The Federal Aviation Administration significantly lowered its estimate of how many controllers it will need to fully staff the nation’s air traffic facilities, a long-running concern, after determining that it could improve efficiency through better scheduling practices.
The change, outlined in a new agency work force report that was released on Friday, is based on the agency’s determination that making the work force more efficient would reduce the need for new hires. It outlines plans to increase the time controllers spend actively working when on duty, thus reducing demand for controllers to pull overtime shifts.
“We can’t continue to operate the same way and expect better results,” Bryan Bedford, the F.A.A. administrator, said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “We’re changing how we hire, train and schedule our controller work force — and providing them with the state-of-the-art tools they need to succeed.”
The report comes as air traffic controllers and the pressures they face on the job have been thrust into a national spotlight following a January 2025 midair collision between a commercial jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter just outside Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that killed 67. But adequately staffing air traffic control towers has been a long-running concern.
The F.A.A.’s proposed change, according to the report, would reduce overall staffing needs by more than 2,000 positions. Last year, the agency estimated that it would need a total of 14,633 controllers to be fully staffed; Friday’s report put that number at 12,563.
As of last September, the F.A.A. had 10,693 fully certified controllers on staff, with another 3,530 in various stages of training.
“The F.A.A. recognizes that hiring alone will not resolve work force challenges,” the report states.
“Improving time on position represents a significant opportunity to increase effective capacity,” it added, concluding that “the resulting increase in effective work force availability would meet current staffing targets.”
But it is not clear that controllers will agree.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement that it had not been involved in the development of the F.A.A.’s new work force plan, and that it was still reviewing the document.
Some former controllers were more blunt in their reaction.
“It’s a bad idea,” said Dave Riley, a recently retired controller who worked in the Denver Airport tower. “That’s just one metric that they’re looking at, time on position. There’s all kinds of other stuff that controllers have to do throughout the day that count as work being performed.”
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” he added.
In its investigation of the January 2025 collision, the National Transportation Safety Board determined earlier this year that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots involved contributed to the accident.
In March, a fatal ground collision at LaGuardia Airport between a landing commercial jet and an emergency fire truck that had been given clearance to cross the runway also highlighted concerns about air traffic controller staffing.
For years, controllers have been complaining of exhaustion, fatigue and low morale, as the demands of managing increasing air traffic have expanded faster than the work force. Last year, the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, an advisory nonprofit authorized by Congress, released a report attributing controllers’ difficulties in part to an overreliance on overtime work to keep air traffic facilities adequately staffed. The pressure to work additional shifts increased the likelihood of fatigue, the report stated, increasing the danger of controllers making a mistake in a life-or-death situation.
In the wake of that report and the midair collision, lawmakers, regulators and aviation safety watchdogs have closely scrutinized staffing practices at air traffic facilities, paying particular attention to the practice of having controllers work multiple positions when towers are understaffed. But the F.A.A.’s work force plan, as outlined in Friday’s report, states that on average, controllers are spending less time working positions in the tower than they were two decades ago.
In 2008, the report states, controllers spent an average 4.68 hours of every eight-hour shift working air traffic positions, compared to 4.01 hours in 2025. Over the same time period, the average time they spent on other duties during an eight-hour shift rose from 0.91 hours in 2008 to 1.2 hours in 2025.
By using automated scheduling tools, the report says, the F.A.A. could bring controllers’ schedules into closer alignment with the traffic-based demands of each shift, reducing the need for staffers to work overtime — and by extension, the overall staffing needs of many facilities.
“If the F.A.A. increases average time on position from four hours to five hours per eight-hour shift, the resulting increase in effective work force availability would meet current staffing targets,” the report states. And adopting more modernized systems, it added, would “support increases in time on position and reduce inefficiencies in daily operations.”
The report repeats the F.A.A.’s previous commitment to increase the number of new hires it brings into the agency’s training academy, which has historically struggled with high washout rates, as well as efforts to train more controllers through partnerships with universities and colleges. It also echoes previously articulated plans to incentivize controllers eligible to retire to stay on duty if they have not yet aged out of the work force, such as the bonuses the Transportation Department offered to experienced controllers beginning last year.
But the report’s authors acknowledge that those efforts have thus far failed to neutralize some of the main sources of attrition.
“Despite the increased incentive to delay retirement, most controllers still leave the controller work force prior to reaching the mandatory age,” the report states.
