Original subtitles

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!

I'm John Oliver, thank you for joining us. It has been a busy week.

We learned RFK's "MAHA" report on children's health

cited studies that don't exist,

eight giant snake statues appeared in Geneva to draw attention

to the dangers of, you'll never guess, snakes,

and Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" continued its way through Congress,

despite strong opposition to some of its cuts to programs like Medicaid.

Senator Joni Ernst was actually confronted about those

at a town hall this week, and her response was bold.

People will die!

Well, we all are going to die, so. For heaven's sakes.

For heaven's sakes, folks.

Saying "we're all gonna die" into a microphone

is already a pretty damning summation of Republican politics.

But her casual tone there also made it seem like

she might've just planted a bomb in that room.

Trump spent much of his week dishing out pardons to supporters,

continuing a trend that started on day one of his presidency,

when he pardoned over 1.500 January 6th rioters.

On Monday, he pardoned this former sheriff,

the day before he was supposed to report to jail,

on a pretty open-shut case.

It took a rural Virginia jury in the heart of Trump country

just two hours to convict former Sheriff Scott Jenkins,

a longtime vocal Trump supporter, of federal bribery and fraud charges

in December for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in cash

in exchange for badges for wealthy businessmen.

Prosecutors argued some exchanges of cash were caught on video

from people who paid to be deputized for the perks,

including to skip the TSA line, get earlier access to the Covid vaccine,

avoid getting traffic tickets, and in one case,

to help a felon get his gun rights back.

Now, you should know, it turns out those aren't real perks.

They're just things these rich guys tried to get

from flashing their new badges.

But I do love the idea that they think that it gets you whatever you want.

Yeah, you get to skip the TSA line, unlimited free entry to Six Flags,

early access to the Nintendo Switch 2,

a Hidden Immunity Idol to be used at any Tribal Council,

and late check-out and free continental breakfast.

And that is anywhere you want, by the way.

You could get a free continental breakfast at Old Navy if you wanted.

They have to give it to you. You're a deputy sheriff!

Trump's pardon attorney seemed to sum things up on Monday,

tweeting simply, "No MAGA left behind,"

something borne out by Trump also pardoning John Rowland,

a former Republican governor convicted in an election fraud case,

and Michael Grimm, a former Republican congressman

convicted of felony tax evasion.

Quick side note: he once threatened a reporter

who'd asked him about separate campaign finance allegations,

saying, "I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

Which is such a weird way to threaten someone.

Why was that your top-of-mind example?

If the category on "Family Feud" was "name something breakable"

and a contestant answered, "A boy",

Steve Harvey would give his signature confused stare for 20 straight minutes.

Trump's now pardoned or granted clemency

to most of the Republican congressmen convicted of felonies in 21st century.

But his pardons have also extended to his financial supporters.

Because last month, he pardoned Paul Walczak,

a nursing home executive who'd been convicted after allegedly withholding

more than 10 million dollars from the paychecks of the nurses,

doctors, and others who worked at his facilities,

using the money to buy, among other things, a 2 million yacht.

It's an almost cartoonishly evil crime,

making him an odd person to single out for a pardon,

although this week, we learned there was an extenuating circumstance.

The Trump administration pardoned Paul Walczak after his mother,

Elizabeth Fago, attended a 1 million per plate fundraising dinner

for the president's super PAC.

Three weeks after the dinner, the president signed the pardon,

getting Walczak out of an 18-month prison sentence

and a 4 million restitution payment.

It's true. She paid a million dollars for a dinner, and suddenly,

her son got pardoned,

and out of paying 4 million back to the people he stole from.

And the family seemed to implicitly acknowledge the quid pro quo,

posting this image of mother and son, MAGA'ed up, and captioned,

"'The righteous person faces many troubles,"

"but the Lord comes to the rescue each time. Psalm 34:19."

Fun fact: if you keep reading that chapter, Psalm 34:20 says,

"By the way, when I say 'righteous' I obviously don't mean people"

"who steal money from nursing home staff and blow it on party boats,"

"just so we're fucking clear."

