FAA to Hire Thousands of Air Traffic Controllers

WASHINGTON — With three-quarters of the nation’s air traffic controllers expected to retire over the next decade, the Federal Aviation Administration today announced plans to hire 12,500 people to become the next generation of workers charged with keeping the skies safe.

As part of the plan, the agency expects to shrink the time it takes to train controllers from a maximum of five years to a maximum of three years, and offer some controllers an opportunity to continue working past the mandatory retirement age of 56.

The union that represents all 15,000 FAA air traffic controllers harshly criticized the government’s blueprint as inadequate to meet the looming crisis of the vast majority of the air traffic controller corps reaching retirement age at the same time.

But FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey said the plan would “put the right number of controllers in the right place at the right time.”

The FAA’s huge staffing challenge is the legacy of President Reagan’s decision to fire more than 10,000 striking air traffic controllers on one day in 1981. Their replacements will become eligible to retire in the coming years. The agency said it faces the additional challenge of funding the training of so many new controllers at a time when the expanding budget deficit and the expensive war in Iraq have made federal funds tight.

National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. President John Carr said that the Bush administration had delayed facing the staffing problem and as a result existing shortfalls will become more critical before the agency is able to train replacements.

For example, the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center is currently operating with 201 certified controllers on the job--about two-thirds of the 310 controllers that the FAA has authorized as the ideal number to work at the facility, said Hamid Ghaffari, the union representative at the Palmdale center.

Although the agency lost 500 controllers last year, Congress only appropriated enough money in 2004 to train 13 controllers, according to Russ Chew, the FAA’s chief operating officer.

Still, he said, “if we execute this plan, we will not be short of certified air traffic controllers when we need them.”

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House subcommittee on aviation, predicted that Congress would be more likely to provide the training money because the FAA has proposed what he called an “excellent blueprint” to address the staff turnover.

But Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, criticized the administration for failing to say how it would pay to train the new controllers.

“There is one glaring omission in this report--funding,” said DeFazio. “I am pleased the administration is attempting to address the looming shortage in air traffic controllers, but they’re missing the most important point. Hiring and training 12,500 new controllers will be challenging and expensive. The Republican Congress and the president have already caused great delay and compounded the problem. It is critical that they support the staffing increases outlined in this plan during the appropriations process so we may avoid the pending crisis.”

Mica applauded the FAA for coming up with a policy for allowing some controllers to stay on the job after they reach their 56th birthdays if they are perform well and are in good health. The new FAA policy would allow some controllers to get annual waivers of the mandatory retirement date.

“People live longer, they want to work longer and they’re more productive longer,” Mica said.

But Carr said allowing controllers to stay on the job after age 56 was one of the many flaws in the government’s plan. He said that the requirement to retire at 56 reflects the fact that people’s sight, hearing and ability to exercise three-dimensional thinking declines with age. He stressed that it would be risky for the FAA to allow controllers to work “beyond their prime air traffic controlling years.”

Carr also criticized the agency’s proposal to allow more controllers to work part-time and split shifts to help meet the traffic demands.

Blakey said that the agency has plenty of applications for the highly skilled, high-paying jobs. On average, air traffic controllers earn $118,000 annually, and the most highly paid controllers earn $160,000, according to the FAA.

“I think we’re not going to have any difficulty finding people to step up,” Blakey said.

In most cases, applicants cannot be older than 31 and they must pass a grueling eight-hour exam called the Air Traffic Selection and Training, which tests for such aptitudes as tolerance for high intensity work, numeric ability, visualization and problem solving.