The Controller

The Federal Aviation Administration announced this week that it is short thousands of air traffic controllers. Congress has noted that this makes flying less safe. The FAA agrees with Congress. The FAA has a plan.

The plan is gamers.

Specifically, the FAA and the Department of Transportation launched a recruitment campaign targeting video game players. Sean Duffy, the Secretary of Transportation, endorsed it. (Sean Duffy is the person responsible for the safety of American airspace.) The idea is that people who are good at games might also be good at managing the 45,000 daily flights that cross American skies without colliding with each other.

I am not making this up.

The FAA has not specified which games are most relevant. It has not clarified whether Call of Duty counts, or whether you need something more procedural. Flight Simulator seems like the obvious choice, but that may be too on the nose. (I looked into this. The FAA website does not list approved titles. I was not surprised by this.)

Air traffic control is one of the most demanding jobs in the world. Controllers must track dozens of aircraft simultaneously, manage weather events in real time, and maintain precise separation between planes — separation being the professional term for "the distance that prevents two planes from occupying the same space at the same time." The job requires years of training. It cannot be done on a couch.

The games, on the other hand, are mostly done on couches.

There is a logic to the FAA's thinking. Gamers have fast reflexes. They can process multiple streams of information at once. They are comfortable in high-pressure situations where bad decisions have visible consequences. These are also traits the FAA wants in its controllers. The difference is that in games, the consequences are visual effects and a respawn timer.

In air traffic control, the consequences are not visual effects.

The recruitment campaign did not specify how many controllers are needed. It did not explain how long training takes. It did not describe what happens during the gap between "person who plays games" and "person responsible for the skies over Chicago." Congress has indicated that this gap currently contains nothing.

The gamers have been notified. The skies are waiting to find out.