It's oddly specific,

but that's what you get when you read the King James version.

And Trump still wasn't done. Because on Wednesday,

he pardoned reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley,

who'd been sentenced to 12 and seven years, respectively,

for some pretty flagrant misconduct.

For nearly a decade, the couple portrayed themselves

as glamorous self-made real estate tycoons

on the hit show "Chrisley Knows Best".

Prosecutors said their life was built on a lie,

calling them "career swindlers who have made a living"

"from jumping from one fraud scheme to another",

as they defrauded banks of more than 30 million dollars,

stiffing vendors and dodging taxes,

using the money on luxury cars, homes and designer clothes.

Yeah, these were some major crimes

committed by the stars of "Chrisley Knows Best".

And if you've never seen it, just know it centers around a couple

that answers the question:

what if Paula Deen had two kids that fucked each other?

The Chrisleys were pardoned

after their daughter Savannah made multiple appeals,

including appearing on Lara Trump's Fox News show,

and even speaking at the RNC, where she said this.

Justice, it's supposed to be blind.

But today, we have a two-faced justice system.

Just look at what they're doing to President Trump.

Donald J. Trump has only one conviction that matters

and that is his conviction to make America great again.

Okay, first, I think you're off by around 33 counts there, Savannah.

But secondly, it is brave for her to go out there and do that.

Not to suck up to Trump in an utterly shameless manner,

but to do it while dressed like the head of the PTA

who asked her hairstylist for the "electrocuted Nancy Grace".

That is the genuinely brave part.

And look, presidential pardons are conceptually a good thing.

They can correct gross miscarriages of justice

and spare one turkey a year from death in a cute little ceremony,

while a different turkey is murdered off-camera,

wondering what it did wrong.

But in a country where there've been many horrifying miscarriages of justice,

it is infuriating to see an administration pardoning

flagrantly guilty people,

just because they sucked up to the president or gave him money.

But I guess that's how it's gonna be for the next few years,

if you're a Trump supporter, you get to slip through the justice system

like you've got a FastPass to Disneyland,

and for everyone else, if I may paraphrase

Iowa's favorite junior senator slash-angel of death,

what're you all complaining about, you're all gonna die anyway.

And now, this.

And Now: Dagen McDowell Will Not Curse on Television.

Let her rip, Dagen.

Let her rip, you better be careful.

I'll just try to not curse on live television.

'Cause I'm trying not to curse. I'm not gonna curse.

I would curse, but it's 6:03 in the morning.

Clay, take it from here because I only have curse words.

I'm just shaking my head 'cause I'm really trying not to curse.

I'm trying not to curse.

I was gonna curse.

I'm stifling, because I don't wanna curse and get fired.

Dagen, have you ever gone to Times Square during New Year's?

Curse word, curse word, curse word, curse word, no.

My first curse on average is� happens at 2:46 AM.

I didn't have to give a flying flip what I look like.

What? I did not curse. I said "flying flip".

For more than a decade, Facebook hasn't given a flying flip.

They really don't give a flying flip. He doesn't give a flip.

Flying flip. We don't give a flying flip.

Stop giving a flying flip. Flippin' Foo Fighters concert.

I did go to an all-girls southern school for a few years

and you don't want to hang out with those bitches.

Moving on. Our main story concerns air travel.

Some favorite methods include planes, hot air balloons,

those old doohickeys that go chugga-chugga and then fall apart,

and of course, befriending the birds.

The safety of air travel has made headlines in recent years,

thanks to incidents like these.

10 days ago in San Diego, a Citation business jet

nearly landed on top of a Southwest 737.

In Austin last February,

a FedEx plane nearly landed on a Southwest flight,

both cleared for the same runway.

And this photo taken from a JetBlue cockpit landing in Boston

as a business jet suddenly pulled onto the same runway without permission.

Well, that is terrifying.

Planes should definitely not be landing on top of each other

and I say that knowing that there's a non-zero chance

Tom Cruise will hear and immediately greenlight a new "Mission Impossible"

to do exactly that himself.

