In my experience, almost every time the topic of air traffic control (as a career) comes up in conversation, someone makes a remark like
Air traffic control - isn't that a very stressful job?
Notwithstanding the fact that this point could be debated, surely there are many other "stressful" jobs which don't receive this kind of response.
My question is this: How did the "stressful" air traffic control job become such a common perception?
Some very spot-on comments, some comments that are totally ignorant of the job. I am a retired ATC, 32 years. I worked at one of the world's busiest and most complex US facilities (as described by many independent sources).
Have you ever:
I could write a book about many specific events that controllers have experienced. The "pucker factor" events.
But the real stress is the long term chronic stress that the job presents. Certainly, there are facilities that are both low traffic and have uncomplicated operations. If you are lucky enough to work at one of these (and willing to accept the low end of the pay scale) then stress is probably much lower and stressful events infrequent. But for the majority of controllers (who work at a number of very high traffic facilities; air traffic in the US is higher and more complicated than the next 29 countries' air traffic, combined) the stress is a chronic, continuous level (not the big adrenalin-pumping situations) from being attached to your position for several hours, trying to maintain a constant "big picture", maintaining situational awareness, issuing control instructions to ensure that SAFETY is always the first product of your efforts. Many, if not most, controllers will most likely retire with high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep disorders, etc. that despite best efforts to exercise and live a healthy lifestyle will probably affect a controller for the remainder of their life.
Certainly, other jobs are stressful, and I would never try to compare one as "more stressful" than the other. The top ones are all stressful. But those that try to downplay the stress of air traffic control would only need to visit a busy air traffic control facility for a day and they would see and probably feel the stress themselves.
I have a very good friend that is an FBI field agent in Washington, DC. He has worked on some very high-profile cases. We were talking one day and he said something about the stress of air traffic control. I chuckled saying that at least I wasn't being faced by some of the most dangerous people in the country. But his response was that in his job they have detailed plans for what they do. His raids were in the middle of the night when these people were asleep and unsuspecting. He had a well-trained team that each had specific responsibilities. They had plenty of firepower and protective equipment. He said that most of his operations were quite easy and they experienced little resistance. He did have moments of intensity, but he (who had visited an air traffic facility) did not think the stress he experienced was anywhere near to what he saw at the air traffic control facility.
But I still would not want to be a law enforcement officer, nor a school teacher for that matter! My personality was a good match for the job of air traffic control. But now that I am retired, I take blood pressure medicine, am borderline diabetic despite a regular exercise program and am within a healthy weight and eat very healthy. I also still have sleep apnea and other sleep issues that I see a sleep doctor several times a year for. All of my present health issues, which are well-controlled, are according to the doctors a direct effect of the stresses of being an air traffic controller.
Air traffic control IS stressful. Is it more stressful than other jobs? I doubt it. And to argue about whose job is more stressful is a silly exercise. The trick is having a personality that meshes with the job. If you are in a job that is not a good match, that is stressful.
I'll answer from a US perspective, since that's where most of the studies I've seen come from, coupled with working in the US system.
I'll point out a few areas the statistics possibly show issues. There are less than 15,000 controllers in the US(estimated, from memory and older sources). Most other professions usually are far larger, and such that an occurrence/issue in the controller population often pushes it higher in statistics.
But, it is a very demanding job, and a very demanding training environment at a lot of facilities. In the past, if you had 3 losses of separation, within a year, you would be penalized big time, to either a lower facility, or to firing, this increases the stress level in the past studies. The punitive nature has changed to a different system, that doesn't fire someone, unless if it was blantant disregard of the rules, but an incident(loss of separation to accident or any thing else) still can take the toll on a person. In training, you're pushed to be perfect, in terms of spacing, to phraseology, to procedures, to complex airspace, to vast rule books.
The rule books, if printed out, are generally 500-700 pages each. There's ~3-4 main ones, and tons of little ones. The rules are in a continous change state, and where one thing is legal one day, could be completely changed over the course of a week(rare, but it has happened). Plus each facility has numerous procedure documents and letters of agreements with facilities or agencies that they have to work with. This makes a controler have to have a vast knowledge of rules and how they all interact.
