Air traffic controllers are people trained to maintain the safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. The position of air traffic controller is one that requires highly specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities. Controllers apply separation rules to keep aircraft at a safe distance from each other in their area of responsibility and move all aircraft safely and efficiently through their assigned sector of airspace, as well as on the ground. Because controllers have an incredibly large responsibility while on duty (often in aviation, "on position"), the ATC profession is consistently regarded around the world as one of the most challenging careers, and can be notoriously stressful depending on many variables (equipment, configurations, weather, traffic volume, human factors, etc.). Many controllers, however, would cite high salaries and a very large and privileged degree of autonomy as major advantages of their jobs.
Although the media in the United States frequently refers to them as air controllers, or flight controllers, most air traffic professionals use the term air traffic controllers. They are also called air traffic control officers (ATCOs), air traffic control specialists, or simply controllers. For a more detailed article on the job itself, please see air traffic control.
Famous quotes containing the words air and/or traffic:
“At the milliners, the ladies we met were so much dressed, that I should rather have imagined they were making visits than purchases. But what diverted me most was, that we were more frequently served by men than by women; and such men! so finical, so affected! they seemed to understand every part of a womans dress better than we do ourselves; and they recommended caps and ribbons with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them.”
—Frances Burney (17521840)
“Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)