The Importance of Air Traffic Controllers

Every day, thousands of planes fly through the sky, and most of us never think about how they get from one airport to the other safely despite the risk of collision, flying into storms, or getting too close to other planes. Aviation feels automatic, but the truth is that nothing about it is; the entire system depends on human beings we rarely see: air traffic controllers.

Air traffic controllers are the backbone of aviation; they are the people who keep the skies safe even when they are overworked, undercompensated, and unappreciated. The problem is that right now, the United States doesn’t have enough of them. A nationwide shortage has pushed many towers and control centers to operate at minimum staffing, with controllers working exhausting overtime hours to cover the gaps.

Training new controllers takes years, not months. Many retire early because of burnout. And every time the government shuts down, the pipeline of new controllers freezes. Trainees are sent home, classes are halted, hiring is halted, and current controllers work without pay in one of the highest-stress jobs in the country. Air traffic doesn’t pause during political gridlock, but the system responsible for keeping it safe gets weakened every time Washington stops functioning.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history finally came to an end on Wednesday, bringing long-overdue relief for federal employees. Many had gone more than a month without pay. Now that the government has reopened, they’ll receive their full back pay, money that many need to cover overdue bills that piled up while they were still required to show up for work. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that controllers would see roughly 70% of their back pay within 24 to 48 hours, with the remaining amount arriving the following week. Almost immediately, the transportation department noted a shift: far fewer controllers were calling out sick, a clear sign of how deeply the financial uncertainty had worn them down.

Movies about aviation can help reveal just how delicate the balance is. They remind us how quickly things can go wrong when even one link in the chain fails. In Freefall: Flight 174, based on the true story of Air Canada Flight 143, a brand-new Boeing 767 en route from Montreal to Edmonton unexpectedly runs out of fuel at cruising altitude. Captain Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal suddenly find themselves flying an unpowered, 80-ton glider with about 60 passengers on board.

What should have been a routine flight becomes a life-or-death situation. The plane’s fuel crisis began with just one miscalculation, but in aviation, one mistake rarely stays isolated. Landing the plane safely requires perfect cooperation between pilots, controllers, and the surrounding systems.

In Hijacked: Flight 285, a dangerous criminal named Peter Cronin is being escorted to prison. He takes over a commercial jet with the help of accomplices. FBI agent Frank Layton and detective Deni Patton are left negotiating with a hijacker who threatens to kill a passenger every hour until his demands are met. The tension builds not just from violence, but from the collapse of order when communication and control start slipping away.

This movie, although fictional, helps capture how quickly chaos can escalate while you’re thousands of feet up high in a plane and how essential communication systems and trained professionals are in keeping that chaos contained. 

And then some films bring the role of air traffic controllers themselves into focus. A Wing and a Prayer follows Shelley and Jack, a married couple who both work as controllers. After Jack takes a vacation to recover from a recent crisis on the job, the commercial flight bringing him home flies into a severe storm. Communication between the plane and the ground is lost while Shelley is on duty in the tower. 

These films highlight the fact that the aviation system works only because human beings keep it working. Not algorithms. Humans. Controllers who work long shifts, who maintain steady voices during emergencies, who catch mistakes before they ripple outward, and who protect millions of lives every day by showing up for work and paying attention. Movies tend to dramatize aviation disasters for entertainment, but they are also reminders of how thin the line between routine and catastrophe can be.

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