Air traffic controllers are expected to receive a 30% pay hike as President Donald Trump's administration is trying to boost recruitment on Thursday.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement Thursday at a press conference at the Academy of Air Traffic Controllers in Oklahoma.
He argued that air traffic controllers in wage structure and technology were forced to use it.
“Currently, students are paid $17.61 per hour. By the way, you might be able to go to Walgreens and make it, right? So we'll raise it to $22.84 per hour,” Duffy said.
“And I think I'll make sure people have wages that allow them to live while they go to school. But the real incentive is three years after this academy, and you're on average certified at $160,000 a year. So, at 23, you can earn a big salary as an air traffic controller.”
Duffy noted that the pay increase plan requires Congress to approve “billions” of DOT's additional funds.
Elon Musk also sent a request for a retired air traffic controller to return to work.
The announcement comes after a series of air travel disasters over the past few weeks, but few have been blamed on air traffic control.
More recently, Southwest passenger planes narrowly avoided collisions with Flexjet business jets on the Chicago runway.
A southwest plane came to land and crossed the landing zone as a flex jet, said to be ignoring instructions from air transport.
The pilots of the southwest plane were able to take off again quickly enough to avoid a collision.
The National Transportation Safety Board says it is still investigating Tuesday's incident.
Trump himself asked FlexJet pilots to revoke their license if the investigation exposed fraud.
