Fly Us Safe Campaign
The Air Traffic Control Staffing Crisis: FAA Delays, Failures and Short-Sightedness
Right now, a serious and potentially dangerous staffing crisis is looming over the air traffic control system, meaning that fewer controllers are watching more planes. Air traffic is increasing to record levels, but already there are 1,000 fewer controllers than there were just two years ago.1 The FAA has failed to address the problem: in fiscal year 2004 only 13 air traffic controllers were hired.2 This crisis has been looming for years, but even though the FAA was repeatedly warned about it, the agency first ignored, and then completely mismanaged the looming crisis. Meanwhile, the FAA continues to fill the already bloated ranks of supervisors' positions.
The staffing crisis by the numbers. From October 2003 to September 2004, the FAA lost 500 controllers and only hired 13.3 Losing more controllers than are hired isn't going to work. The agency says it plans on hiring 12,500 controllers, but that will take a decade, meaning that even in the best case scenario, the system will be left woefully understaffed.4 Additionally, the pass-fail rate of trainees in the system is about 40 percent. Even if the FAA doubled its current rate of success, it would still be lucky to have enough qualified controllers to address the current staffing shortages.
The FAA failed to hire enough controllers. According to the FAA's own figures 2,580 controllers are eligible to retire between 2005 and 2007. But the agency only hired 13 air traffic controllers in fiscal year 2004. There simply aren't enough controllers to meet the traffic demand today, and even fewer in the pipeline to replace those leaving in the coming years.
The FAA still doesn't plan to hire enough controllers. In the FAA's December 2004 staffing plan, it claimed that it planned to hire 1,248 air traffic controllers in FY06. The agency also finally acknowledged for the first time that its prior policy of one hire for one retirement is not adequate because of the time needed to train a controller. But so far, the FAA's actions fail to live up to its rhetoric. Its 2006 budget request provided for $24.9 million to hire 595 air traffic controllers and outlined plans to hire another 654 controllers using the old fashioned and inadequate "one for one" approach - far less than it had originally said, and far less than is needed to ensure the safety and integrity of the aviation system.5
The FAA is artificially inflating staffing numbers. The FAA says it currently adequately staffed because it has inflated its staffing numbers by hiring supervisors instead of controllers. It is taking more people from controller jobs - meaning skilled professionals watching our skies - to fill numerous vacant supervisor positions, leaving fewer real controllers to work traffic. Many large en route centers have lost more than a half dozen veteran controllers to fill unnecessary supervisors' positions in 2004 alone. At Washington Center for example, 19 air traffic controllers were moved to the supervisory ranks. Nationwide, the FAA averages fewer than eight controllers for every first line supervisor - and that doesn't even consider the high numbers of second level and third level managers (all paid at higher rates than the controllers they supervise).
The FAA knew this was coming. The staffing crisis didn't creep up on the agency - it has been aware of it for years because of the simple fact that nearly 9,000 of the FAA's 14,500 controllers were hired in 1982 and 1983.6 Their retirement age is already here - the FAA is already seeing the highest rates of retirement that it has seen in the last 24 years. While NATCA was working to encourage the FAA to hire and train new controllers the agency took years to produce its staffing report which it finally released in December 2004. The report - and action - should have come years earlier.
GAO urged the FAA to act years before. The GAO concluded in its June 2002 report, "Air Traffic Control: FAA Needs to Better Prepare for Impending Wave of Controller Attrition," that the FAA had not done enough to plan for the impending staffing crisis and needed to do so as soon as possible. The report stated, "FAA has not developed such a comprehensive workforce strategy to address all of the challenges it faces in responding to its impending needs for thousands of new air traffic controllers, thus increasing the risk that FAA will not have enough qualified controllers when necessary to meet air traffic demands." GAO concluded that it "believes that sound workforce planning demands that FAA develop a strategic vision that includes a workable, long-term plan to meet staffing needs."7 But the FAA failed to listen: it took another two years before the FAA admitted the problem, publishing their own report stating the same conclusions as the GAO.
DOT Inspector General warned Congress about the FAA's inaction. Ken Mead, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General echoed those findings when he testified before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation last year, warning that "there has been very little progress in fielding the labor distribution system planned for air traffic employees. That system is critical for managing the expected wave of controller retirements."8
DOT Inspector General's Office issued damning report on FAA staffing. The June 2004 report, "Opportunities to Improve FAA's Process for Placing and Training Air Traffic Controllers in Light of Pending Retirements," urged the agency to take immediate action to improve attrition estimates, assess newly hired controllers' abilities before placing them and determine ways to reduce time and costs of on-the-job training.9
Recently Imposed Transfer Restrictions are Harming the Safety of the System. The FAA has made it impossible for experienced controllers at lower volume facilities to transfer to higher level facilities (which would allow new trainees to enter into the system at the lower volume facilities where they have a great chance of succeeding at becoming certified) by restricting voluntary moves that would not be at cost to the government and instead implemented a restrictive waiver process.
Some examples of the crisis. Air traffic control facilities are notoriously understaffed across the country. Here are three examples (current as of 9/22/05)
Chicago TRACON
FAA Authorized: 101 controllers
Certified Professional Controllers: 72
Eligible to retire by the end of 2005: 17
Eligible to retire by the end of 2006: 24
Eligible to retire by the end of 2007: 47
Los Angeles Center
FAA Authorized: 310
Certified Professional Controllers: 216
Eligible to retire by the end of 2005: 26
Eligible to retire by the end of 2006: 33
Eligible to retire by the end of 2007: 44
Philadelphia Tower
FAA Authorized: 109
Certified Professional Controllers: 61 (+/- 1)
Eligible to retire by the end of 2005: 14
Eligible to retire by the end of 2006: 18
Eligible to retire by the end of 2007: 28
1 The number of traffic operations handled by controllers in air traffic control centers in July 2005 was greater than ever before, according to the FAA's own data available at http://www.apo.data.faa.gov/atads/. In September 2003, there were 15,613 air traffic controllers employed by the FAA, as confirmed in the Memorandum of Understanding the agency signed.Today, there are 14,525 air traffic controllers, as confirmed by the FAA's own fact book, available at www.atctraining.faa.gov/site/factbooks/aug05.pdf
2http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/media/APR_year1.pdf
3http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/media/APR_year1.pdf
4http://www.aaae.org/_pdf/_regpdf/controllerstaffing.pdf
5http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/pdf/Transportation-06.pdf
6http://www.aaae.org/_pdf/_regpdf/controllerstaffing.pdf
7http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02591.pdf
8http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearmarkups/record.cfm?id=220796
9http://www.oig.dot.gov:8080/show_pdf.php?id=1339