Too many air traffic controllers are retiring after 25 years of service, contributing to the ongoing shortages at the nation’s airports, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday.
“Is this a national security issue?” Duffy said in an interview with Fox Business. “Is this a safety issue? And should these air traffic controllers be retiring after 25 years of service?”
Keeping the air traffic controllers on the job longer, said Duffy, may involve further calculations because of national security.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, potential air traffic controllers must face a tough list of requirements before they can be trained, let alone go to work.
“This elite group of more than 14,000 FAA air traffic control specialists provides a vital public service to guide pilots, their planes, and 2.7 million daily passengers from taxi to takeoff, through the air, and back safely on the ground,” according to the agency.
A potential trainee must be a U.S. citizen under the age of 31; pass a medical exam and security investigation; pass security tests and the FAA’s pre-employment tests; speak clear English; and have at least a year of progressively responsible work experience or a Bachelor’s degree, or a combination of post-secondary education and work equal to a year.
The FAA said that less than 10% of all applicants meet all the requirements for the training program.
Air traffic controllers also have a mandatory retirement age of 56, according to House rules. This limits the FAA to only allow people under the age of 31 to enlist so they can serve for at least 25 years before they retire.
In some cases, controllers who have “exceptional skills” can have the retirement age stretched out to 61 years of age, the rules state.
“This is a longer-term problem,” Duffy said. “Not only do you train an air traffic controller over 3-4 months, but they also have to get in the towers. It takes a year to three years to train them up.”
The system also faces bottlenecks because not enough new air traffic controllers are being trained, said Duffy.
“We train about 2,000 air traffic controllers every year,” he said. “We need to up that to 2,500 or 2,700.”
Duffy stressed that despite the recent spate of aircraft crashes, air travel remains the safest mode of transportation in the country.
“You can’t travel anywhere safer than on an airplane,” he said.
But it will take time to bring in more air traffic controllers, as it will “take time to undo what wasn’t done in the past four years,” Duffy added.
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