“Not accessible to everyone”: what are the use of air traffic controllers, whose strike was narrowly avoided?

This Thursday promises to be dark in terms of takeoffs and landings. Blame it on a threatened strike by French air traffic controllers. Although the SNCTA, the majority union in the sector, announced this Wednesday the lifting of its notice, numerous disruptions are still expected on Thursday in airports.

The worst was, however, avoided because tens or even hundreds of thousands of travelers almost saw their flights cancelled. Le Parisien explains to you how the role of these air traffic controllers is essential to ensure the safety of planes.

A profession that is “not accessible to everyone”

Their missions are simple: to ensure the safety of aircraft and the safety of traffic, to avoid any accidents, in flight or on the ground. To practice this profession, you must be able to “know how to resist stress and not panic, because the workload is not necessarily easy to anticipate”, tells us an air traffic controller working in an airport in the south of France. According to him, this profession is therefore “not accessible to everyone”.

Faced with unforeseen events, you must “have a good capacity for analysis and decision-making in a few seconds, in short, be reactive”. Example: “Two planes land, a third wants to leave. But we receive a call from the Samu, who has to leave by helicopter for a drowning. It therefore becomes a priority. This is not planned in our sequence: we have to analyze the situation then react in a few seconds,” explains the professional.

The air traffic controller has three main missions. The first is the control service, which “consists of ensuring anti-collision (prevent collisions) between aircraft and ground vehicles,” explains the professional. The second is the information service, which consists of “providing aircraft with information useful for carrying out their flight”, such as the weather or the activity of a military zone. Finally, the alert service involves “reacting to a problem, such as a loss of radio or radar contact, in order to quickly benefit from emergency resources”.

A selective entrance exam

Air traffic controllers most often work in pairs, or even threes: one manages flight procedures, while the other monitors control devices, such as radar. They also interact with airport logistics agents, weather services, civil security, and especially pilots. “With the latter, we use very precise phraseology, in French or English, which is our daily tool,” explains the air traffic controller.

Civil servants within the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, these professionals work under the direction of the DGAC. They are trained for three years at the National School of Civil Aviation (ENAC) after successfully passing a selective entrance exam, accessible to holders of a bac + 2 diploma, generally from preparatory classes for the grandes écoles.

As air traffic never stops, air traffic controllers can work at night, on Sundays and on public holidays. Their working hours are quite wide, with shifts of eleven hours maximum, interspersed with a break every 2.5 hours. To compensate, they have a specific work organization, alternating approximately one day of work and one day of rest, without exceeding the regulatory 32 hours per week. Always with the aim of not losing concentration.

The profession is divided into three main categories. Tower controllers in their lookout, responsible for managing planes on the ground at the airport and takeoffs, represent the best-known facet of the job. Then, the approach controllers, also called “approachers”, take care of crossing the departure and arrival flows at one or more airports. And finally, the route controllers, who manage all aircraft crossing French airspace using radar means.

On days when air traffic is lower than usual, air traffic controllers may not come to work, a practice called the clearance system, which has been tolerated by the hierarchy for years. Small arrangements which were denounced by the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) in a report published in 2023, after a collision was narrowly avoided at the airport of Bordeaux due to “an insufficient number of controllers present”.

The air traffic control reform project contested by the unions also provided for the installation of badge machines to put an end to this system. Without knowing whether the measure is still relevant after the last minute agreement reached between the SNCTA and the DGAC.

In any case, the profession of air traffic controller continues to arouse vocations and pique the interest of aeronautics enthusiasts. “Overall, we are all passionate about aeronautics,” says the air traffic controller. On Instagram, the “Air traffic controller” account, managed by the SNCTA and which aims to popularize the profession, has more than 13,000 followers.