How many hours do air traffic controllers work?

Ron Connolly sometimes had to function on four hours of sleep or less when he worked as an air traffic controller. He remembers going to work ... to nine hours on April 17. Many facilities are closed at night, but 22% of the work force did at least one shift that encompassed midnight in 2010, the agency said. read more

He needs at least two hours to wake up before going into work. His shift starts at 6:00AM. Because air traffic controllers are needed twenty-four hours a day (not the same guy for that whole stretch, fortunately), it takes major string pulling to get a decent shift. Benny hopes that he's working with his usual crowd. Working with new hires or controllers he's never worked with adds to the stressload. read more

The two-hour limit is based on many years of study that show after around two hours of this type of intense work, performance starts to suffer appreciably. Really, IMO, controllers shouldn't work more than about 90 minutes, max, on position before getting a break. read more

Ron Connolly sometimes had to function on four hours of sleep or less when he worked as an air traffic controller. He remembers going to work exhausted and not getting enough rest between shifts, which sometimes ended and began on the same day. read more