NATCA Bookshelf

FULL BACKGROUND ISSUE Air traffic controller staffing has been a concern for many years. It reached a crisis level in 2015 and despite incremental progress, it remains a crisis. The National Airspace System (NAS) has reached a 28-year low in the number of Certified Professional Controllers (CPC). Controller staffing has fallen nearly 10 percent since 2011. In fact, more than one quarter of the certified controller workforce is eligible to retire, which is more than are currently in the pipeline to replace them. Stop-and-go funding for the FAA has made this problem worse, with sequestration forcing the FAA to suspend hiring and shutter its training Academy for most of 2013. If this staffing crisis continues unaddressed, the FAA will be hard-pressed to maintain current capacity, let alone modernize the system and expand it for new users, such as commercial space and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). MESSAGE NATCA believes the FAA must take a holistic, collaborative approach to resolving the staffing crisis as they have done in the last year. We are committed to working with all stakeholders to develop a permanent, sustainable solution. NATCA would be deeply concerned with any action that could impede properly staffing the NAS with CPCs, including the potential for future furloughs and another closure of the training Academy. Last year, we took a step in the right direction to resolving this staffing crisis when Congress passed the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016. Much work still remains to be done. NATCA recommends the following to continue alleviating the staffing shortage: • The FAA should routinely post vacancy announcements for experienced air traffic controllers and should continue to hire as many experienced controllers as are qualified. • The FAA should continue posting, at least annually, an all sources open announcement for non-experienced candidates, many of whom come from CTI schools, the military, and other aviation-related professions. • The FAA should continue to streamline the hiring process, specifically easing the bottlenecks and bureaucratic delays in HR, security, and medical. • The FAA should discontinue its use of finance-driven staffing numbers and replace them with the operationally derived CPC staffing targets, as reflected in its Priority Placement Tool, for the FAA's 2017 Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan (CWP) and all future reports. 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. The hiring freeze compounded an already tenuous staffing situation in which the FAA had barely been able to replace retiring controllers. continued on next page 43

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