Thank an air traffic controller today: Two-and-a-half million people are going to try to fly someplace Wednesday. If you're one of those poor souls, you may be itching to strangle someone by the time you collapse into your shoe box of a seat. But, realistically? Our headaches as passengers — flight delays, long lines at security — mostly get sorted out before we board the plane.
Not so for air traffic controllers, many of whom are preparing for a high-stress day that's even worse this year due to a wintry storm that's battering the East Coast. Even as the rest of us sit down to a big turkey dinner on Thursday, many of the nation's 27,000 air traffic controllers will still be on duty.
Once a plane leaves the airport, responsibility for tracking it gets handed off to a local departure controller — a TRACON facility, for short — that monitors a wider area. There are dozens of these. Then, as the plane leaves the region, another facility, called an area control center (ACC), takes over. The process has to take place in reverse when the aircraft reaches its destination.