2,000+ gamers supposedly recruited for air traffic control work

Among the other sentence fragments that Duffy shared were: “2,000+ ‘best & brightest’ candidates in the pipeline — reaching the Academy quicker than any class before them, thanks to the most streamlined hiring process.” Duffy concludes the post with “We’re building the strongest, sharpest workforce in aviation history.”  

The fact that these people self-identify as gamers is not the worrying part of this. Gamers can have any job that they set their minds to. But the fact that Duffy is touting the streamlined hiring process for the people that make sure planes operate safely raises a few alarm bells, if you ask us. Duffy first announced this initiative back in April, meaning that if all of those gamers applied the day it was announced, they’d have about four months to get to this point. But, in a post from the Government Accountability Office published in January explaining why there was a shortage in the first place, training air traffic controllers required passing an aptitude test, a medical exam, and security clearance to get hired, followed by four to six months of training, then on-the-job training. As of January, it could take up to six years to become certified. 

Duffy doesn’t say that these new recruits are done being trained, just that they’ve been hired, so presumably (hopefully) there’s still more work to be done. National Air Traffic Controllers Association president Nick Daniels said in an interview yesterday (via The Hill) that it would take about three months to train the new recruits and said gaming skills “absolutely” translate to this environment. He also praised the “innovative approach to capture the attention of the American youth,” saying, “For far too long, air traffic controllers have been the people behind the curtain that you don’t really know about.”