by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 6:20 PM ET, Thu February 27, 2025
The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced a plan to "supercharge" hiring of new air traffic controllers with the goal of easing the staffing shortage.
As part of the new plan announced by DOT today, the FAA is opening its hiring window to become an air traffic controller from Thursday, Feb. 27 through March 17.
The program also
calls for:
- Increasing starting salaries by 30 percent for candidates who attend the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Academy. The average certified professional controller makes over $160,000 per year.
- Streamlining hiring to improve efficiency by changing the current 8-step hiring process at the FAA to a 5-step process. The change is designed to accelerate the time-to-hire by shaving more than four months off the process.
DOT also said today that once trainees successfully pass through the academy, they will be assigned to a tower or other facility across the country, where they’ll work with experienced air traffic controllers toward certification.
According to a recent report from CNN, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association (NATCA), a union, has been warning about staffing shortages for 10 years.
The shortages are partially due to the stringent training required for the job, as well as attrition that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a 2023 inspector general report, the pandemic brought about pauses in training, which in turn, increased certification times for new controllers. Meanwhile, older controllers
continued to retire.
More than 90 percent of U.S. airport towers are currently understaffed, according to a CBS report. There's currently about 10,800 air traffic control personnel nationwide. NATCA says that's about 3,600 fewer than what's required to maintain a fully staffed National Airspace System.
The Trump Administration fired several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees in mid-February. That purge included employees hired for the FAA radar, along with landing and navigational aid maintenance.
But Secretary Duffy said in a post on social media that no air traffic controllers were let go as part of that process.
The Trump administration also announced a hiring freeze in January after the president took office and sent letters to FAA employees, offering them the option to resign with eight months’ pay.
It was later made clear by the Office for Personnel Management that controllers were not eligible for the resignation plan, even though they were among the employees sent the offer, according to the Associated Press.
The US Travel Association expressed support today for the DOT's new hiring plan. Association President Geoff Freeman said in a statement that DOT's actions will "accelerate the creation of a world-class aviation experience that travelers expect, demand
and deserve."
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