Routine situations, even with lots of traffic become easy to handle, once you know what to do and when. It's when the **** hits the fan, that it becomes stressful, whether it's student pilots, language barriers, emergiencies(and there's various kinds that either don't phase you or those that can completely wreck you), to the worst thing, weather.
There's other reasons that it can be highly stressful, from medical rules, to just raw work rules and management issues.
It is a common perception because it is a reality.
Listen to Live ATC tapes of the final approach to ORD. These controllers are talking non-stop, making decisions and issuing instructions that very literally have hundreds of lives in the balance. If they get it wrong, it is not just "oops, let's try better next time". It has to be right every time.
Now some - in fact many - ATC positions are far less busy and stressful. So it all depends....
"Air Traffic Controller" is a poorly understood job and isn't personally dangerous. The member of the general public has little knowledge apart from its listing as extremely stressful (top five!).
The perception may well be accurate, but the perception itself is based on this combination:
In the example link above, the five most stressful jobs are
The police officer and miner definitely have the perception of incurring personal danger. So I would bet that police officers and miners get asked, "Isn't that a dangerous job?" before they're asked if it's stressful. Inner-city High School Teachers probably share some of the perception of personal danger as "the inner-city" is stereotypically dangerous.
"Inner-city High School Teacher" and "Medical Intern" are both part of helping professions where the vast majority of people have been on the receiving end of direct contact (as a student and patient). Conversation topics can cover many aspects of these professions before the member of the general public can no longer relate.
"Air Traffic Controller"? Um, that must be a stressful job, huh?
Not that it had that big of an effect but there was a movie made in the 90's (Pushing Tin) about air traffic controllers and the stress the job brings. In typical Hollywood fashion there are some over dramatic moments, but its not a terrible movie if you like aviation. I would watch it.
Again I don't think it has a huge effect on how people view controllers but its worth bringing up.
With 22 years experience as an air traffic controller I can remember several times where I was put under stressful conditions. Mostly it was the result of too many airplanes that I was comfortable with. You really have to lift your game during those times and hope your work mates can put the "brakes on" if necessary. I don't know if stress is the right word for those busy times as you are so busy keeping aircraft apart you don't think of anything else. As what has been said earlier you really have to have the right personality for the job. I never took the job home with me which was a good thing.
ATC controllers have to deal with high stakes, high risk, and limited senses.
A pilot has final say over what happens on his plane, but the ATC gives quite strong commands to a pilot. ATC is "the birds eye view" of the sky, and as such, their opinion over what should happen carries a remarkable amount of sway. A bad command could put a pilot in a particularly bad place where correcting the situation could tax the physical capabilities of the airplane as the pilot acts to recover.
They are also in a very monetarily important position. They are responsible for getting as many planes as possible landing or taking off, given resource constraints like "runways." Being cautious can cost large companies a great deal of money, so there is a strong incentive to allow as many planes per hour as possible. This raises the stakes, as you have more opportunities to fail to properly juggle a large volume of information.
However, the viewpoint and control you have is limited. You have a radar view, and a radio to communicate. Compared with the amount of activity going on, those tools are quite limited.
In the rest of the sky, there's enough space to get the planes separated and establish simpler rules which keep people safe. In these focused areas of complexity around the airports, we rely on ATC to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Whether or not their job is actually stressful is the decision of each individual controller. The job does attract a certain kind of person...
It might be helpful to point out a few reasons why it might or might not be stressful.
At the end of the day, thousands of lives are on the line. Zero errors tolerated, 100% performance required, penalties including relatively quick demotion/firing.
On the other hand, losing separation doesn't mean a crash. There are tolerances built in to the rules.
Working in New York City is going to be more stressful than working in Standard Country Town.
The general public doesn't know that many controllers don't even work at airports. In reality, the largest facilities are not only located away from airports, they don't even deal with aircraft at airports!
This isn't unheard of either:
Air traffic control - those are the guys that wave the red batons at the plane, right?
Aviation can be inherently frightening. Perhaps this contributes.
The job is not common; people don't know about it. While ATC is similar to a police officer in some respects (relative boredom with brief times of sheer terror?), police officers are more common and well understood. Perhaps it is a function of familiarity.
And perhaps one can't get away from the image of a 747 falling out of the sky and the person who was supposed to "control" it.
