NCS
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Every day, millions of travelers’ lives are actually up in the air, counting on the acuity of air traffic controllers to orchestrate high-speed maneuvers and assist stop plane from crashing.
But the shortage of air traffic controllers is nearly the worst in 30 years, mentioned the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents 10,800 licensed ATCs throughout the nation.
The shortfall has pressured many to work “six days a week, 10 hours a day – for years at a time,” union President Nick Daniels testified at a House subcommittee listening to this week.
The US wants greater than 3,000 new air traffic controllers to attain ample staffing, he mentioned. And latest, high-profile incidents have highlighted the shortage and workload of exhausted air traffic controllers.
“What is new – or more problematic or more common now – is the use of overtime,” mentioned Michael McCormick, a professor and air traffic administration coordinator at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“I would say your larger facilities are probably more problematic in use of overtime than the smaller facilities – just where you don’t want it the most.”
In January, a industrial jet and a army helicopter collided midair close to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 folks. While authorities haven’t recognized the explanation for that disaster, NCS has confirmed one air traffic controller was staffing two different jobs in the tower – dealing with each native air traffic and helicopter traffic in the space.
And investigators not too long ago mentioned a close to collision in 2023 was brought on by an air traffic controller who was distracted by a 3rd aircraft, although their report didn’t explicitly cite staffing scarcity or exhaustion.
The federal authorities not too long ago introduced pay boosts for brand new air traffic controllers and extra environment friendly hiring processes. But anybody over age 31 is too outdated to apply, limiting the hiring pool. And the overwhelming majority of controllers are pressured to depart their jobs a decade earlier than standard retirement age.
Air traffic management candidates should be lower than 31 years outdated to allow them to work the obligatory 20 or 25 years wanted to qualify for pensions earlier than their obligatory retirement age of 56, an FAA spokesperson mentioned.
While that age cutoff might sound younger, ATCs should have unimaginable bodily stamina and psychological sharpness, McCormick mentioned.
“When you first start at an air traffic control facility, you have to do a lot of memorization,” McCormick mentioned.
“You have to memorize what’s known as the radar map. You have to know what every single dot dashed line means on the map. You have to memorize how the airspace is sectorized. So think of Tetris. There’s multiple layers and shapes that all fit together into a puzzle. That’s what airspace is like, too.”
But this Tetris-style puzzle is “in three dimensions. So you have to memorize the geographical confines of all the sectors and the altitude limitations,” McCormick mentioned.
Most air traffic controllers don’t simply monitor one airport. Many maintain tabs on dozens of different regional airports to be certain planes maintain a secure distance from one another.
At Philadelphia’s most important airport, “there’s also 72 satellite airports in the airspace that you also have to know,” mentioned McCormick, who labored in that airport’s traffic management tower.
“You provide approach control services (to) all those airports, too. So all that needs to be memorized … you can’t waste time and energy looking something up or trying to remember something.”
The cognitive challenges intensify with age and when air traffic controllers transfer to bigger airports – forcing them to memorize considerably extra information and observe extra regional airports, McCormick mentioned.
The head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, has touted slashing government jobs in an array of departments. But he not too long ago requested retired air traffic controllers to take into account returning to work.
“There is a shortage of top notch air traffic controllers,” Musk posted on X. “If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so.”
But it’s unlikely retirees will return to management towers due to a federal regulation requiring air traffic controllers to retire by age 56.
In uncommon instances, ATCs can get one-year waivers to maintain working up to age 60, in the event that they present sturdy psychological and bodily skill, McCormick mentioned. And ATCs can nonetheless work elsewhere after their mandated retirement from air traffic management.
But many select to retire by age 56 – if not earlier – due to beneficiant pensions, McCormick mentioned.
“Unlike traditional federal employees that need 30 years of service to retire, air traffic controllers are able to retire at age 50 with at least 20 years of service or any age with at least 25 years,” the FAA mentioned.
“Retirement annuity is a guaranteed income for a person during their retirement years. Air traffic controllers receive a more generous annuity than traditional federal employees.”
But given the dearth of air traffic controllers, McCormick recommends finding out whether or not it’d be secure to elevate the obligatory retirement age to permit those that are nonetheless mentally and bodily sharp to work past age 56 if they need to achieve this.
