NATCA Bookshelf

ISSUES National Air Traffic Controllers Association | www.natca.org NiW Today 31 Overview Air traffic controller staffing and training have been concerns for many years. The controller workforce has been understaffed for more than a decade, resulting in mandatory overtime, including regular 10-hour days and six-day weeks. Last year, controllers at 40% of FAA facilities worked six days a week at least once per month. Several facilities require six-day workweeks every week. The FAA and NATCA are both acutely aware of these thin staffing margins and the compounding effects they have on controller stress and fatigue. However, despite some recent progress, these staffing and training challenges persist. The FAA remains near a 30-year low in the number of Certified Professional Controllers (CPCs), approximately 3,800 controllers short of its staffing target. Funding disruptions have made this problem worse over the years. The 35-day government shutdown that began in 2019 and sequestration-mandated funding cuts in 2013 forced the FAA to suspend hiring and shutter its training FAA Academy for significant periods of time. Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, training was suspended at the FAA Academy, and when it restarted, enrollment was reduced by 50% to maintain health and safety protocols. The Department of Transportation (DOT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report in June 2023 (AV2023035) that concluded: "FAA continues to face staffing challenges and lacks a plan to address them, which in turn poses a risk to the continuity of air traffic operations." Moreover, in November 2023, the FAA's NAS Safety Review Team (SRT) concluded that under the 2023-2032 Controller Workforce Plan (CWP) submitted to Congress: "when retirements and other attrition is accounted for, the hiring plan produces a negligible improvement over today's understaffed levels, resulting in a net increase of fewer than 200 air traffic controllers by 2032." Thankfully, during the recent 43-day government shutdown, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy kept the FAA's controller hiring and training pipeline open. For the first time ever, the FAA continued hiring and training controller candidates at the FAA's Academy in Oklahoma City during the shutdown, thereby ensuring controller staffing would not be as negatively affected compared to previous shutdowns. NATCA also continues to strongly support the administration's plan to "supercharge" the hiring of controller trainees, bringing in the best and brightest controller candidates. Message NATCA remains focused on improving the system- wide controller staffing shortage and long-standing controller training challenges. A properly-staffed controller workforce is necessary in order to safely and efficiently meet all of its operational, statutory, and contractual requirements, while also having the personnel resources to research, develop, deploy, and then train the existing workforce on new processes, technology, and modernization initiatives. Without sustainable hiring and training, and a staffing model like the one outlined in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support, the FAA will have a difficult time maintaining the current capacity of the system, let alone modernize or expand it for new users. Prior to 2024, NATCA, the FAA, and Congress were already taking steps in the right direction toward resolving these issues. For instance, in 2016, Congress passed a law that improved the FAA's hiring process by streamlining the hiring of controllers who have prior experience, as well as veterans and Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program students. In 2018, NATCA worked with Congress to reinstate the FAA's Retired Military Controller (RMC) program, as well as provide the FAA authority to post local commuting area vacancy announcements for certain critically understaffed facilities in New York. In 2019, Congress passed the ATC Hiring Reform Act of 2019, which made technical changes to the hiring process to make it less bureaucratic and more accountable. Two years ago, Congress made significant progress when it passed the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which was a critical advancement in addressing controller staffing shortages and training challenges. That law included many first-time provisions including directing the FAA to conduct maximum hiring for controllers for the duration of the bill, implementing expansion of the capacity of the FAA's Training Academy in Oklahoma City, deploying tower simulator systems (TSS) at all FAA towers to enhance and expedite training time (by approximately 25%). The law also required the FAA to implement the Collaborative Resources Workgroup's (CRWG) more accurate operational staffing targets on an interim Issue Staffing and Training Challenges Persist

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