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Originally Posted by Fox Xray  I have to chime in and take exception with this statement... you're comparing apples and oranges.
As I stated in an earlier post I was privy to early CTI information due to my involvement with NATCA and one of my coworkers spouse was a manager on the FAA CTI team. During the 90's thru about 02' the only way for a civilian to be hired into the FAA as an ATCS was via CTI or MARC (MARC could be argued as PFT but that's for another time).
During the 90's enrollment at aviation colleges was increasing. The FAA was looking for a way to recruit the college aviation student into the FAA. Hence the CTI program was created. They never promised anyone a job... the intention of the program was to offer a few basic "elective" courses in ATC. Upon passing those courses AND a recommendation by the teacher the student was then able to take the written exam for ATC. This was the ONLY way a civilian could take the exam... there was no other way.
The program took a little while to catch on but it did become popular and the stats I saw quite a few years ago indicated the students did well at OKC and in the field. In the early 2000's (prior to the IWR's) the FAA was still having trouble filling slots in hard to staff facilities, particularly in some large cities such as NY, Chicago, ATL, Oakland, etc. In these areas they offered the ATSAT test to "off the street people". These tests only qualified these candidates to work in the geographic area the test was offered in. So ... if you took the test in Oakland you could not get hired anywhere else in the nation. Following the IWR's many CTI students turned the job down, the FAA scrambled to fill these slots and began offering them to OTS people and began offering the test all over the country.
I don't blame the students for being mad... the FAA wanted college educated people to fill the slots as ATCS but then turned around and offered them minimum wage. |
I have great respect for you as your in the position I hope to get to.
I will not argue with you, however the controllers I talked to in my high school days (I graduated nearly 10 years ago) through 2004 all believed OTS would return when retirements started occurring. All stated CTI was too much of a gamble, especially with the little amount of hiring going on.