A series of serious incidents in early 2023 has cast a spotlight on the nation’s air traffic control system, revealing an organization under considerable strain. A November 2023 report from a Federal Aviation Administration-chartered Safety Review Team found that while the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) generally maintains robust safety policies, significant challenges are eroding the margin of safety. The report identified critical issues in staffing, technology, and funding that, if left unaddressed, could render the current level of aviation safety unsustainable.
The core of the problem lies in a confluence of factors that have been brewing for years. A persistent shortage of certified professional controllers has led to historically high levels of overtime, increasing the risk of fatigue-related errors. Compounding this personnel crisis is the state of the system’s infrastructure; many critical facilities and pieces of equipment are operating far beyond their intended service lives, with some technologies dating back 50 years. These issues are underpinned by what the safety report describes as inadequate and inconsistent funding, which has hampered modernization efforts, slowed the hiring and training pipeline, and created a growing backlog of essential maintenance and upgrades.
A Widening Personnel Gap
The shortage of air traffic controllers is a critical issue that has been exacerbated by a combination of historical events and systemic challenges. The current staffing crisis can be traced back to a hiring surge following the 1981 controller strike, which created a wave of retirements decades later. The FAA’s hiring efforts have struggled to keep pace, a problem made worse by government shutdowns, sequestration cuts, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which collectively halted hiring for over a year and paused training for nearly two years of the last decade. As a result, there were 1,002 fewer fully certified controllers in August 2023 than in August 2012, even as the complexity of the airspace has grown.
This understaffing forces controllers to work high rates of overtime for extended periods, a practice linked to increased absenteeism, lower productivity, and fatigue. When facilities are short-staffed, sectors or positions are combined, meaning fewer controllers manage the same airspace. To maintain safety under these conditions, air traffic is often slowed or metered, reducing capacity and causing significant delays across the National Airspace System (NAS). The problem is not just about numbers; it’s also about the pipeline. The FAA Academy, the primary training ground for new controllers, acts as a bottleneck, unable to produce graduates fast enough to meet the system’s needs.
The Training Bottleneck
Compounding the hiring shortfall are significant challenges within the training process itself. The FAA Academy has a failure rate of just over 30%, which introduces inefficiency and cost into the system. The Safety Review Team report suggests that the process for selecting and placing trainees could be improved, recommending the use of data from the Air Traffic Skills Assessment to better match candidates with either en-route or terminal control duties. Furthermore, the report calls for an examination of the Academy’s culture and teaching methods to identify factors that may contribute to candidate attrition. Once graduates reach their facilities, on-the-job training is often hampered by a lack of available certified controllers to act as instructors, creating a vicious cycle that slows the certification process, which can take from 18 months to 3 years.
Aging Infrastructure and Technology
The technological backbone of the U.S. air traffic control system is dangerously outdated, injecting risk into daily operations. Many facilities and critical pieces of equipment have been in service far beyond their planned life, leading to increased outages and maintenance challenges. The FAA’s 21 Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which handle en-route aircraft, are housed in buildings between 56 and 64 years old, with a $5.3 billion backlog of facility components past their service lives.
The equipment inside these aging buildings is often just as old. Terminal primary surveillance radars are 25–50 years old, while the beacons used for secondary surveillance are up to 46 years old. For many of these systems, spare parts are scarce or non-existent because the original manufacturers no longer support them. This obsolescence creates a precarious situation where a single equipment failure can have cascading effects. The January 2023 outage of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which forced a nationwide ground stop of all domestic departures, serves as a stark example of the risks posed by this aging infrastructure. Unscheduled outages compromise situational awareness and force abrupt, irregular operations that increase the potential for error.
Modernization Stalled by Funding
The FAA’s NextGen initiative, launched in 2007 to modernize the air traffic system, has failed to deliver its promised efficiency gains. While some programs, like the replacement of automation systems, were successful, the broader vision of transformation has been hampered by slower-than-anticipated funding and equipage by airspace users. As a result, new technologies have been layered on top of legacy systems rather than replacing them. This has increased the complexity and cost of maintenance without decommissioning older, more burdensome equipment. The FAA’s budget for facilities and equipment has remained relatively flat for over 15 years, declining significantly in real terms and forcing the agency to prioritize basic sustainment over holistic modernization.
The Core Issue of Funding
Underpinning the challenges of staffing and technology is a structural problem of inadequate and inconsistent funding. The FAA is primarily funded through the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF), which derives revenue from excise taxes on airline tickets, fuel, and cargo. However, these funds are subject to annual congressional appropriations and federal budgetary caps, meaning balances are often carried over to offset other federal spending rather than being fully invested in the aviation system. This has resulted in a chronic underinvestment in critical areas.
The instability of the funding process creates significant operational disruptions. Frequent continuing resolutions, government shutdowns, and threats of sequestration have repeatedly halted the hiring and training of controllers, delayed technology modernization programs, and created long-term planning uncertainty. This stop-and-start cycle injects inefficiency and risk into a system that operates 24/7 and requires predictable, stable investment to ensure safety. The Safety Review Team’s report argues that this funding model is unsustainable and erodes the margin of safety for the flying public.
Pathways to a More Resilient System
The Safety Review Team’s report outlines a series of urgent recommendations to address the systemic risks facing the NAS. A central theme is the need to establish a robust and positive safety culture, which begins with addressing the foundational issues of staffing, technology, and funding. For staffing, the report calls for a new, defensible controller staffing model that accurately reflects the needs of individual facilities and the system as a whole. It also recommends a host of measures to improve the training pipeline, including enhancing the FAA Academy’s capacity and success rate, and acquiring state-of-the-art simulators to reduce certification time.
A Call for Structural Change
To tackle the problem of aging infrastructure, the report recommends creating an independent commission, similar to the military’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, to make binding recommendations on consolidating facilities and decommissioning outdated equipment, free from political pressure. This would allow the FAA to streamline its operations and invest in modern, more efficient infrastructure. The most fundamental recommendations, however, concern the funding structure itself. The report advocates for exempting the AATF from federal budgetary caps, allowing user-generated funds to be fully invested in the system. It also calls for updating the AATF’s revenue sources to include new airspace users like commercial space companies and drone operators, ensuring that all who benefit from the system contribute to its upkeep.
The Importance of a Just Culture
Beyond the technical and financial fixes, experts emphasize the importance of fostering a “Just Culture” within the Air Traffic Organization. A Just Culture is one in which frontline personnel feel empowered to report errors and safety concerns without fear of punishment, allowing the organization to learn from mistakes and identify systemic risks before they lead to accidents. This requires strong leadership commitment, open communication channels, and clear policies that distinguish between honest mistakes and reckless behavior. Empowering employees by involving them in safety decisions and trusting them with responsibility encourages them to report problems more readily and assertively. Building this culture of trust and transparency is seen as a critical, complementary element to the necessary investments in people and technology.