FAA Releases 2026-2028 Air Traffic Controller Hiring and Modernization Plan

The Federal Aviation Administration unveiled the 2026-2028 Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan on Friday. The plan calls for hiring thousands of new controllers, modernizing scheduling systems and replacing aging infrastructure. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford warned lawmakers in a December congressional hearing that air traffic control towers would never reach full staffing levels under the current structure.

"We’ll never catch up," Bedford said during the hearing. "We can’t continue to operate the same way and expect better results," he added. Bedford said in a statement that the plan delivers on President Donald J. Trump’s promise to provide the American flying public with a world-class air traffic control system.

The FAA plan identifies a full staffing target of 12,563 certified professional controllers. As of April 2026 the FAA had roughly 11,000 certified professional controllers deployed across more than 300 air traffic facilities.

The agency also has an additional 4,000 controllers in the training pipeline, including about 1,000 who were previously fully certified but are now training at new facilities. It can take more than two years to fully certify a new-hire controller depending on the complexity of the facility.

The FAA plans to hire 2,200 new air traffic controllers in fiscal year 2026, 2,300 in fiscal year 2027 and 2,400 in fiscal year 2028.

This builds on fiscal year 2025 when the FAA hired 2,028 air traffic controller trainees, the highest total since 2008. The agency raised starting salaries for academy students by nearly 30 percent that year. Total workforce losses in fiscal year 2025, including retirements, resignations, promotions, removals, training failures and academy attrition, totaled 1,460.

Nearly 400 retirement-eligible controllers were retained through a new bonus structure in fiscal year 2025. The workforce plan states that use of a limited amount of overtime is a reasonable means of addressing unexpected variances of work demands. Chronic use of overtime leads to fatigue, controller burnout and loss of retention.

Workforce scheduling and controller timekeeping are still handled manually by local facility managers. The plan states it is difficult to understand why no automation tools have been deployed to schedule the workforce or track time, attendance and functional work accomplished.

Improving average controller time on position from about four hours to more than five hours per eight-hour shift could increase effective workforce availability enough to meet current staffing targets.

The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies found that about 30 percent of FAA facilities were staffed more than 10 percent below staffing targets and another 30 percent were staffed 10 percent or more above targets. The FAA plan calls for replacing decades-old infrastructure with a fully digital system, expanding simulator-based training and using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.

Certain FAA facilities still rely on floppy disks.

A representative saw floppy disks still in use at the FAA’s terminal radar approach control facility on Long Island. 5 billion received under Trump-backed legislation. 5 billion in Trump-backed legislation includes investments in telecommunications infrastructure and new radar surveillance systems.