Headline: halted Text: briefly
This happens all the time.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
598 points (99.7% liked)
News
32953 readers
2931 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Those Epstein files must be really bad.
Here we go. Now shit is getting real for the white collar people.
how billionaires and millionaires travel if all airport shut down?
Mad Max-esque convoys.
If ATCs strike right now, what could they even do? They can't possibly bring on enough scabs to do the job. If they tried, it'd be a disaster and ensure US air travel dies.
Hey, Air Traffic Controllers! You have immense power right now!
I'd be willing to bet on trump speculating in the next few days that we should get AI to do their jobs.
While I'm sure you're being facetious, if that ever happened that would be the last time I step into a plane.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
If they strike trump will probably do what reagan did and fire all 10,000+ ATC employees and replace them with military ATC.
There are less than 3k Air Force ATC (AFSC code 1C1). I couldn't find how many Navy Air Corps ATC there are, but since it's a bit smaller than the Air Force, we can guess around 2k.
There are 13k civilian ATC, and that's at anemic levels as it is. They can't possibly replace these people.
Reality has a way of dealing with consequences on its own.
Something to note, some AF ACT operations can be contracted out. This means that even the AF doesn't have enough even for its own operations, and that number probably reflects the available number of 'wartime' operators available.
Also, the military operates under a huge umbrella of tasks, where a 1C1 wouldn't 'just be' ACT - that would be your 'wartime' job (specifically when you first enter), and you are ever becoming more generalized to handle a broader scope of tasks and responsibilities. If every 1C1 were used, you'd lose a lot of managers, support, training and etc to put people who are 1C1 who may not have done ATC work in years. Think First Sergeants and the like, they could do it - but you'd lose someone who has the knowledge of all 1C operations and go back to just doing ATC. That's a heavy ask.
So the outlook is even worse than you suggest.
its also heavily (naturally)gatekeeped job, mainly because of the requirements of becoming one, plus the competitiveness to get the jobs, and first you have to get intoa program to become an atc.
Every service has a large air component so even if they each only have 2k that’s 9000 atc right there. Even with a lean roster they can shutdown airports and keep important corridors open.
These aren’t smart people in charge. They don’t care if the military ATC get even more burned out since they can’t quit like civilians do.
Don’t assume trump and his ilk will do the intelligent thing, they will always do the capricious vengeful thing.
Don’t assume trump and his ilk will do the intelligent thing, they will always do the capricious vengeful thing.
As I've been trying to get at, that's irrelevant. No, pulling military ATC does not work. 9k isn't enough when 13k is already anemic. And what are the military air installations supposed to do without ATC?
Shutting down airports only highlights the problem. The airlines won't survive that for long. Everything they could possibly try has natural consequences. It's not a court imposing an order. It's not congress finding its spine. It's reality.
Edit: is there even a single military airport more complicated than Chicago Midway? Running a major hub may well be outside their training.
load more comments
(12 replies)
I can't comment on the number of military ATC, but I am familiar with civilian ATC operations. Military ATC cannot replace civilian ATC in many areas, especially not the sequence rates they do. The airspace is extremely complex near places like NYC. It requires months of training, with only the most experienced of ATC getting hired into those areas
They would need several military controllers to replace even a single center controller, and that's after months of training
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
The federal government could easily say to the strikers: Get back to work now, or you go to jail
It is illegal for ATC to go on strike, and the punishment can include jail time. Likely most would capitulate
OK, they go to jail.
If they hold out, the government really has nothing they can do.
Solidarity. Solidarity. Solidarity.
In theory, that's true. In practice, most people aren't willing to risk jail time
Consider what happened with controllers under Reagan. Nearly all went on strike. Of those that went on strike, there were 2 groups: Those that crossed the line and went back to work when ordered, and those that held the line in solidarity
Those that crossed the line were allowed to keep their jobs. Those that didn't were immediately fired and barred from ever working for the federal government again. That effectively meant their career was over. They could never work as an air traffic controller again. Jail is an even bigger threat than that
It's more or less a literal prisoner dilemma, except we have a historical precedent for it. I think it's incredibly shitty, but realistically I don't see it working
This isn't the same situation. ATCs just can't be replaced this time. Reagan showed why that's an incredibly bad idea, and the repercussions of doing it again would destroy the civil air transport system.
So yes, they can arrest them if they like or bar them from becoming ATCs again. The situation remains that air travel won't exist anymore.
load more comments
(3 replies)
They can quit. They are not slaves.
Not really, no. Just ask those who got fired by Reagan.
That didn't work out as well as Reagan thought it would. And has been fucking up our air travel situation for the last 40 years. To do it again would literally kill air travel in the country for the next 30 years. People would literally stop flying.
Edit: to be clear, I'm not saying this isn't going to happen. Trump is a fucking moron who thinks of himself as the second coming of Reagan. So he will 100% happily fire all of the traffic controllers we have if they even breathe the word "strike". I'm just outlining what a god-awful fucked up future we have in store for us.
To do it again would literally kill air travel in the country for the next 30 years. People would literally stop flying.
From a climate perspective, that would be fantastic.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(6 replies)
Which caused domino effects that are still being felt. They can't do that again. There simply isn't anybody they can hire.
I keep hearing/seeing people say "they can't do that..." Then they do it with no repercussions.
It has nothing to do with anyone imposing consequences. There simply is no way to hire people for this job to replace what's already there. They can't even backfill turnover from retiring ATCs. Reality takes care of this on its own.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(10 replies)
No way am I flying in US airspace. This is just the latest in a series of major issues.
load more comments
(4 replies)
unrelatedly, I think trump should take even more flights right now
We're proceding very quickly to the find out phase. Republicans can stop this any day by changing senate rules or even forcing chuck schumer to speak for 48 hours instead of allowing a silent fillibuster. Schumer wouldn't last very long on a podium.
My guess is they don't want a real fillibuster because people would just read the republican budget out loud.
Anyone that says fire striking ATC's like Reagan did in the 80s. The 90s was when cheap domestic and international flights really took off along with businesses going international going full bore. Compared to the 80s, the economy is far more dependent on air travel and that disruption to shipping activity is what would end the shutdown.
A lot more ATCs are needed today compared to the 80s and the military shifted to less in volume but more expensive (supposedly higher quality that makes up the difference in quantity) military. Military ATCs don't have the numbers to replace regular ATCs
load more comments
(2 replies)
Just wait till holiday season!
But the upshot is that commercial airlines heavily fund Republicans. So if they start having issues, they'll start letting their Republican folks know about it.
My guess is the holidy season is when things start to ignite. That's when stress on the system hits the maximum, and when people start to realize that people who can barely afford food and shelter can't afford to do anything for the holidays. It will be hard to hide the recession at that point.
No. They’ll just get a bailout and we’ll go even further into debt.
view more: next ›