Originally Posted by
notEnuf
No they can't. The spool up for local controllers takes years even with job experience. No military have ever worked in a center facility either.
They managed to pull it off when Regan fired 11,000 controllers, some of the replacements were military. It might be worse this time around though with the much higher volumes of traffic and the fear factor it would instill in the remaining controllers.
Whether it's ATC or TSA that has mass sick calls, it'll be a **** show when it happens, and it's coming.