The best-supported solution is a package, not a single fix: keep hiring, reduce avoidable delays and drop-off in the multiyear training pipeline, improve staffing models for individual facilities, and track results with measurable goals. The often-cited 77% figure needs context: in 2023, 20 of 26 critical FAA facilities were staffed below 85% of the agency’s desired level. It does not mean that 77% of all U.S. controllers—or 77% of all FAA facilities—were understaffed. GAO’s December 2025 report summarizes the finding.
What does the 77% figure actually measure?
The figure is 20 out of 26 facilities, or about 77%. The facilities were identified as critical, and the threshold was staffing below 85% of the FAA’s desired level in 2023. The measure does not say that these facilities had exactly 77% of the controllers they needed; nor does it describe every FAA facility or every controller in the country. GAO attributes the finding to the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General’s 2023 work.
Why does the shortage persist despite hiring?
Traffic has grown while the workforce has shrunk
GAO analyzed FAA workforce data showing 13,164 controllers at the end of fiscal year 2025, about 6% fewer than the 14,007 at the end of FY2015. Over FY2015 to FY2024, estimated flights interacting with the FAA air traffic control system increased from 28.1 million to 30.8 million, roughly 10%. The workforce count includes controllers assigned to facilities, including those in training, but excludes students at the FAA Academy. These figures cover different periods and measures; they should not be read as a direct one-to-one measure of workload per controller. GAO-26-107320
Hiring is only the start of a long pipeline
Applicants must meet aptitude or prior-experience requirements and pass medical and security clearances. Most new entrants attend the FAA Academy, then continue facility-specific on-the-job training before certification. GAO’s January 2026 summary says certification can take up to six years and that most candidates complete a four-to-six-month Academy course before on-the-job training. FAA’s total of about 200,000 applicants over several years, also cited by GAO, is not a count of people hired or certified from a single cohort. GAO’s January 2026 summary
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Some applicants are lost along the way
The process is selective by design, but not every delay or departure reflects a qualification decision. GAO describes candidates having difficulty understanding their status and next steps, alongside burdens such as repeated in-person tasks, delays, and relocation. Reduced hiring during appropriations lapses in the 2010s and the COVID-19 pandemic, along with increased attrition, also contributed to workforce pressure. FAA increased hiring each year from 2021 through FY2025, yet the workforce remained below its FY2015 level as traffic grew. GAO’s workforce report
Controllers are not interchangeable across facilities
A national headcount does not show whether a particular facility has enough certified staff for its workload and local duties. GAO reports that the Transportation Research Board recommended making FAA’s staffing model more responsive to conditions at individual facilities, and accounting for duties such as training that take controllers away from controlling traffic. A national hiring increase can therefore coexist with shortages at specific critical sites.
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What solutions are supported by the evidence?
1. Continue hiring, while expanding the capacity to train
FAA has increased annual hiring since 2021. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the agency to maximize controller hiring subject to appropriations, examine factors that limit hiring and retention, and consider instructor recruitment, hiring, and retention. More applicants help only if the Academy, medical-clearance process, instructors, and facilities can move qualified candidates through training. The cited sources do not establish a universal optimal hiring target. GAO’s overview of the 2024 reauthorization
2. Remove avoidable process friction without lowering standards
GAO reports that FAA used continuous processing for a 2025 hiring announcement, consolidated some in-person pre-employment tasks into events, streamlined application review, and added resources for medical clearances. GAO also recommends giving candidates a more efficient way to check application status and learn what action is required next. The aim is to prevent avoidable losses while retaining aptitude, medical, security, and certification requirements. GAO-26-107320 and GAO’s January 2026 summary
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3. Measure where candidates stall, then set goals
GAO found that FAA did not consistently assess recruiting, hiring, and training processes or use available data to understand outcomes. It recommends measurable goals across those stages and better analysis of information held in multiple databases. Useful reporting would distinguish applicants from candidates who clear screening, enter the Academy, progress through facility training, become certified, or leave—broken out by cohort and, where relevant, facility. Those are ways to make the recommended measurement useful, not targets GAO says FAA has already set.
As GAO director Andrew Von Ah put it in the December 2025 report: “Doing so could help FAA understand the performance of its processes, make the changes that would have the greatest effect on controller staffing, and keep otherwise qualified applicants on the track to becoming certified controllers.”
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4. Improve facility-level staffing models and transfer incentives
The Transportation Research Board recommended retaining the basic structure of FAA’s staffing model while making it more sensitive to individual facility conditions. Its recommendations include a structured way to capture local factors, accounting for duties such as training, and a concerted effort to staff critical facilities at model-recommended levels—including increased incentives for certified controllers to transfer to those facilities. GAO reports that, as of July 2025, FAA was considering the recommendations. They are proposals, not evidence that a transfer incentive or revised model has already resolved shortages. GAO-26-107320
5. Make progress visible
A useful public progress account would separate hiring from certification and show whether priority facilities are moving toward their model-recommended staffing levels. That follows from GAO’s recommendations for measurable goals and data-informed decisions; the cited reports do not establish that a complete public scorecard already exists. Reports should show outcomes by process stage and facility, rather than relying on a large applicant total or a national workforce number alone.
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How to judge whether a proposed fix is working
- Time to impact: Does it produce certified controllers available at facilities, or only increase applications and hiring?
- Pipeline stage: Does it address screening, clearances, Academy capacity, facility training, certification, or retention?
- Quality and fairness: Does it reduce avoidable attrition without weakening qualification standards?
- Where staff go: Does it address critical facilities specifically, or only increase the national headcount?
- Evidence of results: Are outcomes reported against measurable goals by cohort and facility?
The government sources identify these constraints and recommend changes, but do not quantify the staffing gain from each intervention or rank them by cost-effectiveness. They do not show that any one measure has eliminated the shortage. That makes a measured package of pipeline improvements, continued hiring, and facility-level staffing changes more defensible than promising a quick, single-step fix.
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