I am not saying that he's trying to die on camera,

I'm just saying the only way Tom Cruise passes away peacefully in his bed

is if the bed is being dropped into an active volcano

to somehow save the "live moviegoing experience".

Now, while those stories are obviously alarming,

it is important to say, large, fatal commercial airline crashes

are extremely rare,

and commercial flying is still the safest way to travel by far.

And one major reason for that is air traffic controllers,

who, as this recruitment video points out,

are really the unsung heroes of the skies.

Millions take to the skies every day,

and behind their safe flights is a hidden world that few ever see.

Orchestrating a symphony of aircraft with expertise and precision,

air traffic controllers are the guardians of the air.

It's kind of an adventure from start to finish, your entire shift.

You never know what's coming your way

and that's what makes it exciting.

It's a fun challenge to me. The harder the challenge for me,

makes it feel like the greater the victory.

We think kind of three steps ahead

and then we have like nine backup plans to those three steps ahead.

Yeah, it's a lot!

Air traffic controllers have to be constantly vigilant.

It's not like a normal job where you start a task,

then check Reddit for a few hours, then go back to it,

but then it's lunch, then you start the task again,

but then you need a coffee,

then you get sucked into a conversation with fuckin' Derek,

so you vent to your pal Jeanine about how much Derek sucks.

Then you go back to work,

then you see Jeanine laughing with fuckin' Derek about something

and you think, "Wait, are Jeanine and Derek friends? Oh, shit."

Then it's 6:00 PM and whatever you had to do

really feels more like a tomorrow thing anyway.

Unlike that, air traffic controllers actually have to get shit done.

Together, they ensure the safety of about two million passengers per day.

But as you've undoubtedly noticed,

there've been signs that our system is under extreme strain,

like this story from last month about massive delays at Newark.

Monday's bad weather complicated

an air traffic control staffing nightmare that started last Monday.

After a number of system outages,

controllers' screens essentially went dark for up to 90 seconds,

losing the ability to track aircraft at a key facility

handling traffic in and out of Newark.

It was a breaking point for about a half dozen controllers

who requested trauma leave due to the working conditions.

Yeah, it was so bad, some controllers took trauma leave.

And I really hope they spent that time recovering

in a place more comforting than Newark,

very much the New Jersey of places in New Jersey.

That's not all. In January, a passenger jet and a military helicopter

collided near Reagan Airport, killing 67 people.

That happened just days after Trump's inauguration,

and he rose to meet the moment with his characteristic empathy

and poetic turn of phrase.

I guess the helicopter was high

and we'll find out exactly what happened.

But the odds, even if you had nothing, if you had nobody,

the odds of that happening are extremely small.

It's like, did you ever see� You go to a driving range in golf

and you're hitting balls, hundreds of balls,

thousands of hours, I never see a ball hit another ball.

Balls going up all over the place, you never see 'em hit.

It was amazing that that could happen.

There were a lot of mistakes made, and it should have never happened.

But regardless of that, it's amazing that it happened.

You know, it's hard to know what to focus on there,

the phrase "even if you had nothing, if you had nobody",

which sounds like a Tim McGraw song that'd play

during the credits of "Trolls 4: For Whom the Bell Trolls",

or comparing a deadly aviation disaster to a fluke golfing event.

Who among us hasn't been on a plane during rough turbulence,

wondering if the worst is about to happen, and thought,

"You know, this is just like when the president's hitting"

"hundreds of beautiful golf balls at one of his many high-class resorts."

"They almost never hit each other, and if they did, it would be amazing."

And while the investigation into that crash is ongoing,

the preliminary report suggested that, among many other problems,

there was a shortage of controllers that night,

with one person doing both helicopter and local flight control, combined.

And just two months later, there was another close call at that same airport,

after which it emerged that a supervisor in the tower

had been accused of punching another controller in the face,

leading the FAA to dispatch a team of mental health professionals

to offer "confidential stress management support" for controllers.

And all of this is bringing into sharp focus just how stressful this job is,

and how understaffed most facilities are.

