decision.

And that is really what this comes down to.

You don’t have to agree with every position I take. You don’t have to vote for me. You don’t even have to like me. But the answer to legitimate disagreement cannot be to dismiss, mock, or silence the members raising concerns.

The reality is that many of the issues being discussed today are the same issues controllers have been talking about for years: Declining purchasing power, endless contract extensions, lack of accountability, and a growing disconnect between leadership and the membership.

If pointing those things out makes some people uncomfortable, so be it.

I am not running to defend the status quo. I am running because I believe NATCA can be stronger than it is today. A union should not fear debate, and it should not ask members to blindly trust leadership.

And a union should never forget that its power comes from the membership.

There are a few games very interesting in order to become ATC, but none is enough with this difficult job, so here you can find available starting on 19 June on Steam a new one, that help to develop multitasking skills, headings and audio task pretty similar that you could found in some official Test, I won’t lie you this game is difficult is designed to develop skills, if you can handle this you will have a successful career in ATC.

Here the link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/4745320/Radar\_ATC\_simulator/