NATCA Bookshelf

22 I s s u e s N A T C A I N W A S H I N G T O N 2 0 2 4 N i W To d a y the CRWG staffing standard as the basis for the CWP but would delay the adoption until after Sept. 30, 2024. In the meantime, the Senate bill would require a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (of which the TRB is a subsidiary division) to review the differences and similarities between the "methodologies used by the [CRWG] to determine CPC operational staffing targets" and the FAA Office of Finance and Management's (AFN) failed staffing model. The Senate bill also would require future CWPs to report for each air traffic facility: (1) current CPC levels; (2) CRWG operational staffing targets; (3) anticipated CPC attrition for the next 3 years; and (4) the number of CPC trainees. However, unlike the House bill, the Senate base bill does not currently contain a provision directing the FAA to engage in maximum controller hiring for the duration of the bill. Instead, a standalone bipartisan bill, the Air Traffic Controllers Hiring Act of 2023 (S. 2839), sponsored by Senator Mike Braun (R-IN), along with over 30 additional bipartisan cosponsors, would require maximum controller hiring for the duration of the bill. Maximum hiring for the duration of the reauthorization bill is a critical element to begin resolving the staffing crisis and NATCA strongly supports its inclusion in the final FAA reauthorization legislation. NATCA believes the FAA must continue to take a holistic, collaborative approach to resolving its historical staffing and training challenges. Step one is implementing the CRWG's operational CPC staffing targets as the basis for the CWP, while conducting maximum controller hiring for the foreseeable future. This is a step that the FAA could have taken more than a year ago without requiring Congressional intervention. NATCA remains committed to working with all stakeholders to develop a permanent, sustainable solution, and also recommends the following near- term actions: n The FAA should routinely post vacancy announcements for experienced air traffic controllers and should continue to hire as many experienced controllers as are qualified. n The FAA should continue posting, at minimum on an annual basis, an all-sources open announcement for non-experienced candidates, many of whom come from CTI schools, the military, and other aviation-related professions. n The FAA should hire as many controller candidates as maximum throughput (nearly 2,000) would allow at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, without waiting for a Congressional mandate. n The FAA should continue to streamline the hiring process, specifically easing the bottlenecks and bureaucratic delays in HR, security, and medical. In addition to these hiring improvements, the FAA and NATCA collaboratively establihsed a less bureaucratic and more expeditious transfer policy for current FAA controllers that encourages experienced controllers at lower-level facilities to voluntarily move up (at their own expense) to busier, more complex facilities. Although this alone will not resolve the staffing and training issues, it does allow experienced controllers to move to busier facilities where they are more likely to certify than newly placed academy graduates. Subsequently, it allows the FAA to place academy graduates in the less complex and less busy facilities where they are more likely to certify. Previously, academy graduates often were placed in busy towers and radar facilities upon graduation, which resulted in poor success rates. BACKGROUND S ta f f i n g & H i r i n g C h a l l e n g e s The air traffic controller workforce is continuing to experience a CPC shortage. In 2013, sequestration forced the FAA to institute a hiring freeze and shut- ter the FAA Academy between March and December of that year. That compounded an already tenuous staffing situation in which the FAA was struggling to replace retiring controllers. The FAA has not yet made up for the sequester-related hiring freeze or the 35-day government shutdown that stretched from December 2018 through January 2019, which stifled recent efforts to address this concern. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FAA closed its training academy and once it reopened, capacity was reduced by 50%. The FAA revised its hiring target downward in FY 2021 from 910 new trainees to only 500. Although the FAA met its reduced goal, that reduction of more than 400 new hires just two years after the FAA S t a f f i n g A n d Tr a i n i n g C h a l l e n g e s P e r s i s t Issue

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