In a million to one situation, if you are the one, the odds don't mean a GD thing

This is 100% correct. CISM debriefings can help, but you can't "unsee" what you saw and you can't "unlive" what you lived through. Loss's of seperationg have been the end of many ATC careers. Dealing with an emergency, even ones with a good outcome, can cause untold stress. And it is a cumulative effect...

Cheers

Those ATC folks were "rock stars" under those circumstances ...

Cheers Jeff.

I think shift work is another factor regarding burn out and extending the 56 mandatory retirement.
At many 24 hour facilities controllers work 40 hours a week on rotating shifts.
Many studies have shown the best rotating shift schedule would provide the greatest time off between shifts.
Here was my schedule.
Controllers are required to have minimum 8 hours off between shifts.
Rotating shift work can be very fatiguing.

Weekends off due to my seniority.
Monday 4pm to 12am
Tuesday 2pm to 10pm
Wednesday 7am to 3pm
Thursday 6am to 2pm
Friday 12am to 8am
Doable for a young person less so for an older person.

FAA knows this compressed work week was hard on controllers.
We would get surveys occasionally with questions like after your 12am to 8am midnight shift have you every been in a car accident leaving the atc facility?
Funny can’t drive safely but just worked the 3am air freighter arrival rush.

No one does this but it was suggested.
Say you had seniority and were fortunate to have weekends off, if so this was a schedule that studies found had the greatest time off between shifts and would be best for controller health.

Off Saturday
Off Sunday
Monday 12am to 8am
Tuesday 6am to 2pm
Wednesday 7am to 3pm
Thursday 3pm to 11pm
Friday 4pm to 12am.
So your weekend would start Saturday 12am and end Sunday at midnight.

On top of that half hour lunches so if you went out for lunch you had to drink fast. lol

Big part of the problem is the ancient computers they are using to run the system.

Seems like there was an evil, childish demon who was doing something about this 5 or 6 years ago, then the grown ups took over.

We run a 17/11 rotation twice every 56 days. We are trying to got back to the 5/4 we had 20 years ago.

But we "short change" as well. And we are so short staffed that the operation can only function when 60+% of the staff work the maximum amount of overtime every 56 days, which is an additional 112 hours. Many work 8 on 1 off, and/or have multiple 12 hour shifts in work cycle to help out.

We have new "fatigue rules" for our working schedules. But they are not followed. It is actually a bit of a joke...

I work very little OT, and am fine with it. Some guys/gals love the extra cash.

Cheers

Since some of you guys have intimate knowledge of the ATC world - would this problem of handling aircraft not be an opportunity for the application of AI? It seems AI could much better process all the variables at the same time and really aid the human controllers.

I know there are horror stories of AI applications going awry, but we use it here in situations where humans really struggle (trying to process lots of data real-time) and it is a surprisingly good tool. I wouldn't advocate for eliminating the human ATC presence - just augmenting.

On Monday evening, there were as few as three air traffic controllers at a Philadelphia radar center scheduled each hour to guide planes that were flying into and out of Newark Liberty International Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

That's despite a target of 14 air traffic controllers for that time period, per an agreement between the FAA and the air traffic controllers union, The New York Times reported. NPR has not independently confirmed that report. The FAA did not reply to NPR's question about the agreement, and the union did not reply to multiple requests to comment.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/13/nx-s1-5396838/newark-airport-three-radar-controllers-monitored-airspace-faa

I avoided it too.
Sucked half of the OT would got to taxes.

You still working traffic Jeff?
Eligible for retirement now?
Retirement at 50 is only a perk if you use it. :)
17 years retired this month.

LOL ... there is profound wisdom in this quote!

17 for me too... this month ;)

No ATC stress tho'.... Fitty = Adios for sure...

Congratulations!
That was tough when the meltdown happened a few months after we retired.
We live under a 10 mile right base so can still watch and hear the SAN arrivals. lo

FAA needs to hire like they did after the PATCO strike.
They hired thousands in a short time. Me included, 2 weeks out of the Navy was working for the FAA .

What facilities did you work at?
There have been a few atc post here.
4 year Navy atc 26 year at SAN tower atc.

Cheers

No, no, no ... you guys are skilled .... I was just an IT geek in corporate america ;).

LOL .... Weren't you Sandy Eggo?