Comment by stackskipton
2 months ago
Yep, COVID didn't help either.
However, I'll note that hiring != actual ATC controllers because drop/fail rate which for some insane reason is so hard to find.
2 months ago
Yep, COVID didn't help either.
However, I'll note that hiring != actual ATC controllers because drop/fail rate which for some insane reason is so hard to find.
Here ya go:
Academy attrition on page 38.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...
This is really helpful. I take something different from it than you do (it looks like attrition starkly increases after 2014, in ways I'd strongly argue it's reasonable to attribute to the new hiring methods), but I'm grateful you posted it. Do you know if more complete/precise numbers are available anywhere (hiring counts, hiring+attrition, etc?
I'm aware of this but it leaves attrition to be inferred. https://www.natca.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FY23-Staffi...
I'm going to assume you mean "academy" attrition for sake of conversation.
You have a wave of much higher attrition after 2013 because....You have a lot more trainees on fewer trainers.
That means more load is placed on fewer trainers resulting on page 45 where you spike from 20% to 25% ratio.
Combine that with the very valid point that this is not CIT folks but qualifying citizens being admitted, you can see the impact of having a 56% higher attrition rate!
Here's a bunch of plans to comb through for the full numbers. I don't have a spreadsheet off hand.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2021-11/FAA-Controll...
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...
Alas - my key point is this: the statement
> Has this had a long-term impact on aviation safety and air traffic controller shortages? Likely yes."
may have been highly attributable in 2018 timeframe but the real culprit is just as likely the 2013 sequester - I'd caution to say any one cause is the reason but rather there is a combination between a shift in applicant pool, having to deal with a slight burst in retirements, recovering from sequester and revamped training processes. Heck - maybe even not having an administrator from 2017-2018 might have caused issues.
In the cold light of 2025 with impacts from COVID still reverberating, I'd doubt hiring practices as much as any other arbitrary reason.
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Figure, it was in a PDF that search engines had trouble scraping. I feel like FAA is burying this data on purpose because it looks terrible.
Reading deeper, on page 40 that has historical data, starting FY14 when this survey had been implemented and initial class hired, Academy Training Attrition appears to be much higher though all I can base this on is comparing bar graph sizes. So yes, this change to hiring process did impact staffing levels because academy attrition was higher.
Possibly but I'd argue it's far from a smoking gun.
The sequester of 2013 did a number on things and they hired to maximum capacity in the years after to make up for lost time. It stands to reason that by filling training to the max, they'd have more washouts due to lack of more attention during training.
> The sequestration in 2013 and subsequent hiring freeze resulted in the FAA not hiring any new controllers for nearly 9 months across FY 2013 and FY 2014. The effects of this disruption on the hiring pipeline, as well as the FAA Air Traffic Academy’s operations, were substantial.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...
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I'll never find it, but a few days ago someone here posted an anecdotal story that class sizes were between 10-20 and failure/drop rate was ~50%.
I probably read the same thing, the most galling to me wasn't the failure rate it was that once you've failed you can never reapply.
For some jobs, your aptitude should matter. If a test has some discriminating power between people with aptitude and those without aptitude, then perhaps failing that test should really matter. For ATC staff perhaps OCD-adjacent traits are good and ADD-adjacent traits are bad. Maybe you don't want someone with epilepsy in ATC even though that's unfair.
Maybe we all want to be Olympic athletes and a few work hard to become so, but what should happen if we lack some necessary skill?
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Across 2023 and 2024 the en route academy pass rate was ~66% and terminal pass rate was ~73%. Of that, ~25% of en route trainees fail at their facility and ~15-20% of terminal trainees fail at their facility. There are ~2 en route trainees per terminal trainee.