That's truly the double whammy. The steak and cake federal workers who will receive back pay for not going to work are also eligible for unemployment during that period, although they have to pay it back. It's a dumb rule that the essential workers should also be able to take advantage of.

 

I'm going to just toss it out there that the FAA, specifically the ATC operating arm, ATO, has the ability to self fund and insulate themselves from this partisan nonsense. The revenues from the aviation trust fund, AATF, funded 95% of the FAA operations and had a cash balance 18.14 billion at the end of FY2024. For FY2026, and I'm quoting straight from the FAA budget request, "The FY 2026 Budget request proposes $13.8 billion for Federal Aviation Administration Operations, of which the Airport and Airway Trust Fund would provide $13.0 billion."

Private aviation accounts for 7% of traffic ATC handles and accounts for .6% of the revenue the FAA brings in. If anyone in congress had the balls to tax fractionals, and private jet owners their fair share the ATO would be 100% self funded and dare I say, profitable. The president of the NBAA argued that “Contrary to the video’s unfounded allegation, the burden each aircraft places on the system varies greatly,” . I can tell you as an ex fed, a plane on the scope, is a plane on the scope, and gets the same separation regardless if they have 200 people in them or 3 people, the burden is all the same.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk on taxing the rich fellow comrades.

Source:
Trust me, bro and
https://www.faa.gov/about/budget/aatf
https://www.transportation.gov/sites...timates_CJ.pdf
https://aviationacrossamerica.org/ne...nding-changes/
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyl...er-next-decade
https://www.luxurytravelreport.com/a...ate-jet-owners
https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...lanes-faa.html

 

Not that simple...

"The authority to collect aviation excise taxes and to spend from the Aviation Trust Fund must be reauthorized periodically, most recently in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which was enacted on May 16, 2024. If the FAA's authorization were to expire without an extension, then the agency would be unable to spend any revenues allocated from the Trust Fund."

Could congress shred all FAA funding legislation, start over from scratch, and make it self-funded via user fees? Sure.

But the AATF plays a large role in infrastructure, which enhances the overall aviation industry. Due to legal complexities that process also serves to shield large-scale aviation interests and economics from local NIMBY activism, which is almost universally detrimental to anything and everything aviation.

 

To be fair, There's also the antideficiency act that would prohibit it. My point is if there was appetite for it, the ATO could be separated from the FAA and be continuously funded if they really wanted to. Instead it'll be leverage for politicians for the foreseeable future.

 

Yeah, it sucks for those involved, but Im just going to be cold here, throw spears, its fine, but they all knew this could happen when they took the ATC job; same as mil Guard/Reserve dudes/dudettes still jobbing it w/o pay, same as we all know we can be furloughed from our respective airlines as well.

Nothing is guaranteed. Be an adult and be prepared.

 

I thought the military got paid in a shutdown

 

Nope. Certain portions of the government do get paid because they appropriated differently, but 2/3rds don’t.

 

That’s 100% fair, there’s a good portion of controllers who are ex military that know the drill when a shutdown comes around, they have money saved up and can last a few pay periods without a check. Theres also a good portion of controllers that didn’t win the ATC lottery of going to a Z facility and ended up in VFR tower in a HCOL city barely making $70K. Can they live on that, sure, plenty of people make way less than that and survive, but it’s not easy.

The whole situation is ridiculous, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on. ATC and the ATO as a whole provide an outsized impact on the economy compared to what they’re paid, and the fact that they can go unpaid at all is a failure of government. Nobody joins federal service to get rich (unless you’re in Congress), but at the very least they shouldn’t have to worry about a $0.00 paycheck. Yes, they’ll eventually get back pay, but in the meantime the system suffers more with each passing day. The ATO and the FAA overall aren’t a burden on taxpayers they’re largely self funded, we don’t have to play this game every few months.

And to your point, yes, controllers know what they’re signing up for when they enter government service, just like pilots know there’s always a chance of a furlough that cuts off paychecks entirely. Atleast these days as pilots we have things like high pay, profit sharing, direct 401k contributions, and tons of time off that make the risk worth it in the long run. So What’s the incentive for controllers? FERS is 4.4%, 6 day work weeks, having to flip your body clock weekly. I mean, the “talent” the FAA attracts is only going to decline and it was already steeply declining when I left.

 

This is a master class on how to turn a sympathetic situation into a contemptuous one. The narcissism it takes to dunk on ATC controllers, working 60 hour weeks without pay, simply because you perceive you had it worse some couple of decades ago. Wow.

 

Not to mention completely short sided. Even if a pilot has 0 care if ATC gets paid or not, they have to atleast understand that the success of airlines and pilots are closely tied to ATC. Let say even if Boeing fixed the MAX issues tomorrow and started rolling jets off the line by the hundreds, what would happen? They’d just sit on the ramp waiting in a ground delay burning all those extra fuel saving or getting vector for lord knows how long because, no matter how many planes boeing and airbus push out or how bad united or delta want to grow, ATC arrival and departure rates don’t grow when we are 4,000 controller short of where we need to be. We won't fix that problem if we under pay controllers as it is, and if every few month they have to wonder if they're getting their paychecks on time.