NATCA Bookshelf

FULL BACKGROUND ISSUE Air traffic controller staffing has been a concern for many years, but it has now reached a crisis level as the National Airspace System (NAS) has reached a 27-year low for Certified Professional Controller (CPC) staffing. Controller staffing has fallen nearly 10 percent since 2011, and the FAA has missed its hiring goals in each of the last seven years. In fact, the FAA has more controllers eligible to retire today than are currently in the pipeline to replace them. With more than one quarter of the certified controller workforce eligible to retire, the FAA's bureaucratic structure is failing. Furthermore, in fiscal year (F Y) 2015, the FAA fell 24 percent below its hiring goals. The stop-and-go funding for the FAA has made this problem worse, with sequestration forcing the FAA Academy to shut down for the better part of 2013. If this staffing crisis continues unaddressed, the FAA will be hard-pressed to maintain current capacity, let alone expand and modernize the system. MESSAGE NATCA believes the FAA must take a holistic, collaborative approach to resolving these staffing issues. We would be deeply concerned with any action that could impede properly staffing the NAS, including the potential for future furloughs and another closure of the training Academy. Here are NATCA's recommendations for reversing the staffing shortage: • The FAA should post an open and continuous vacancy announcement for experienced air traffic controllers. • The FAA must streamline the hiring process, specifically to ease the bottlenecks and bureaucratic delays in HR, security, and medical. After many years of advocacy by NATCA, the FAA has finally put in place 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. While this does not fix the staffing concerns it does allow experienced controllers to move to busier facilities where they are more likely to certify than an Academy graduate. Subsequently, it allows the FAA to place Academy graduates in the less complex and busy facilities where they are more likely to certify. Previously, Academy graduates were placed in busy towers and radar facilities upon graduation with dismal success rates. BACKGROUND The air traffic controller workforce is in the midst of a staffing crisis. Sequestration forced the FAA to institute a hiring freeze and shutter the FAA Academy between March and December 2013. Due to the lost year of hiring and training, even maximum hiring in 2015 and 2016 will not make up for the attrition experienced from 2013 through 2016. As a result, the FAA remains unable to adequately staff facilities in the near term. The hiring freeze compounded an already tenuous staffing situation in which the FAA has barely been able to replace retiring controllers. New hires who were admitted into the Academy beginning in January 2014 require between two and four years of training to become fully trained and capable of separating traffic on their own. Fully certified air traffic controllers (CPCs) must train these new hires, often taking those controllers away from their primary job of separating traffic. Thus, facilities that are already at critical staffing levels (defined as requiring overtime and six-day weeks to fully staff all positions) are facing a dire situation, as some of the retirement- eligible controllers begin to retire and those left on the job begin the time-intensive process of training Academy graduates. Additional staffing concerns are as follows: • Reduced Capacity: A further staffing reduction could have a detrimental and immediate effect on capacity, meaning fewer planes in the sky and greater potential for delays. • Deployment of NextGen: Understaffing hinders facilities throughout the NAS from deploying and training for NextGen programs, procedures, and equipment. • Overtime: Critically-staffed facilities require controllers to work overtime to provide adequate coverage of all needed positions. These facilities may lack sufficient staffing — even with overtime — to open all positions. • Fatigue: Extended workdays and workweeks lead to significant fatigue problems for the workforce. The National Transportation Safety Board has identified fatigue as one of its highest priority safety concerns. NATCA, the FAA and PASS have worked together to develop a fatigue awareness and education campaign called "Fully Charged" that is part of the collaborative Foundations of Professionalism program. 19

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