Dry eyes for air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers are prone to dry eyes because the job demands long, unbroken visual focus on radar displays or out of tower windows, often in climate-controlled rooms and on rotating shifts. Blinking drops sharply during intense concentration. Using breaks fully, keeping vents off your face, managing glare and using a lubricating drop exactly as its label directs can help. Ask an eye doctor about anything that persists or affects vision.

Why controllers’ eyes dry out

Few jobs ask for the kind of sustained attention a control position does. Watching a radar display or a runway means scanning, tracking and holding focus for long stretches, and people blink much less when they concentrate like that. Blinks also tend to become partial, so they don’t sweep a fresh layer of tears across the whole eye. The tear film thins and its watery layer evaporates, and eyes start to feel gritty, hot or tired.

The rooms add to it. Radar rooms and tower cabs are kept cool for equipment and people, and that conditioned air moves constantly. Tower cabs also get direct sun through the glass for much of the day.

What does an air traffic controller screen look like?

Radar controllers work at dark, high-contrast displays in dim rooms, with targets and data blocks they have to read precisely. Tower controllers split their gaze between the view outside and displays, flight strips and screens inside. Both setups involve focusing at a fixed distance for long periods, which is part of why eyes feel strained after a busy session.

• In a dim radar room, a bright screen in a dark space can make you open your eyes wider; adjust display brightness to match the room where you’re allowed to.
• In a tower cab, glare off the field and the sky makes people squint, and squinting tends to cut blinks short.
• Moving between the two, or between a bright cab and a dark break room, also asks your eyes to keep adjusting.

Using breaks for your eyes

Controllers rotate on and off position, and that break time is the obvious place to rest your eyes. A few habits make it count:

• Spend the first minute of a break looking at something far away and blinking fully and slowly a few times.
• Skip the phone for at least part of the break; scrolling is more of the same close focus.
• Step outside or near a window if the facility allows, which gives your eyes natural light and distance.
• Drink water. A long session without a sip leaves you feeling dried out generally.

On position, what you can do depends on traffic and facility procedures. Even during quieter moments, a deliberate full blink now and then helps keep the tear film even.

Rotating shifts and sleep

Rotating schedules, with early mornings, evenings and midnight shifts in the same week, are common in air traffic control. Short sleep tends to make eyes feel worse the following day, and many people notice dryness most on their first midnight or the morning after a quick turnaround. Our guide to dry eyes on the night shift covers the night-specific side, and dry eyes at the end of the day explains why discomfort builds over hours of focus.

Air vents, the tower cab and home

• At your position, check where the air supply is pointed; a vent aimed at your face is worth asking to have redirected.
• Personal fans should blow across your body, not your eyes.
• At home, sleep in a room without a ceiling fan blowing on your face, and consider a humidifier in winter when the heat runs.
• In the car after a shift, aim the vents at your chest, especially when you’re already tired.

Eyesight requirements and eye drops

People searching about controllers’ eyes often want to know about vision standards and medical certification. Those rules belong to the FAA and your facility, and this guide doesn’t try to summarize them. If you’re a controller, ask your aviation medical examiner or your facility’s medical office before adding any eye drop to your routine, and especially before using anything near or during a shift. They know the current requirements; a website doesn’t.

What the Quell label says

Quell is a lubricating eye drop designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. Its Drug Facts panel lists the Uses as: For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye. The directions are: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. And the handling rule: Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination.

Read the caution: Caution should be used in those with egg or bird allergies — For use in the eyes only. The label doesn’t give directions for using Quell alongside other eye drops or with contact lenses; ask your eye doctor or pharmacist about either. The drops look milky brown, which is expected: The eye drops have a naturally milky-brown appearance. This is normal and does not indicate a problem with the product. The full panel is on our Drug Facts page.

When to see an eye doctor

In a job where vision is everything, don’t wait out symptoms. Dryness that persists, eyes that hurt, or any change in how clearly you see is a reason to book an eye exam so a doctor can work out the cause and what to do about it. The label says when to stop: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours.

Our dry eye self-check can help you describe what you’re experiencing; it’s not a diagnosis. Quell is available from the home page, with guest checkout and shipping to US addresses.