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20 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 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 u QUICK REFERENCE 1 Air traffic controller staffing and training continue to be critical areas of concern for NATCA as the FAA remains near a 30-year low for CPCs. Controller staffing levels have fallen over 10% since 2011 and over 6% of the CPC workforce is eligible to retire. How This Issue Affects NATCA Members Air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals are dedicated and highly skilled workers who take great pride in keeping the traveling public safe. Unfortuntately, they are forced to shoulder the burden of chronically understaffed facilities all too often. Controllers at the most critically understaffed facilities are forced to work mandatory overtime including 6-day workweeks and 10-hour days to maintain current system capacity. No one wants flight delays, interruptions to air traffic service, or decreased system capacity, but chronic understaffing of air traffic controllers threatens their ability to provide the type of service the flying public deserves. We must continue to improve the hiring, training, and placement of controllers throughout the National Airspace System (NAS). Last year, collaboration between the FAA's Air Traffic Organization (ATO) and NATCA, along with the MITRE Corporation's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development resulted in the creation of jointly developed CPC staffing targets to meet all of FAA's operational, statutory, agency, and contractual requirements for air traffic controllers at each facility. Using these CPC staffing targets as the basis for the CWP will ensure that Congress and all aviation stakeholders have a complete and accurate understanding of each facility's operational staffing needs. Unfortunately, the Administrator has not yet adopted the jointly developed CPC staffing targets. Despite increasing its hiring target to 1,500 trainees in Fiscal Year 2023 and meeting that goal, the FAA netted only an additional 15 trainees by the end of that fiscal year compared to the previous year, for a net total of 30 additional "on board" air traffic controllers. 2 The FAA must take a holistic, collaborative approach to resolving its historical staffing and training challenges. The first step is implementing the Collaborative Resource Workgroup's (CRWG) jointly-developed operational CPC staffing targets for each facility as the basis for its annual Controller Workforce Plan (CWP), while conducting maximum controller hiring for the foreseeable future. Congress has the opportunity to improve this situation drastically by passing a FAA reauthorization bill that would (1) revamp how the FAA establishes and reports its controller staffing targets, and (2) require the FAA to conduct maximum controller hiring for the next five years. 3 4

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