The FAA says it has hired the 2,000 new air traffic controller recruits it had pledged to hire in 2025 and is aiming to hire 2,200 next year. Reuters is reporting that FAA Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau made the announcement at an unnamed industry conference. The agency had set the goal of hiring the controllers by Sept. 30 and the clock starts on the new hiring target on Oct. 1. The hiring targets are part of a new effort to get the National Airspace System modernized and working better. The FAA is short 3,500 controllers and most are working six-day weeks with mandatory overtime.
Of course, it will be a couple of years before this year’s batch of recruits makes a dent in the staffing shortage and more than a third won’t make it through training. A shortage of instructors for the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City is also hampering training and many instructors are working double shifts to keep the pipeline full. Most of the instructors are retired controllers.
Hmm, “2,000 this year, 2,200 next” sounds fine in a press release, but about half wash out and the rest take years before they’re any use. Meanwhile traffic keeps climbing, veterans keep retiring, and drones and eVTOLs are piling on. Net gain is maybe 400 a year against a 3,500 hole, so you’re looking at the 2030s, maybe even 2040, before things even out.
Satellites, VR, and AI just add another system to learn while still keeping the old one alive. The real fix is the unglamorous one: more schools, more instructors, and bigger hiring classes to make up for the dropouts, with steady adjustments along the way.
I hope the recruitment problem is solved a different way. We live in a world of ADS-B, flight management systems, autonomous autoland and ubiquitous computer technology. I sincerely think that if the 2040 answer to managing air traffic is to still have thousands of men and women in dark rooms gazing at screens and directing traffic like a big video puzzle, then we have failed.
A lot of the verbal ATC instructions shouldn’t be required if the instructions can be data linked to the airlines. The technology is there but the FAA and other regulatory agencies are dragging their feet. There is no reason for the airline to switch frequency and talk to ATC when they can communicate via data link. This will free up a lot of the frequency bandwidth for other non-airline traffic that doesn’t have the datalink like flight school and smaller commercial twins. The only time the airline needs to verbally talk to the tower is after the handoff for in preparation for landing.
… and we all know that the best way to fix a project that’s woefully behind schedule, is to throw more bodies at it.