There's a privately controlled tower at KSQL (San Carlos) and there have been numerous incidents of ATC losing their cool on pilots, sometimes brand new students. All the YT comments say it's because it's privately controlled and understaffed and many pilots vouch for similar drama happening to them. I can't prove it, just passing along a data point. Obviously this problem could be solved by paying better and having enough staff. But how likely is that?
KSQL's current controllers have announced that they are all quitting effective tomorrow.
The private corp running the tower lowered their pay by eliminating COL adjustments in the latest contract renewal (a big deal for an airport that is in Palo Alto).
This weekend, with no planning, there will be a completely untowered airport operating underneath the airspace of SFO.
The management is scrambling right now to prevent this, but the best case scenario is that controllers with no experience or local knowledge in training will be thrown into a tower on the busiest day of the week with no colleagues that have done the job before.
good for them (I'm not advocating for a more dangerous, uncontrolled airport, I think pilots should not fly there). Any private ATC should be required to put 50-100M in escrow (at a minimum) and/or insurance to cover mass casualty events caused by their failure.
