Week One: President Ronald Reagan Fires 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers

    An event in the aeronautical industry that had a massive impact on me would be when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers in 1981.  This was  done in  response to those controllers  going on strike for the perceived harsh working conditions and low pay. I currently work as an air traffic controller and the firing of those controllers and subsequent hiring of new controllers paved the way forward for the air traffic controllers of today in a couple of ways.   First off, most of those controllers that were hired to replace the fired controllers are retiring right now,  opening those positions at the FAA up for new hires. This is turn has caused a continius under staffing at our Air Force ATC facilities as military controllers are leaving to work for the better perceived jobs at the FAA. One of the benefits of the firing is that there have been rules put in place limiting how long a controller can work and the required breaks.  

    I also had my own first had experience with Air Traffic Controllers going on strike and got to witness how it was dealt with by the government. It occurred while I was in the Baghdad working with the Iraqi Enroute (Radar) Facility, that provided the radar coverage for the entire country. While I was working there, there where two main groups of controllers, the local Iraqi controllers and the contract controllers, mostly from western countries. At some point in time negotiontons broke down between the Iraqi controllers and the Iraqi government on the pay descrepencay between them and the contract Air Traffic Controllers. I do not know the specific figures that were being discussed and will not wager a  guess, but from what I have heard it was a very substantial difference. During the strike the Iraqi controllers would sneak in and give the contract controllers breaks or bring them food. The rational was their strike should not make the contractors life harder since their issue was with the government and not the other controllers. Eventually the issue was resolved but, it was impressive to see how the Iraqi controllers were able to achieve  the balance between achieving their goals without hurting the whole countries aviation industry.