Freakonomics Radio · 2025-09-12 · 61 min · 10,256 words

646. An Air Traffic Controller Walks Into a Radio Studio ...

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Imagine there is a big government agency that is in charge of regulating a particular industry, but is also an employer within that industry, and is essentially A business partner. That would describe the federal aviation administration. Is it possible for the FAA to serve all those functions, including its all-important air traffic control function? Is it possible to maintain its high safety standards with an aging infrastructure?

And with a funding stream that's tied to Congress. Those are some of the questions we asked on last week's episode, and this week we are back at it with part two and even more questions. We also wanted to hear from the humans who do the actual work of air traffic control. As you may remember from last week, the series was inspired By a recently retired controller named Kenneth Levin, who sent us an email a few months ago. We wrote back and eventually we called him up. Yeah, it's Steven. Is that Kenneth? It is. This is Ken. Hey, Ken. Nice to meet you, Steven. Nice to meet you. Thanks for writing. Oh.

Man. You know. I can't believe I'm talking to you. I love the podcast. I love what you guys do and uh Just can't believe we're sitting here, man. It's a thrill. I think a lot of times people just don't think about these things or are scared to think about'em. But

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