ET
这篇US air controller的新闻有助于了解这个工作的实质。工作60 小时/周，论资排班。
These Air-Traffic Controllers Are Leaving Their Jobs—and Heading to Australia
Dozens of controllers have departed the U.S. to take positions overseeing air-traffic in Australia; ‘everybody knows about it’
The control tower at Sydney Airport. DAVID GRAY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Chris Dickinson was stunned after he took an impromptu tour of an air-traffic control tower in Sydney, Australia.
Controllers there worked 36-hour weeks on average and seemed happy, rather than stressed. They had more weekends free.
“It’s absolutely disgusting how much better their lifestyles are than ours,” said Dickinson, who worked air-traffic control in the U.S. for 13 years and visited the Sydney tower on a trip two years ago.
Now he is one of them. Dickinson is among dozens of controllers from the U.S. leaving for jobs overseeing air traffic in Australia, lured by the prospects of a less stressful work environment.
Morale among U.S. air-traffic controllers has eroded, according to interviews with a dozen current and former controllers. Frustration has mounted over challenging workloads and pay that they say has lagged behind the rate of inflation.
January’s deadly midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and persistent technology outages have taken a toll.
And the recent government shutdown left them working without pay for weeks.
The Federal Aviation Administration has long struggled with low staffing levels in control towers and facilities. This year, the agency has offered extra pay to help entice retirement-eligible controllers to stay on, while raising wages for early-career employees and stepping up recruitments to the air-traffic-controller academy.
Australia isn’t specifically trying to poach U.S. air-traffic controllers, said a spokesman for Airservices Australia, the government-owned entity that manages air traffic.
Five controllers from the U.S. have fully completed its training process since September 2024, the spokesman said. In 2026, Airservices Australia expects to add 100 controllers to its ranks, 36 of whom are from the U.S.
Airservices Australia declined to say how many additional applications it has received from U.S. controllers. It currently employs just over 1,000 controllers.
“Qualified controllers are welcome to apply from any country,” the spokesman said.
The FAA has brought in 2,026 new controllers in the latest fiscal year, bringing its workforce of controllers and trainees to roughly 13,000, a spokeswoman for the FAA said.
“Departures to a single overseas employer make up only a very small fraction of normal attrition,” the FAA spokeswoman said.
The national airspace system faces a shortage of about 3,800 controllers, according to a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Because of the shortage, more than 41% of controllers work 10 hours a day for six days a week, the labor union’s spokesman said.
“It is understandable that morale is low,” said the spokesman, who declined to comment on departures to Australia. “During the 43-day government shutdown, air-traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals were used as pawns in a political fight that had nothing to do with them.”
Flying South
Airservices Australia manages 29 control towers across the country and has been accepting applications from foreign-based controllers since September 2024 under a labor agreement that allows it to sponsor controllers applying from overseas, the spokesman said. The current application period closes June 2026.
In its hiring materials, Airservices Australia touts a balance between work and leisure. “Whether you’re unwinding on gorgeous beaches, exploring national parks, or embracing a vibrant city life, Australia offers something for everyone,” the job description says.
Current and former FAA controllers say the Airservices Australia hiring effort is circulating widely through the workforce.
“Between Reddit and then word-of-mouth, I think pretty much everybody knows about it,” said Christiaan van Deur Jr., a retired air-traffic controller in Fort Mill, S.C.
Austin Brewis, 29, who worked at an FAA control facility in Elgin, Ill., resigned in September to work instead for Airservices Australia. He said he felt worn down from 60-hour workweeks, with staggered schedules that would have him starting and finishing work at different times throughout the week. Some controllers call this shift schedule the “rattler,” because of the way it can disrupt their sleep rhythms and negatively affect their mental health.
Austin Brewis went to Australia. AUSTIN BREWIS
“That grinds you down after years of doing it,” Brewis said.
Since FAA controllers bid for days off based on seniority, Brewis said he wouldn’t have been able to have weekends off regularly for at least a decade. As a controller in Sydney, he said he would be guaranteed some weekends off every year, since Australia has a rotating shift schedule.
Brewis had applied for the job in May and received an offer letter the first week of June. He had been earning roughly $145,000 in Chicago; he said his new job had a starting salary of 206,000 Australian dollars, or about $137,000.
In his training class of 10 people, Brewis said, eight were Americans, including two others from his former facility in Illinois. After the U.S. government shutdown began, with controllers required to work without pay, he said five U.S. controller acquaintances messaged him asking him about Australia.
Dickinson, who now works in Melbourne, said he and his wife were unsure at first about moving halfway across the world.
While he used to worry about anxiety or depression, he said those symptoms are gone. Eight months after leaving his FAA controller job, he has lost 20 unwanted pounds, he said.
During Thanksgiving, Dickinson and his family gathered with the families of two other former FAA controllers, from Albuquerque, N.M., and Denver, he said.
“Worst-case scenario, we can always come back,” Dickinson told his wife. “The FAA is always going to be short controllers.”