US watchdog to review high failure rate in FAA air traffic control training

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation Department Office of Inspector General said on Thursday it will open a probe into high failure rates among air traffic control trainees amid a long-standing shortage of controllers to manage U.S. air traffic.

The Trump administration has vowed to take action to address a persistent shortage of air traffic controllers. The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels. Many are working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks and the FAA’s air traffic control training academy faces serious issues.

“Attrition, retirements, and program washouts are severely impacting the overall success of increasing the number of certified controllers,” the inspector general said, adding the failure rate was more than 30% among trainees in 2024. “The training academy is facing considerable challenges with training, including a shortage of  qualified instructors, training capacity limitations, an outdated curriculum, andhigh training failure rates.”

The FAA and USDOT did not immediately comment.

Congress this week approved funding to hire 2,500 additional controllers this year. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in February announced a campaign to “supercharge” controller hiring, which resulted in more than 10,000 applications, the inspector general said.

OIG said more than 8,300 applicants were referred to the FAA academy resulting in approximately 600 trainees. After trainees leave the academy, they get more training at air traffic control towers before they are full certified controllers. The FAA said in December a 43-government shutdown had hurt training efforts and noted the high washout rate.

“We lost, I don’t know, 400 to 500 of our trainees that just sort of gave up during the lapse even though we kept the school open,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said at a U.S. Senate hearing in December, vowing to improve the curriculum.

Duffy has taken a number of steps to boost controller staffing. The FAA is offering retirement-eligible controllers who are under the mandatory retirement age of 56 a lump sum payment of 20% of their basic pay for each year they continue to work. The FAA has increased starting salaries by 30% for candidates who go to the FAA training academy and is speeding time-to-hire by cutting more than four months off the prior process.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Chizu Nomiyama )