While we'd ideally have over 14,000 certified professional controllers,

we currently have just under 11,000,

and apparently, 99% of air traffic control facilities in the U.S.

are operating below recommended staffing levels.

Controllers have been sounding the alarm about this for a while now.

At the end of 2023, it was reported that "potentially dangerous close calls"

"had been happening multiple times a week",

and some controllers argued that the overtime

they were being forced to work was a major safety issue.

We're tired of working six days a week. We're tired of working 10-hour days.

NBC News has obtained internal FAA documents,

first reported by The New York Times,

detailing controllers' own anonymous reporting of mistakes and exhaustion.

Among the entries, "Many employees can be observed sleeping on the job",

"If I had not been fatigued, I may have been able to recognize"

"the aircraft lined up for the incorrect runway sooner"

and "I pray no one dies due to controller fatigue."

Well, that's not great! If I had to pick adjectives

to describe air traffic controllers in charge of my flight,

"well-rested" would be near the top of the list,

along with "highly-paid" and possibly even

"erotically thrilled by the concept of planes landing safely."

As long as we get there in one piece,

I don't really care what the hand under the desk is doing.

When you combine all of that with the fact that air traffic control equipment

is shockingly outdated and poorly maintained,

it's frankly a miracle our system works as well as it does.

But we probably shouldn't be running it on miracles.

So, given that, tonight, let's talk about air traffic control,

the people who do it, the conditions they work in

and what can be done to help them.

And let's start with the fact that, in the early days of aviation,

air traffic controllers weren't really necessary.

Flights were rare enough that most operated during daylight hours

under the practice of "see and be seen".

But by the late 1950s,

air traffic control started to look much more like what we have today.

Flight 104 is on its way to Washington.

But the flight actually began 30 minutes ago,

when the co-pilot filed the flight plan.

Within 12 seconds after the flight plan is filed in the computer,

flight strips are being printed

for the Boston control center departure controller and his assistant.

The strip is placed in the proposed departure bay

well in advance of the departure time,

allowing the controller plenty of time for pre-planning.

Yes, the strip is placed in the proposed departure bay

well in advance of the departure time, at which point the metal bird

will take to the skies carrying a pilot, a co-pilot,

a team of stewardesses, and 100 alcoholic businessmen

who will make their jobs a living hell.

Back then, radar was used around airports,

but it wasn't used nationwide until a disaster in 1956,

when two planes collided over the Grand Canyon.

After that, Congress approved a major upgrade of the nation's airway system

and created the FAA to take responsibility for air traffic control.

And that led to the complex system that we have today,

where a plane flying across the country

will be handed off among a series of control facilities.

As a plane pushes back from the gate,

a ground controller taxis you to the runway.

Then, tower control handles the aircraft that are taking off

and on final approach, typically from the surface to 2,500 feet

and a five-mile radius of the airport.

Then terminal radar approach control, or TRACON controllers,

take over until the aircraft is at about 18,000 feet

and handed off to an en route controller.

Exactly. There is a whole series of handoffs

that you never really think about during a flight,

because they work pretty seamlessly, leaving you free

to focus on important plane questions, like,

"If I get up to go pee will I miss the snack cart?"

and "If that guy doesn't put his shoes on can I legally kill him?"

The answers, of course being, "Yes"

and "No, but no jury will convict you."

The point is, in buildings all over the country,

people are directing tens of thousands of planes each day,

which is a real challenge, and for many,

it's an exciting and fulfilling job.

Here is one former controller summing it up pretty well.

It is extremely difficult to explain to people

how fast you have to make decisions,

except to emergency medical professionals.

It's 95% boring and routine.

It's 3% exciting and routine.

It's 1% exciting and a little like, okay, this is not routine.

And it's 1% holy fuck!

Okay, first, I absolutely love her.

And second, we all have "holy fuck" moments sometimes, don't we?

For instance, a lot of people in this room now are probably thinking,

"Holy fuck, we could have gone to see Hadestown,"

"but instead we're listening to stats about air safety."

But when an air traffic controller says it, the stakes are clearly higher.

And one major challenge for controllers today

is that there simply aren't enough of them.

