Well, I think this is a good idea. If this is truly a plan to take away major/minor certifications, this will be a much better way to advance controllers quickly in a more inviting environment. The fact that a controller has to learn a set of procedures for one location that may not receive much traffic and then learn more procedures for the main airport can be tough on a controller's excitement on the network. We have this at Chicago and if we can just do away with ORD being a major facility and allow all students to control there it will be great to see. Rather than check out our visiting controller on a minor facility first, they would already have the training necessary to move right into our major airport allowing for more ATC coverage. It will be good to have a standardized training system so that controllers will be able to learn what they need to know and implement this knowledge everywhere rather than having facilities that train students less efficiently suffer when well learned controllers from other areas are visiting there. It works the other way around too. Having a poorly trained controller trained as a visitor at a facility that practices very realistic operations will hardly allow for that controller to be granted permission to visit. If we have that standardized system as mentioned here, controllers can be trained with the same material, be trained for realistic situations and thus be able to better get into any online position and be able to use those realistic skills anywhere. I'm glad to see the network moving in this direction.
