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BumRushDaShow

(158,686 posts)
12. "one of the causes for the current shortage is that a large age-cohort of controllers is retiring" - *NO*
Thu Jul 17, 2025, 04:31 PM
Jul 17

ATCs have a "mandatory retirement" age of 56, so who you are talking about hired in 1981, would have been 12 years old when hired to be leaving now en masse, at age 56..

That big 1981 layoff was 44 years ago.

Many of the replacements back then were pulled from the military as there were obviously ATCs in the various branches. But they also left when they hit age 56.

There has been an effort to raise the retirement age to 61 (without needing the waiver hoop jump) - Duffy to allow exemptions to extend retirement age for air traffic controllers

And per the above (since they are a special category of fed), they can retire at 50 with 25 years of service and I expect many roll out then.

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