We've actually been short-handed for years now

and, as with so many things on this show,

at least some of the blame lies with Ronald Reagan.

In the early 1980s, as air travel was booming,

the air traffic controllers' union was pushing for improved staffing levels,

benefits and technology.

They backed Reagan as a candidate, he'd promised to deliver on that,

but once he took office, he failed to follow through,

and they went on strike. And in response, Reagan hit back hard.

You can't sit and negotiate with a union that's in violation of the law.

And their oath.

With those words, President Reagan told the air traffic controllers

to be back in the towers Wednesday morning,

or they'd be fired and face prosecution.

I don't care whether he fires us or not.

If he does, it's gonna take years to get controllers back in the field.

Yeah, it's not really hard to know who to root for there.

On one side you've got America's worst theater adult

treating a union of essential workers like a terrorist organization,

and on the other, you've got a certifiable daddy with a fresh bowl

and a mustache that you know tickles all the right places.

And Reagan wasn't bluffing, by the way,

11.000 air traffic controllers ultimately did strike,

and he fired them all, banning them from ever being rehired.

And that left some important legacies, including a massive,

panicked hiring spree of new controllers,

meaning that, two decades later,

there was also a massive wave of retirements.

The FAA has never really managed to catch up with hiring since then.

And part of the challenge is, air traffic control is a difficult job.

And because of that,

there are strict requirements even to be considered for it.

There are the obvious ones,

like you must speak English fluently and clearly.

You also have to be younger than 31 years old to apply,

demonstrate 20/20 vision or better in each eye separately,

have no history of any form of heart disease,

no high or low blood pressure, and no history of psychosis,

neurosis, or any personality or mental disorder

that demonstrates a potential hazard. And good luck with that!

Nowadays, we all spend 20 hours a day watching friends have fun without us,

the Pope is a Bob, the oceans are plastic

and astronaut Katy Perry is back on tour.

There is no such thing as a mentally healthy person anymore,

just someone who doesn't have good enough health insurance

to get a diagnosis!

Candidates also have to take an exam

called the Air Traffic Skills Assessment, or ATSA,

which tests their working memory, multitasking

and spatial awareness skills.

During one part, numbered balls fly across the screen,

and you have to prevent collisions by typing in one of their numbers,

while simultaneously solving math problems. It is hard!

And if that feels a bit like a video game to you,

the truth is, gaming skills are increasingly seen as a positive here.

Gaming skills is a big part of me being a controller.

You've got to pay attention to the map.

You're constantly scanning and watching what's going on.

You're memorizing maps and locations like they do in certain games.

I used the football game Madden to enhance my skills

to work the radar position that I was working.

Yes! Finally, playing video games counts as studying.

And good video games, too.

I'm not talking about the fake ones that they let you play in school

where it looks fun but turns out it's some bullshit about math.

No, thank you!

So, that's already a lot of steps to get through,

in fact, less than 10% of applicants

are accepted into the training program in the first place.

From there, candidates move on to the only FAA academy in the country,

located in Oklahoma City, where they train for months

on sophisticated computer simulations, but also on this.

In the first room that we were,

we were in what we call it the tabletops.

It's our low-fidelity simulation. The students will be in that room

roughly about three weeks into their training as a tower controller.

It's an opportunity for the students to learn priorities,

learn some of the basics that's needed.

Excellent. I love him clarifying that this simulation is "low fidelity".

No shit, Brian!

It's a bunch of middle-aged men playing with toy planes.

I know that is a serious training facility

teaching an incredibly difficult skill, but I also have to know:

do they make the little plane noises?

'Cause again, they're professionals at work,

but I would argue you should not trust anyone

who can hold a toy plane eight hours a day

and not at some point go�

That academy can only accommodate around 1.800 trainees each year,

sharply limiting the hiring rate of new controllers.

And the failure rate is intense, just over 30%.

But if you make it through, you get sent to an actual facility

for two to three more years of training,

and that stage wipes out about one in five of the remaining candidates.

