Security experts are 'losing their minds' over Trump's latest plan to solve FAA staffing crisis

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Independent

Wednesday 16 July 2025 17:22 EDT


Despite the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy and mass deportation plans, one government agency is looking to recruit from overseas, and security experts are said to be “losing their minds” over the prospect.

The Federal Aviation Administration is studying the possibility of recruiting air traffic controllers from foreign countries, according to a document seen by The Atlantic.

“The FAA is facing significant air traffic controller staffing shortages, and to address this issue, is exploring the idea of recruiting experienced international talent,” states a three-page executive summary of the initiative.

“However, this approach must be carefully managed to ensure that the FAA’s high standards for safety and procedures are upheld,” it adds, acknowledging the need to “balance the critical areas of safety, training, national security, and immigration law to create a sustainable and effective workforce strategy for the FAA.”

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-air-traffic-control-jobs-b2790441.html

[AZJonnie]

1. Ummm, yeah ... I kinda wonder if anyone has actually clued Trump himself in on these particular plans

I think Trump would rather have planes falling from the skies than to admit the USA needs to "recruit foreign talent" to keep that from happening.

[NJCher]

2. Lol

As if any “international talent” would come to a place where ICE could smash into an aviation tower and haul off a controller in the midst of a takeoff or landing.

Urm….. back to the drawing board..

[democrank]

3. Another brilliant idea from the Let's Destroy America Committee

Such fine patriots these folks are

[Norrrm]

4. Trump's violent immigrants taking American jobs....... Oops! Got caught up in republican 'patriotism'.

Sourced through Trump's corporate pals of course.

[OldBaldy1701E]

5. Yeah.

Anyone who decides to take them up on this offer gets what they deserve.

I don't see anyone buying into anything they can say that would remove the fear of being treated like they are treating 'foreigners'.

But, thanks to the inroads we have made in forcing the world to be as capitalistic as we are, money talks and it may talk loud enough to drown out the reality of the situation.

[ratchiweenie]

6. Isn't the testing and training to become an air traffic controller extremely exacting. Are the foreign hires going to

need to undergo the same testing and training? I doubt most of them want to go through that even if they already were trained in their countries. I mean, American rules and regs may be different than what they know.

[Bayard]

7. Depends on just how desperate the FAA is

trump would probably just relax the standards.

[mdbl]

8. I try not to make sense out of nonsense.

[Hekate]

9. AFAIK America was once the gold standard for air traffic control training. Trump is fool's gold.

Fool’s gold all the way.

[Doctoris Extincti]

10. Worth recalling is that one of the causes for the current shortage is that a large age-cohort of controllers is retiring

Since they were all hired at the same time in starting in 1981 when President RayGun fired over 11,000 striking ATC workers. He also banned them from any Federal job for life. At the time there were about 14,000 line-controllers (as I recall)

It was a disaster for the controllers union (which was decertified by Labor Relations Board). It was a very difficult time for those of us who were pilots at the time. Many of us feel that the level of access NEVER actually recovered from this. It took many years before ATC reached the same level of professionalism as that prior to the firings. However ATC emphatically DID achieve this

Now these folk are all timing out at the same time. GOP decisions are a Gift that Keeps on Giving

[FakeNoose]

11. Bingo - those post-Reagan AT controllers are ready to retire, or they've already quit

Now who will train the new AT controllers coming up?

It would be very expensive to hire already-trained controllers from other countries. Why would they want to come HERE? They'd have to be crazy! Even if some do decide to come here, they'll need to be re-trained. And it will take a lot of money to move entire families here, get their kids settled in schools, get their spouses suitable employment, etc. Stuff like this takes years to set up.

The easiest and cheapest thing to do is get rid of Chump, and leave the FAA alone and let them do their job.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. "one of the causes for the current shortage is that a large age-cohort of controllers is retiring" - *NO*

ATCs have a "mandatory retirement" age of 56, so who you are talking about hired in 1981, would have been 12 years old when hired to be leaving now en masse, at age 56..

That big 1981 layoff was 44 years ago.

Many of the replacements back then were pulled from the military as there were obviously ATCs in the various branches. But they also left when they hit age 56.

There has been an effort to raise the retirement age to 61 (without needing the waiver hoop jump) - Duffy to allow exemptions to extend retirement age for air traffic controllers

And per the above (since they are a special category of fed), they can retire at 50 with 25 years of service and I expect many roll out then.

[ConstanceCee]

13. And Don't Forget

Wasn't an English language exam proposed for long-distance truck drivers because they drive heavy trucks down Interstate highways at high speeds?