After the fatal collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet over the Potomac River in January, confidence in air travel safety dropped among Americans.
Concerns around air traffic control staffing arose when it was revealed that the number of controllers on duty was "not normal" for the time and volume at Reagan Washington National Airport, according to a Federal Aviation Administration safety report. The responsibilities for helicopter traffic had been shifted to another controller, making it the responsibility of one person to control both helicopter and plane traffic.
“Over the past two years, there have been several FAA facilities that have been struggling with having enough qualified personnel to be able to handle the traffic,” Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation said.
The issue of understaffed air traffic control centers is prevalent across the country, as shown by data provided by the FAA.
According to data from the FAA's 2024 Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, there are not enough certified professional controllers and those in training to meet Crisis Response Working Group’s standards in the majority of U.S. terminals, which include TRACONs, or terminal radar approach control facilities, and towers.
Terminal centers control the airspace near airports during takeoff and landing. TRACONs handle airspaces with a high density of approaching and departing aircrafts while towers handle takeoffs, landings, and ground traffic within an airport.
The crisis group is the Federal Aviation Administration’s cross-functional team working on safeguarding aviation.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union and aviation safety organization for air traffic controllers, would prefer to adopt the crisis group's staffing model. According to NATCA’s former president Rich Santa, the model is based on data that was collected by the union and FAA’s Air Traffic Organization "through a survey of air traffic experts at every air traffic facility on position coverage needs for a typical busy day.”
“The CRWG staffing targets represent the most effective approach to addressing the air traffic controller staffing shortage," he said.
The numbers recorded on the 2024 Air Traffic Control Workforce Plan are from September 23, 2023. Only 23 terminals in the United States were fully staffed or exceeded the crisis group’s standards, with the remaining 266 terminals falling short of 100% staffing. Seventy terminals, nearly a quarter of all terminals, fell under 65% of the crisis group's recommended number.
For air route traffic control center towers which manage the en route airspace, a segment of the flight between the departure and arrival terminal airspaces, none fully meet 2024 staffing requirements. Based on the goals set for 2024, the FAA falls short of the 3,055 professional controllers and controllers in training who are needed throughout all U.S. air traffic control facilities.
Due to the Department of Government Efficiency’s budget cuts and layoffs, the FAA staff continues to decrease, despite the recent aircraft fatalities. In February, around 400 FAA personnel were let go.
No air traffic controllers were laid off, according to FAA Administrator Sean Duffy. However, the 400 people who were let go held direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations such as aviation safety assistants, maintenance mechanics and nautical information specialists.
The president of the air traffic controllers' union, Nick Daniels, asked Congress to prioritize facilities and equipment funding when he testified before the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure on March 4.
“These dedicated professionals continue to work short-staffed, often six days-a-week, 10 hours-a-day for years at a time, using outdated equipment and in run-down facilities that are in many cases more than 60 years old and are long overdue to be modernized and/or replaced,” Daniels said in his testimony.
“Several years ago when the government shut down for 35 days the FAA was required to close its training academy and missed its original hiring target by over 500 trainees… Once training resumed, the FAA reduced its FY 2019 controller hiring target by more than one-third (from 1,431 down to 907), and its staffing numbers never recovered," he said.