And once you add up all the different ways people don't make the cut,

you realize that out of 1.000 applicants, you might only end up

with around 50 certified air traffic controllers at the end of a grueling,

years-long process. That is a 5% success rate.

It's like "Squid Game" if the prize of "Squid Game"

was to just keep doing "Squid Game" as a job.

Now, once certified, controllers are typically well-paid

and guaranteed a pension after working at least 20 years.

But reaching that milestone can be hard,

particularly as, as you've already seen,

understaffing has forced many into working mandatory overtime

and consistent six-day weeks.

And their options to deal with the stress of that can be limited.

For instance, if you want to take an approved antidepressant,

you have to step away from being a controller,

potentially take unpaid leave, and then be on a stable dose of it

for six months with no symptoms or side effects,

before being allowed back to work.

And if you go see a doctor

who finds you're not physically or emotionally qualified,

that can result in "separation from the service",

losing your job and jeopardizing your pension.

Consequently, air traffic controllers can avoid seeking help.

One sign of just how stressful this job is

is that there's a mandatory retirement age of 56,

in part because it was determined

the mid-50s were the ages in which burnout was likely to occur.

But the majority of controllers retire before they even reach that age.

Which does make sense.

You've already seen this is an incredibly difficult job.

It's certainly way harder than this job,

which is still managing to age me like a banana under a heat lamp.

So, it shouldn't be surprising that controller shortages

have continued to get worse

even as more attention has been paid to the problem.

Last year, despite years of ramped-up hiring efforts,

they managed to net just 36 new controllers system-wide,

as those efforts were effectively negated by attrition,

mandatory retirement and other losses.

And look, if it were just short staffing, that would be bad enough.

But controllers can also be forced

to deal with antiquated facilities and systems.

Remember that movie about how they kept track of planes on paper strips?

Guess how most towers still do it today?

For all the radar and computers they have,

the most essential tool for managing individual aircraft is this:

a plastic strip.

There's times where you could have 50 of those strips

and that's a way for us to keep them organized,

and it's a memory aid for us, so we use those all the time.

Yeah, they're using the same technology they had in the '50s.

And this isn't some charmingly nostalgic field,

like blacksmithing or magazine journalism.

This is fucking aviation.

And look, old-fashioned technology can be fine, so long as it works.

But the FAA itself has found

a lot of its systems are reaching a breaking point.

In 2023, it determined that, out of its 138 systems,

51 were unsustainable and 54 were potentially unsustainable.

The head of the air traffic controllers' union even said this month,

"We have computers, I kid you not, that are based on Windows 95."

And here is the head of the major airline trade group

explaining the situation to Congress.

It's not acceptable for controllers and technicians

to have to work with paper strips and floppy disks

to operate the national airspace system in the United States.

I showed these to some people in my office.

They couldn't tell me what they were, because they were under 30.

Right! Our technology should at least be up to date enough

that young people can recognize it.

And by the way, if anyone under 30 is wondering

what that thing in his hand is, let me explain.

In the old days, computers had little mouths,

and they were always hungry.

So, occasionally, you'd feed them tasty squares for breakfast,

and in return, they'd let you play "Oregon Trail".

That's pretty much how it worked back then.

So, clearly, we've let a lot of stuff slide.

A recent report found there was a 5.3 billion dollars backlog

of facility components past their service lives,

and that for many of its systems, the FAA is no longer able

to obtain spare parts, as product lines have been discontinued,

and manufacturers no longer exist.

The FAA has even admitted

it's resorted to buying replacement parts on eBay.

And that is clearly not where you should be buying critical equipment.

The only things you should be buying from eBay

are vintage Radio Shack swag

and discarded E-Meters from the Church of Scientology.

And sure, you are probably thinking,

"You can't get a real Hubbard Professional Mark VI E-Meter,"

"those things are super rare, and how do you even know it works?"

To which I'd say, actually, it very much does work,

you're wrong about that,

and I am currently measuring 12 and a half thousand ohms.

Don't suppress me. You're being suppressive right now.

Don't suppress me! I'm an amazing human being with untapped potential!

And as for the facilities themselves, they're not much better.