“There needs to be funded research on ‘is that mandatory retirement age still valid?’ Because that has been in place since the 1970s,” McCormick mentioned.
“And since that time, there has never been any effort to validate: Is that good? Is it not good? Has the aging process changed over time?”
Since new hires typically require years of coaching, “if you can extend people who are eligible to retire (by) one to five years, that gives a chance for the FAA to build their workforce back up,” McCormick mentioned.
The US Department of Transportation has not responded to why the particular age of 56 was chosen or whether or not it is contemplating adjusting the age limits.
Stringent necessities and excessive attrition
The shortage of air traffic controllers isn’t due to a scarcity of candidates. It’s the lack of certified candidates who meet the FAA’s rigorous necessities.
“Less than 10% of all applicants meet these requirements and are accepted into the training program,” the FAA mentioned.
Some candidates don’t go the medical and security clearances. And many don’t make it by way of the strenuous academy and coaching.
“It’s a rigorous training process,” Daniels told NCS final month. “So it’s not like today we could go out and hire the 3,600. It takes two to three years to get a controller from being qualified … just to enter the job.”
After that, there are “multiple points where they can fail out of being an air traffic controller – everything from academy to simulation training locally and then eventually talking to aircraft on their own.”
With the present staffing deficit, about 41% of air traffic controllers should work 60-hour weeks, the union mentioned.
The obligatory relaxation interval between shifts has elevated from eight hours to 10 hours – although that features time to commute dwelling.
But there are not any mandates requiring two days off at the finish of labor weeks, which means many ATCs have solely a 24-hour weekend earlier than beginning one other work week.
While controllers get additional pay for obligatory time beyond regulation, grueling 60-hour work weeks can fuel attrition. And the longer the staffing shortages persist, the longer some ATCs danger exhaustion and burnout.
“The past hiring rate was not keeping up with the natural attrition of workers leaving the profession due to retirement or other stresses of the job,” mentioned Galen Munroe, a spokesperson for the ATC union.
McCormick attributes the ongoing shortfall to the “inability to hire and train controllers due to things like Covid, the recession, government shutdowns.”
The variety of air traffic controllers began plummeting round 2013, after a authorities shutdown, McCormick mentioned.
Since then, each time the authorities has shut down, coaching and hiring for air traffic controllers have come to a screeching halt. Recruits at the FAA’s coaching academy in Oklahoma City should be despatched dwelling.
Now, specialists fear a potential government shutdown on March 14 will exacerbate the scarcity.
“If there’s a government shutdown on March 14th, it’s going to make a mess of our hiring and training and control,” McCormick mentioned.
Pay bumps and expedited hiring
To fight the shortfall, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy introduced “a new plan to supercharge the hiring of air traffic controllers.”
The present hiring window is open by way of March 17, “and we are making it more efficient than ever to apply and more affordable to begin training,” the FAA mentioned.
The beginning pay throughout academy coaching will soar from $17.61 an hour to $22.61, the company mentioned. “Pay continues to increase as you gain more experience and earn professional certifications,” the FAA mentioned.
“Within three years of graduating the Academy, the average certified professional controller earns over $160,000 per year.”
And the outdated, eight-step hiring course of that may final properly over a yr is being changed with a faster, five-step hiring technique. For instance, the FAA can now work to course of medical and safety clearances at the similar time, quite than ready for one to end earlier than beginning the different.
The streamlined course of “will accelerate the time-to-hire for these critical positions by shaving more than four months off the old process.”
The FAA mentioned it has already made beneficial properties in the previous yr, exceeding its goal of hiring 1,800 air traffic controllers in 2024 – the highest quantity in almost a decade.
McCormick mentioned the FAA could go additional to get younger folks occupied with changing into air traffic controllers.
“I think they need to start reaching out more to high school age (students) and do heavier recruiting at a younger age,” he mentioned.
But the ongoing shortfall – and unending attrition – imply the problem gained’t be solved rapidly.
“It’s going to take time,” he mentioned. “It’s going to take years to fill that gap.”
NCS’s Chris Isidore, Alexandra Skores and Alta Spells contributed to this report.