Watawattana

This is how it works in the USA, and every other normal country in the world. I've worked in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia; it's no different. The thing I don't really like is DEI folks getting priority over white folks due to quotas; that really has to stop, well done Trump for highlighting this. But if a demographic is not applying then I've no issue with someone investigating 'why', and maybe that group being targeted to attract more applicants. But the controller certification standard must never be reduced for anyone; too many lives depend on it. Especially relevant if the ANSP recruitment targets are not being comfortably met or more controllers are needed to handle airspace changes or to mitigate traffic bottlenecks.

Funny. I'm actually a Trump supporter. You're not a great character judge are you? Nor have you read my posts... 😆😂😴

So much politics, so little substance. Such a sad, deluded and uneducated person you are.

Doh! But appoint him they did. I respect your right to say this but for me that horse has bolted. He's here for 4 more years (give or take). And the Dems failed to put up someone capable of beating him, so I'd blame the Dems for Trump winning. That horse has bolted too of course.

I'm a horse. "Steady career growth and exciting love prospects await Horses." Sounds like more trips to Soi Cowboy are in order!! With the career growth needed to pay for that...

Possibly, yes. I'd like to know how much from the FAA budget was being spent on any initiatives or resources that do not improve the front line air traffic control service. Includes, but I'm sure not exclusively, DEI. A previous employer of mine spent a lot of money targeting a certain demographic as they were very under-represented in ATC. That demographic had the core skills to do the job but rarely applied. To me that was money well spent, to others it might be woke nonsense. There's a lot more to this than Trump's headline grabbing activities of course.

I'm sure there was a deputy...

There should be a standard that everyone has to pass. DEI or not DEI. No difference. Of course I'm not sat on the shoulder of every assessor to know if they set different standards for different people. I really very much doubt it as they know they'd be the one passing someone not up to grade, and the laser focus would come back to them if something went wrong. Edit: it's not a math exam where a percentage is easy to establish; it's down to the experience and judgement of the assessor on the controller's handling of the scenarios in front of them, be it on a training system or live. I don't fancy a controller getting 90%; that's one in 10 aircraft crashing😁. So there will be some interpretation and possibly some unintentional bias that exists in most human beings. And as most assessors are inherently conservative (they don't want a dud on their watch) it's likely the bias would be to fail someone who is close top passing rather than pass a potential dud. Operational controllers are regularly assessed too, at least once a year. The other thing is if there's an incident then that would be reviewed. If a controller has too many or has a really bad one then they can lose their licence to control at that airport. They can get deployed to a quieter airport or get fired. Again, if a manager decides to keep a controller who clearly isn't up to standard then that is on them (or the senior management culture that forces that manager to take no action), they'll get found out and they very well know that too. I'm pretty sure this incident will mean there's a deep look at the FAA's culture.

This is just noise. Utter rubbish. This would have no effect on a front line operational air traffic controller, like the one involved in this incident. If there are underlying issues that affected the controller or an incorrect level of resourcing that led to this crash then they started many years ago, and not under the Trump 2.0 administration.

Makes a change, albeit an unwelcome one of course, to terrorism being the sole purview of muslims.

I can't answer for thaibeachlovers. But I have over 30 years of direct experience in this stuff and can answer. Safety has to be first, last and at every point in between. It absolutely is normal practice to reduce the volume of traffic to maintain a safe level of service. I got some examples later of this being done well, and being done very, very badly. Keeping it basic, the safest air traffic service is one that has zero flights. Every air traffic movement added after that increases risk. Risks are mitigated through the use of systems, procedures and people. There comes a time when these 3 mitigations are insufficient. That is usually determined through modelling and the controller training, testing and regulatory monitoring process. This process is often held offline. On the training system scenarios can get designed to effectively test the controller towards breaking point (making mistakes, not mental breakdown), often well beyond the allowable sector capacity. So, when they pass their regulatory assessment 'live', they are at a comfortable and competent level, with capacity to keep things safe and to handle any situation that goes wrong (emergencies etc.). The training process 'should' weed out any controller not up to the job long before they talk to actual aircraft, and any live training should then further weed out anyone who is unable to jump from the training to the 'live' environment. This is why I believe the noise about DEI hires is bovine 💩. If DEI hires were allowed to control despite not being good enough then that should be a MASSIVE national scandal. No, a worldwide scandal. I cannot say what happened in the tower here, but the FAA acknowledged that staffing levels at the time were “not normal for the time of day and the volume of traffic.” I'm sure this will be a focus in the investigation, as will be the height of the helicopter, or why there doesn't appear to be a system available that gave the controller a very obvious and urgent warning of dangerous proximity. And many other things of course. Especially WHY traffic was not reduced to maintain a safe level of service, for example any arrogance that led the controller to think he'll be okay, any pressure on the controller to keep going so as not to upset the flying public or to keep the ATC revenue stream at full throttle or to break service level records. But, please note. This exact thing HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. Überlingen. https://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/Eurocontrol/Ueberlingen/Ueberlingen_Final_Report.PDF The controller was overloaded and it led to a mid-air crash. The controller got murdered by the parent of a child who died in that crash. But actually, the "why" the controller was overloaded was the key to this overload. The FAA will be very well aware of what happened over Überlingen, should have learnt those lessons and should have NEVER allowed a single controller to manage the workload that led to the crash over the Potomac. Going back to DEI. It might be that there was not enough air traffic controllers or the systems are not up to the most modern standards, I don't know. These 2 things cost money. Money doesn't grow on trees; the FAA has a budget. But if that budget is being spent on things that don't matter, e.g. DEI, then it isn't being spent on front line controllers, the best systems available and the training and procedures to make sure the whole ATC system purrs perfectly. I think the timing of Trump's comments was appalling, but the essence of what he was getting at has some potential to being a contributing factor in this. Now, back to the reduction the volume of traffic to maintain a safe level of service. This is extremely common in around the world, and it does happen in the USA, be it weather or peaks in traffic volume. But the most relevant item for my response is traffic reduction due to under-staffing. It has happened a lot. Recently at London's Gatwick Airport, the world's busiest single runway airport. https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/air-traffic-controller-staff-shortages-disrupt-gatwick-flights https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/gatwick-flight-cancellations-easyjet-air-traffic-control-b2609196.html The key quote from The Independent is "According to NATS, the air-traffic control provider that runs the tower, temporary air traffic restrictions are currently in place at the airport “in order to maintain safety”." NATS got a massive amount of 💩 for this but they put safety first, last and at every point in between. And nobody died. The main reason for NATS struggling on this was COVID, and that they couldn't train the required supply of new controllers to replace the normal attrition of older controllers (deaths and retirements). Hope this helps.

