Number of ATCs working in the US dropped 6% in the past decade, GAO says
According to the GAO's report, despite the FAA's hiring efforts, the number of controllers working in the US dropped by 6% between FY2015 and FY2025.
The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued its latest report about the air traffic control (ATC) workforce in the US, stating that between the fiscal years (FY) 2015 and 2025, controller staffing levels at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had dropped by 6%.
On January 6, 2026, the GAO, which published its report titled ‘Air Traffic Control Workforce: FAA Should Establish Goals and Better Assess Its Hiring Processes’ in December 2025, stated that decade-long efforts to hire more controllers have “fallen short.”
The report, in full, can be found here.
According to the office’s estimates, the number of ATCs in the US “has declined by about 6% in the last decade,” while during the same period, “there has been a 10% increase in the number of flights that rely on the air traffic control system.”
This has resulted in staffing shortages at critical facilities, it said.
While the low staffing numbers were “especially noticeable” during the US government shutdown, which lasted between October 1 and November 12, 2025, the chronic shortage of controllers in the US has been mainly fueled by two other shutdowns in 2013 and 2018/2019, the COVID-19 pandemic, and high attrition, particularly between 2019 and 2024.
During the latter period, the GAO also observed “rapidly recovering travel demand after the pandemic,” resulting in the FAA “struggling to increase its training capacity and meet demand.”
While the office recognized the FAA’s efforts to accelerate hiring and training of new ATCs, the process is “no simple task nor is it speedy.”
“For example, all applicants must pass an aptitude assessment and obtain a medical clearance and security approval before they are hired.”
Subsequently, most of these to-be controllers have to graduate from a four to six-month-long training course at the FAA academy, followed by on-site training, resulting in a potential certification period of up to six years.
“This rigorous hiring and training process is designed to ensure that candidates are well equipped to handle a demanding, high-stakes career as an air traffic controller. Very few applicants – about 2% – qualify for and complete the full training process.”
Between FY2017 and FY2022, over 106,500 people applied to become controllers. Only less than 4,000 started their training process at the FAA academy, while only around 2,300 have been fully certified or continued their training, resulting in a 2% success rate in hiring ATCs.
The GAO said that while some attrition during the process was “unavoidable,” the FAA could prevent some of those candidates from leaving or being forced to leave the process. “For example, the hiring process can be difficult to navigate and require multiple in-person appointments for medical screening, fingerprinting, and more,” it stated.
“And by the time applicants receive an employment offer, they may have already accepted another job or their life circumstances no longer let them relocate for the job.”
While the FAA has amended its hiring processes “by introducing new practices to speed it up and by hosting pre-employment events that allow applicants to complete multiple in-person tasks at one time,” many applicants still struggle to figure out their status along the way and their next steps, the GAO pointed out.
The office made three recommendations to the FAA. First, the regulator should ensure that it has a system in place that would provide applicants “the ability to efficiently access information related to their application, including the ability to check their application status and obtain the information they need to complete their next steps.”
Second, the FAA should “establish and document measurable goals for its processes to recruit, hire, and train air traffic controllers,” and third, use the information it has collected across its databases to “assess its processes for recruiting, hiring, and training air traffic controllers and inform decisions about any needed improvements.”
Commenting on the report before it was published to the public in November 2025, the Department of Transportation (DOT), the parent agency of the FAA, reiterated that candidates to become ATCs “spend significant time completing rigorous, highly specialized training.”
“Ensuring the prompt recruitment, training, and deployment of sufficient air traffic controllers and equipping them with cutting-edge technology remains a national priority.”
The FAA had exceeded its ATC hiring target for the tenth consecutive year, the DOT pointed out. “Over the next three years, FAA will hire and train record numbers of controllers,” the Department continued, adding that the regulator has initiated a number of measures to accelerate hiring and training.
This includes slashing the hiring process from eight to five steps, developing a dashboard that provides real-time status metrics, increasing the capacity of its academy, opening new candidate sources, and other measures.
“Upon reviewing the draft report from the [GAO], we concur with GAO’s three recommendations.”
The office delivered the final report to Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, who is the Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, on December 17, 2025.
On the same day, the Committee held a hearing titled ‘FAA’s Plan for ATC Modernization: Evaluating Progress, Ensuring Accountability and Results.’
When the Committee announced the hearing, Cruz’s statement read that the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ provided the FAA with a “$12.5 billion investment to modernize an aging air traffic control system,” with the funding ensuring that the regulator has enough resources to invest in the “latest telecommunications infrastructure, prevent outages, and upgrade radar systems that date back to the 1960s.”
On January 5, the FAA announced that it has selected RTX and Indra to “replace the nation’s aging radar system,” with up to 612 radars being modernized by June 2028. Replacements are scheduled to begin in Q1 2026, it noted.
Nevertheless, the hearing’s only witness, Bryan Bedford, the Administrator of the FAA, said in his opening remarks that the agency entered the shutdown with “below the staffing levels needed for the reliable operation of our air traffic control facilities, intensifying the government shutdown’s impact.”
While the FAA sees staffing triggers at its ATC facilities daily throughout the year, during the shutdown, they “spiked to unprecedented levels,” including when it observed over 80 staffing triggers in a single day on November 8, 2025, Bedford commented.
“Those metrics are indicators of controller workload and system stress. Reflecting on lessons learned from the DCA accident, we were proactive – closely monitoring trends, anticipating stress points, and preparing mitigation measures before conditions became acute. Accordingly, we temporarily reduced flight operations at 40 major airports.”
Rytis Beresnevicius
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