FAA planners size up workforce demands with new air traffic control system

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A project to deploy more advanced aviation technology won't affect the air traffic control workforce this year, but meeting future operational demands could challenge Federal Aviation Administration planners, according to observers.

On Wednesday, FAA released its 10-year plan for recruiting, hiring and training air traffic controllers through 2019. It's too early to know how NextGen, an ambitious $20 billion program to replace the agency's radar-based air traffic control system with a satellite-based network by 2020, will alter staffing and controller workload, the report says.

Officials at the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents FAA controllers, said the agency has yet to define their job descriptions under NextGen. Though responsibilities could change as NextGen programs deploy, staffing needs will increase given an expected rise in air traffic, said NATCA spokesman Doug Church.

According to FAA predictions, general aviation operations are expected to grow 1.5 percent annually from 2010 to 2030. But its fiscal 2011 budget request is $14.4 million less than fiscal 2010 levels, anticipating the equivalent of 121 full-time positions would be lost to attrition. The agency plans to hire nearly 11,000 controllers through fiscal 2019, fewer than expected losses. FAA has hired more than 7,000 controllers during the past five years.

The 10-year strategy defines FAA's "staffing to traffic" hiring approach, which aims to predict and meet workforce needs two to three years down the line. But these uneven hiring patterns are a cause for concern, observers say.

"The FAA has just completed another massive hiring wave and is poised to dramatically cut off hiring. Unless the FAA continues to hire in an even flow, we will see another wave of retirement eligibility and another staffing crisis 20 years in the future," said NATCA Executive Vice President Trish Gilbert in a March 18 House Transportation and Housing and Urban Development subcommittee hearing .

FAA hired a large number of people following the 1981 air traffic controller strike. Now 2,544 employees are able to retire, and 827 will become eligible in 2010. That number will drop to 175 by 2019.

Another challenge FAA will face is training users in NextGen technologies, NATCA officials said. The average instruction time for those transitioning to En Route Automation Modernization, which provides flight information to terminal control facilities and traffic management systems, increased to more than two and a half years in 2009. But officials still expect trainees can finish the course in two to three years.

While FAA doesn't have concrete estimates for the number of hours required for some NextGen training programs, the potential increase likely will be offset when new controllers no longer require instruction on the old systems, said Paul Takemoto, an FAA spokesman.

"Training is a very big issue to NATCA. We are very concerned about training due to the FAA's lack of a recurrent training program for controllers, and we are also concerned about the quality of training for NextGen for pilots outside the airline industry," said Dale Wright, director of safety and technology at NATCA, referring to private pilots who do not receive training through commercial carriers.