It's bean a while since I looked at such meatingless topic on AN. What nut wrote this? Does he have a pulse? I'll get my coat... 😆

I've been to Mainland China a few times, and generally had a great time. Paying for stuff is generally easier using an app like AliPay than cash, a VPN is useful so you can use the map and translation apps that you are used to, and a data plan is pretty much essential to help with these items just mentioned. I found some of the cultural behaviours a bit odd, like taking 300% of what someone can eat from the buffet, then wasting it 200% of it. Also doors not being held open and left to shut in your face, people on their phones walking around without a care for anyone else, groups of people walking on a sidewalk at a snail's pace taking all of it up and more selfies that you can imagine. But I've generally found people to be nice, friendly and helpful. The one exception was Sanya (Hainan island), where I did not feel welcome at all. But I worked out why in the end, on my last day there; the locals thought I was Russian. When I got over that the locals turned back into being the normal friendly people I've met elsewhere. Hong Kong is still an amazing place, but it is expensive and many people's opinion of the place has been stained by negative statements from politicians and the media. In some cases the negative comments have some basis, but are generally not or are hypocritical. Still one of the safest cities in the planet with great beaches and forest walks a short ride on the bus from the main city areas.

Yeah, agree, someone needs to disrupt the status quo. I'll watch how their other policies form over the next few years and ahead of the next election. Don't want someone to do an amazing job on one important matter, but screw up all the others. I'll be watching the other more right wing governments around Europe too. Plus, of course, DT.

It's a fair point. Not sure how to practically do this when all major UK parties are as bad at each other, and when I've no confidence in any of them getting a grip.

Says more about the people who voted her in that it does about her?

In the UK it was 💩 under the Tories and under previous Governments of all colours. I don't have confidence in it getting any better under the current Labour Government.

That's a good question. I know both of these countries reasonably well. Hong Kong is similar too. My view is that it's cultural. Families don't accept the poor behaviour of their teens, so reasonable crime-free behaviour carries forward into their 20s and beyond. The school system, family and the police all seem to (informally) work together well to quell the desire to steal and commit other crimes. The police and criminal justice systems have virtually zero tolerance to any crime, so the chances of being caught and charged are high. There are some downsides to this; teens are almost robotic-like (few critical thinking skills, lack of social awareness outside of their school friends). Reasons for that are a different topic for a different day. In Hong Kong, the fear of crime index is about the lowest of any city in the world. There is still some crime that is usually caused by foreigners (I include mainland Chinese in that). But the police usually catch them. There are Triads but most of the reported crime is between Triad gangs rather than on citizens. Stealing isn't a normal Triad/Yakuza activity.

If true and not just stupid politics, perhaps the word "hypocrisy" could be used?

Please don't blame the Police. They have political bosses who drive the priorities of the Police, and successive governments have failed to properly support society (family cohesion and mental health are only 2 examples), leading to people thinking it's okay to become a thief. Just look across the Pond at how a strong leader can change the priorities in an instant; it's not difficult. It just takes strength, removing funding from places that should not have it, and redirecting that funding to places that do. Britain is a failing state on numerous levels, and I don't see it getting better under Labour, and I have zero confidence in any other party's willingness to make those hard choices. Make UK Great Again! But MUGA doesn't have the same ring as MAGA... 😂 Sounds too much like mugger...

Might that coincide with the tea cupboard being full?

Yeah, definitely not clamps!

I'm sure Meta did a Business Case when offering this amount. I'm sure it made good business sense... 😜

Those 'visas' are boat shaped though.

Can we get Jeremy Paxman (ex-BBC interviewer) to run the show? He'd probably get arrested after the 1st show though. 😆 "Paxman became known for his forthright interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians. These appearances were sometimes criticised as aggressive, intimidating and condescending, yet also applauded as tough and incisive." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Paxman I'm sure there are good US or other country's alternates for the 2nd and subsequent shows.