AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Air traffic controller often shows up on lists of most stressful occupations, and recent events haven't made things any easier - the government shutdown, when air traffic controllers missed two full paychecks, tragic plane crashes and near misses, and chronic understaffing. The Federal Aviation Administration is short more than 3,000 controllers nationwide. So what's the job really like? Emily Hanoka worked for the Federal Aviation Administration for nearly a decade, most recently at Reagan Washington National Airport. She left in June. She joins us now from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Emily, thank you for being here.
EMILY HANOKA: Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: You stuck with this job for more than nine years. What did you like about being an air traffic controller?
HANOKA: Every day was different, and the pace was always extremely fast, and that was something I really enjoyed. I left work and I could leave work behind me. And every day that I plugged in, every hour that I plugged in, the equation was different, and that was really exciting to me.
RASCOE: So what was the hardest part of the job?
HANOKA: The schedule - the schedule was definitely the hardest part. I think managing the schedule, managing home - and the hardest part was really just getting to work and being focused, being rested. Every shift meant that I was sacrificing time with my family. If I worked during the day, I usually left for work before anybody in my household was even awake. If I worked a night shift, obviously, I'm missing bedtime with my three kids, and I'm coming home and everybody's already asleep. So every single shift, for pretty much every controller, you're sacrificing some major aspect of family time.
RASCOE: I mentioned that you left in June. Why did you leave?
HANOKA: I loved being an air traffic controller, but the sacrifice with my family - we couldn't rationalize that anymore.
RASCOE: You were at DCA, though, in January when there was that American Airlines crash. That must have been hard. Did it change the job for you?
HANOKA: It absolutely changed it for me. I was not on schedule that evening. I worked a day shift the day of the crash, and I worked the following morning. But it really did change a lot from my perspective. It was really hard. A lot of controllers that were on the shift when the accident happened, I don't expect they'll ever return to air traffic.
RASCOE: You hear a lot from regulators and from different lawmakers about how the different systems at the airports need to be updated. They need to be modernized. What was your view on that? How did that affect you?
HANOKA: Yeah. So I had the privilege of working at three FAA facilities, and those three FAA facilities had varying degrees of technology. I started my career in Jackson, Mississippi, and the technology we were using there was incredibly antiquated. We got a technology upgrade in 2019 there, to a radar system that, when I went to my second facility, they had had since the early 1990s. So technology is very, very slow to implement across all of the facilities within the national airspace system.
RASCOE: There's been a lot of news or a lot in the news about understaffing at the FAA. How does that impact air traffic controllers?
HANOKA: It makes it more stressful. We also, I think, as a profession, have this sense of responsibility for the airspace. But for the past 10 years, when I got in the FAA in 2015, it's always been a staffing crisis. Staffing has not gotten any better in the 10 years since I've been a part of it. Controllers are taking on more and unfortunately not getting much out of it.
RASCOE: With the staffing shortages, what do you think could be done to get more people wanting to get into the industry?
HANOKA: I think there's a pretty good amount of people that want to join the workforce. The problem is, is how we onboard people. It's a slower process. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City can only take on so many controllers and train them per year before they go to FAA facilities for live training. I think what could be done, though, is maintaining the controllers that are currently operational. I think now I've seen more people walk away than ever before, particularly people with my level of experience - about a decade. People halfway through their careers are walking away.
RASCOE: I imagine that you fly on occasion with your family. Do you feel like it remains a safe way to travel or it will remain a safe way to travel if changes aren't made?
HANOKA: Oh, I absolutely believe that it is a safe way to travel. I stand behind getting on a plane every single day. The FAA does a great job of saying, hey, this facility does not quite have the staffing, and instead of making those controllers work more aircraft, they slow the equation down.
RASCOE: That's Emily Hanoka. She's a former air traffic controller. Thank you so much for being with us.
HANOKA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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