[When an American Airlines flight fatally collided with a military helicopter near Reagan National Airport Wednesday night, the airport’s tower wasn’t fully staffed, with one traffic controller handling the jobs of two people. But the situation was hardly an anomaly. 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 Federal Aviation Administration 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%.
Aviation experts say it’s too early to tell whether a lack of sufficient staffing could have played a role in the disaster over the Potomac River that took 67 lives this week. But the tragedy could raise awareness of the staffing issues that go beyond a single airport.
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.”
The shortages come in part because of attrition during the Covid-19 pandemic and the stringent training that is required for new hires, experts say. An inspector general report from 2023 stated that the pandemic led to training pauses over a period of about two years, which increased certification times for new controllers as older controllers continued to retire.
The FAA has recently touted more success in hiring controllers. In the government’s most recent fiscal year, which covered October 2023 through September 2024, the agency exceeded its hiring goal by bringing on more than 1,800 controllers, the agency said in a statement, calling it “important progress… to reverse the decades-long air traffic controller staffing level decline.”
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