	FAA Is Making Progress in Hiring Air Traffic Controllers, but New Hires May Have Less Experience Than in Prior Years

During the coming decade, FAA will be challenged to continue hiring  thousands of air traffic controllers to replace those who will retire and  leave for other reasons. To replace these controllers, FAA started making significant increases in  controller hiring in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, when it hired 1,116 and  1,815 controllers, respectively. (By comparison, during fiscal years 2002  through 2005, FAA hired an average of 467 controllers each year.) FAA anticipates hiring 1,877 controllers in fiscal year 2008, which  would bring the total number of air traffic controllers to 15,130. According  to FAA data, the agency is on track to meet its hiring target for fiscal year  2008. Previously, FAA had generally  limited its hiring to individuals with prior FAA or Department of Defense  (DOD) air traffic control experience and graduates of FAA’s Air Traffic  Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program. The agency began looking  farther afield, FAA officials said, because fewer military controllers have  been seeking civilian employment since DOD established incentives to  retain its controllers. For example, in 2007, the Air Force began offering  reenlistment bonuses of up to $60,000 for military air traffic controllers,  and the Marine Corps offers reenlistment bonuses of up to $40,000. Hiring a Large Number of Controllers Presents a Staffing Challenge for FAA

As FAA brings new controllers on board, it faces the challenge of ensuring  that its control facilities are adequately staffed to meet their unique traffic  demands. In 2007, the agency established staffing ranges for each facility  that considered facility-specific information, such as air traffic operations,  productivity trends, expected retirements, and the number of controllers  in training. However, the  understaffing at some facilities has potential safety and efficiency  implications. With  such a high percentage of newly hired controllers, fewer experienced  controllers will be available to provide on-the-job instruction to trainees  and more time may be needed to train and certify newly hired controllers,  according to FAA. Managing air traffic safely and effectively  while training new controllers  will require balancing the numbers of trainees and fully certified  controllers at each facility. To the extent that retirement rates and the proportion of trainees at  individual facilities leads to greater use of overtime, the potential for   fatigue can increase, raising safety concerns. In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has cited  controller work schedules as contributing to fatigue and raising safety  concerns. Since 1990, NTSB has placed efforts to address fatigue on its list  of “most wanted” transportation safety improvements, citing safety  concerns about the effects of fatigue on air traffic controllers and other  persons performing critical functions in the aviation industry. According to FAA’s 2008 controller workforce plan, the agency has been  making progress in reducing the amount of time controllers remain in  trainee status, which includes time spent at the academy and in a  developmental role. It will be  important for FAA to monitor the attrition rate, track the reasons for  attrition, and release poor performers as soon as possible to avoid  unnecessary costs. In addition, because of concern that FAA has  not sufficiently examined the costs and benefits of ATCOTS, a provision in  FAA’s fiscal year 2008 appropriation legislation prohibits FAA from using  any money in fiscal year 2008 for ATCOTS to displace, reassign, reduce the  salary of, or take any other action that would result in a reduction in force  for employees at FAA’s academy or a discontinuation of the academy as  the primary training facility for controllers. Both New and Experienced Controllers Will Need Training for NextGen, and Further Human Factors Research Is Needed to Support the Transition

Further work is needed to develop training for both new hires and fully  certified controllers to deal with the paradigm shift that will come with  NextGen. Our past work has shown that when human  factors are not adequately addressed, delays and cost overruns have  occurred in implementing new air traffic control technology. In response to these issues, FAA told us that it is difficult to develop  training for systems that are not yet fully defined. However, according to  FAA, it is in the early stages of talking to the educational community. The changes in roles and responsibilities for  air traffic controllers that will be central to NextGen technology raise  significant human factors issues for the safety and efficiency of the  national airspace system.
Why GAO Did This Study

Each day, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controls the take-offs, landings, and flights of over 50,000 aircraft. To accomplish this mission safely and efficiently, FAA must have a sufficient number of adequately trained air traffic controllers working at its air traffic control facilities. Over the next decade, FAA will need to hire and train nearly 17,000 controllers to replace over 15,000 current controllers, most of whom will be retiring. This massive hiring effort will occur as FAA begins to implement the next generation air transportation system (NextGen), which will integrate new technologies and procedures into air traffic operations and fundamentally change the role of air traffic controllers from controlling individual aircraft to managing air traffic flow. Hence, FAA will need to train experienced controllers to use the new technologies at the same time that it hires and trains new controllers to operate both the current and the new technologies. This testimony addresses FAA's progress and challenges in hiring, staffing, and training air traffic controllers in the current air traffic control system and in preparing them for NextGen. It is based on prior GAO work, updated with reviews of FAA documents and interviews with FAA officials, controller union representatives, and other stakeholders.

What GAO Found

To prepare for the projected departure of over 15,000 air traffic controllers between 2008 and 2017, FAA began significantly increasing the number of new hires in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, when it hired 1,116 and 1,815 controllers, respectively. By contrast, in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, it had hired an average of 467 controllers per year. Retirements are taking place sooner than FAA expected. As a result, FAA has had to adjust its hiring targets upward--from 1,420 in fiscal year 2008 to 1,877, for example. While FAA has met its hiring targets so far and is on track to meet its target for fiscal year 2008, it has had to expand its applicant pool, in large part because fewer military controllers have sought civilian employment since the Department of Defense began to offer reenlistment bonuses of up to $60,000. As FAA brings new controllers on board, it faces the challenge of ensuring that its control facilities are adequately staffed to meet their unique traffic demands. In 2007, FAA established staffing ranges for each facility based on facility-specific information, such as air traffic operations, productivity trends, expected retirements, and number of controller trainees. However, FAA's staffing is not aligned with the new ranges at about half of its facilities. While overstaffing will provide trained replacements as retirements occur, understaffing has potential safety and efficiency implications. As the proportion of new hires increases over time, FAA will face further challenges in balancing the numbers of trainees and fully certified controllers at each facility. Furthermore, with fewer fully certified controllers and greater on-the-job training demands, controllers may work more overtime hours. Overtime can lead to fatigue, and many controllers routinely work overtime, raising safety concerns. Both GAO and the National Transportation Safety Board have found that controllers' work schedules can contribute to fatigue and have made recommendations to mitigate it. FAA is taking steps to address these recommendations. In the training area, FAA faces the dual challenge of certifying its new hires to operate today's air traffic control system as quickly as possible and of preparing to train both experienced controllers and new hires to operate NextGen technologies. Through training improvements, scheduling efficiencies, and greater use of simulators, FAA has, it says, reduced the amount of time controllers remain in trainee status; however, attrition among controllers in developmental training is increasing. It will be important for FAA to monitor the attrition and ensure that performance problems are addressed as early as possible to avoid unnecessary costs. Preparations for NextGen training are still in the early stages--as FAA observes, it is difficult to develop training for systems that have not yet been defined. However, GAO's work has shown that further research is needed to determine what training will be required to support the transition to NextGen--a transition that will involve changes in the roles and responsibilities of air traffic controllers as well as changes in technologies.