I assume it the same that also allows for age cut off for military. If I remember correctly, I enlisted young, got out and no plan to go back. 32 is the age cut off to enlisting. Prior service gets like a 2-3 year extension. What is surprising is that the cut off doesn't match the military's cut off.
Wow, 41 for the Navy. Just looked it up and they bumped it in 2022. Thats insane. Looking at the article it must have had a previous bump or my memory isn't recalling right. When I enlisted in 2012, the age limit was 32-ish with 35 for returning prior enlisted. I couldn't imagine being 40 and being almost 20 years older than other recruits. [1]
I looked it up because I would have sworn it was 39 for the Army. Someone I know had (unexpectedly) joined during his last possible year. Also about 2012 or so.
Can sort of understand for military, totally don't understand for ATC.
Do other countries with substantial densities of planes in the air have the same age prerequisite, and in the ones that don't are their planes colliding any worse than in the States?
>Can sort of understand for military, totally don't understand for ATC
Seems rather obvious. You'll be trained on the job for some time, and then be expected to have a career at ATC for a decade or so at least. They don't want 40+ or 50+ year olds with slower responses and the gradual appearance of physical and medical issues starting to work there...
It's not like it's a job about thinking in an office without major consequences of a responce delayed 30 seconds...
We have to hold a medical certificate that is close to a Class 2. There are lots of medical conditions that if we are diagnosed with, or drugs that if we report taking, we cannot be controllers.
We are forced to retire when we turn 56. The 31 age cutoff is to accommodate that. We can retire at any age with 25 years of ATC service. By law we also cannot work more than six consecutive days, and no more than 10 hours a day. There are some facilities that schedule everyone for that maximum.
There is no stigma with calling in sick unless there's a pattern, even if it's just because something is bothering you and you don't think you'll be able to focus that day. However just like every other federal employee, we only accrue 1 sick day a month.
On r/ATC2, there is some saying we should get more sick leave than that, which I won't disagree with, but it wouldn't be sick leave, it would have to be called something else. I believe the nature of our job necessitates that we get more "sick" leave. I know other federal jobs can acrue other types of leave.
"Why do air traffic controllers have to be under 31 years old? The reasoning behind this is that FAA safety regulations require controllers to stop working traffic at age 56, and to receive a federal pension, you need to have worked at least 25 years.
By making the maximum starting age cutoff 30, all new hire controllers have the potential to do their 25 years and earn a pension prior to reaching retirement age.
Pro Tip: The one publicly stated exception to the 30-year starting age cut off is for former military air traffic controllers. These candidates may apply even if they are older than 30."
>The one publicly stated exception to the 30-year starting age cut off is for former military air traffic controllers.
This makes me wonder: what portion of America's ATCs are former military ATCs? I'm guessing it's fairly substantial, and without this convenient source of recruits (because someone who spent time in the military doing ATC now has a very convenient pipeline into a civilian job), the FAA might be forced into making changes.
It's similar for pilots: a lot of them are former military pilots, so they got all their training at government expense, and the industries that hire them don't have to pay for that. Pilots without a military (or police) background generally have to pay for their own training, which is extremely expensive, so not that many people do it, because these jobs don't pay that well to begin with. Without the military giving free training to all these people, a lot of industries in America wouldn't have such a cheap source of readily-trained labor and things would look very different.
I don't know how many actually did it. But a lot of the ATC Navy I knew planned that after their service they would just go civilian side. So I imagine it is substantial. Although, there is no telling, at least anecdotally from my experience how many actually follow through, or did 10 years of ATC in the Navy and decided to say 'screw that.'