Many towers are now decades old and controllers have reported issues

like elevator malfunctions, meaning they've had to climb

hundreds of stairs to reach the top of the towers,

and bees and biting flies harassing controllers who were directing traffic.

A government report this year even included this picture

of a radar system at one facility being cooled by a rotary fan.

Which really puts the fan back in the phrase,

"the shit is hitting the�"

And frustratingly,

Congress pledged to fix these problems nearly two decades ago,

after controllers raised similar issues,

like blinding condensation at a tower in Puerto Rico,

black mold in Detroit, and a tower in St. Louis

dealing with the challenge of bats. To which I say, nope! Not at all!

The only tower full of bats I ever want to hear about

is Perky, Florida's actual bat tower that was built in 1929

in an effort to quell the out of control mosquito population there.

The idea being that a tower full of bats

would probably eat some of the mosquitos.

It didn't work, by the way, and I'll leave it at that.

Except I actually won't, because you should know

that the major problem was, there weren't any bats in Perky,

so to attract some, they decided to fill the tower

with "bat bait" that was just bat guano

plus the ground-up sex organs of female bats

and, according to the building's construction supervisor,

it smelled like "nothing else on Earth".

But now, sadly, we really do have to move on.

Except we can't, can we? Because you also need to know

that it's unclear exactly what happened next.

Some say the bats who came immediately left,

while others say no bats came at all.

Either way, Perky, Florida had a tower full of bat shit and pussy mush,

until they stopped filling it with that because the guy in charge of making it,

and this is true, died, and they didn't know how to do it themselves.

Which feels weird, because the recipe seems pretty simple to me!

The point is, not only should we be talking about that more,

it is the only thing anyone should talk about ever.

But, back in 2007, George W. Bush unveiled something

called the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen.

It was supposed to modernize air traffic control by 2025,

which is, and this is true, now.

So, obviously, that didn't happen.

In fact, a report two years ago found the FAA's budget for new technology

had actually shrunk since NextGen was initially announced.

And a lot of this is because the FAA is part of discretionary,

not mandatory, government spending.

Meaning it's vulnerable to being caught up in federal budget fights.

So, for example, that academy in Oklahoma City was closed

for most of 2013 as a result of sequestration,

and closed again in late 2018 during the government shutdown

when Trump tried holding the budget hostage

to secure funding for his border wall.

And it is really hard to plan for any long-term overhaul

when the money you need keeps getting pulled out from under you.

And when you take all of this together,

aging technology, and crumbling facilities full of people,

who are understandably burned out, it is just asking for trouble.

Here is a supervisor who was among those

who recently took leave from overseeing Newark's airspace,

trying to explain that in response to an incredibly obvious question.

Why is that a problem for air traffic controllers

to not have properly functioning radar, radios and backups?

Why is it a problem to not have equipment that works?

I'm not really sure how to answer that as that should be pretty obvious.

If I cut grass for a living and my lawnmower doesn't work,

that's a problem. And now I have to use scissors.

It's neither here nor there. But yes, equipment not working properly

would be a constraint that would cause issues for you, yes.

Okay, set aside that that man

looks like he's about to pull a quarter out of your ear on the Vegas Strip,

or like Santa moved to Miami and became a nightclub promoter,

that is a kind answer to an absurdly obvious question.

And you know he is a good air traffic controller,

because he somehow landed his answer there

safely without hurting that reporter's feelings.

So, what do we do? Well, there've been a lot of ideas floated.

Trump's previously suggested privatizing air traffic control,

though a congressional research report found no evidence

privatization would be superior to the system we already have.

More recently, his transportation secretary, Sean Duffy,

has been vocal about the need to increase air traffic control staffing.

Now, on the plus side, he has, among other things,

offered a pay bump to trainees, and continued plans started under Biden

to expand training beyond that one Oklahoma City facility,

which is a good idea.

On the downside, he's cosigned Trump's talk

about how problems at the FAA were caused by diversity initiatives,

tweeting, "We need the best and the brightest, not buzzword, DEI hires."

Which is both racist and utterly divorced

from any of the issues at the agency.

