CNN: Not just Reagan: Airports across the US have struggled with air traffic control staffing in recent years, data shows
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Airports around the country have struggled with controller staffing levels for years, according to a CNN review of government data and interviews with aviation experts.
The most recent data from the FAA shows that across all airport towers and terminal approach facilities nationwide, only about 70% of staffing targets were filled by fully certified controllers as of September 2023. When controllers in training are included, that rose to about 79%.
Some traffic control towers at major airports around the country – including Philadelphia, Orlando, Austin, Albuquerque and Milwaukee – had less than 60% of their staffing targets filled with certified controllers. Reagan Airport had about 63%.
Air traffic controllers in the US have been warning about the impact of low staffing levels for years, submitting anonymous reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. At least 10 reports submitted by controllers included concerns about staffing, work schedules or fatigue in the last year alone, the NASA database shows.
“We have been short staffed for too many years and it’s creating so many unsafe situations,” one controller in Southern California wrote last year, recounting how a small aircraft requesting assistance could not be helped due to workload issues. “The FAA has created an unsafe environment to work and for the flying public. The controllers’ mental health is deteriorating.”
“We are already on forced 6-day work weeks working overtime every week,” another controller in Northern California wrote. “This Leads to Controller fatigue very quickly. We need more staffing.”
Self-reported safety incidents by aviation personnel recorded in NASA’s database detail hundreds of incidents since 2015 in which pilots said they were forced to take evasive action to avoid collision with another aircraft or helicopter when trying to land or depart from the country’s busiest airports.
In 2023, after a series of close calls at airports around the country, the FAA commissioned a safety review of the national airspace system. An independent team produced a report that found inadequate air-traffic control staffing, combined with outdated equipment and technology, was “rendering the current level of safety unsustainable.”
The report added that overtime among air traffic controllers had reached historically high levels and contributed to absences and fatigue.
With “fewer eyes on the airspace… the opportunity for mistakes in instruction is multiplied,” the report stated, noting there were about 1,000 fewer fully certified air traffic controllers in August 2023 than in August 2012, despite more complexity in the national air space.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union, has also been warning about staffing shortages for more than a decade.
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