And while Duffy recently unveiled

a new plan for a brand-new air traffic control system,

standing at a podium reading "Brand New Air Traffic Control System",

and proposed to upgrade our infrastructure in just three years,

the devil is in the details here,

and he hasn't released any specific spending plan,

or specific milestones to achieve these upgrades.

Look, here is the good news:

people across the political spectrum agree that we have a problem here.

The bad news is, there aren't going to be quick fixes.

This is gonna require long-term investment.

Which is why it would probably be helpful

if Congress would make the FAA's facilities and equipment

mandatory spending, instead of discretionary.

That way, officials could plan for investments and avoid

getting held hostage for the next time Congress fights over budgets.

And in the meantime, we need to do everything we can

to ramp up hiring of air traffic controllers.

Because it is critically important work and it needs to be properly valued.

And if we can do that, then hopefully, one day,

we can get to the point

where a truly honest recruitment video does not look like this.

Millions take to the skies every day.

Behind their safe flights is a hidden world that few ever see.

Orchestrating a symphony of aircraft with expertise and precision,

air traffic controllers are the guardians of the air.

I love this job.

My entire shift is an adventure from start to finish.

You never know what's coming your way,

whether it be emergency landing or radio failure

or the elevator in your 40-year-old tower is out of service

and you have to climb 15 flights of stairs,

which is chock-full of bees for some reason. Just a ton of bees.

You have to stay three steps ahead.

And then have nine back-up plans to cover those three steps.

And then have nine more plans to cover the guy next to you

who retired and they never replaced.

They say they are, they're not going to.

Every day, they say, "We're getting someone, we're going to"

and they're not going to.

Despite a lack of investment, decaying infrastructure and Ronald Reagan,

air travel is still the safest way to move around.

My father was an air traffic controller,

and I feel a real connection with him here at this job,

especially because this is the exact same computer he used.

Yeah, he had to retire because the doctor said

he had more ulcer than stomach. But what are you gonna do?

I'm new here. My supervisor gave me this square.

I still don't know what it's for.

I've been carrying it around for weeks.

You wouldn't happen to know? No? Nobody?

At the FAA, we're looking for young, enthusiastic people

who know how to solve problems.

It's a challenging job for sure, but what keeps us going is�

Sorry, the power goes out whenever anyone flushes the toilet.

There you go. So, as I was saying, you know,

what's important is that we're valued�

Dave, one flush! We talked about this!

I'm sorry! Look, would you want to come here

and air traffic control me while I'm on the toilet?

You want to guide me through it?

- No, I don't. - That's what I thought!

Shit, the bat is back! The bat is back!

There's a bat in here! Help!

Susan, the bat's back! Grab the broom!

Help!

I gotta go help. Goddamn it.

Our brave controllers can handle anything we throw at them.

Fucking turn around!

Which is good, because that means we can just keep doing that forever.

It's a lot like a video game, except we can never hit pause,

there are no extra lives, and instead of NPCs,

it's you and your loved ones on the 12:15 out of Dulles. Game on.

But do they ever give up?

Heck no.

You can be an air traffic controller, too.

All you need to qualify is 20/20 vision, perfect health

and be up to date on your rabies shots. Because of all the bats.

I mean, look, I'll say it's 95% boring and routine,

and 3% exciting and routine, and 2% holy fuck.

No, seriously, holy fuck!

Flight 269, that is not your runway! Get out of here!

So, next time you fly, make sure to say thanks

to the air traffic controllers, the guardians of the air.

What are you guys doing? No one else is up here!

I'm juggling like 50 fucking flights! Stop posing and come help me!

Come on, I didn't realize everybody came down.

Derek!

That's our show, thanks for watching. We'll see you next week, good night!

Fuck, I got bit by a bat. Fuck!

We're also out of toilet paper! Should I use the bat?

Just get out of the bathroom, Dave!

- Susan? Did you get it? - Yeah. Yeah, I got it.

- Got it? Good. - I got it.

- 'Cause I'm doing an interview, so. - Yeah, I got it.

Shit!