Sean Duffy, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, has expressed concerns about the retirement policy for air traffic controllers (ATCs), questioning the mandatory retirement age and its implications for national security. During a segment on Fox News, Duffy addressed the ATC shortage in the U.S. and the challenges of hiring new controllers, emphasizing the extensive training required, which includes a three-month program at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Academy and additional one to three years of training.
Duffy noted that bottlenecks in the system require an increase in the annual training of controllers from the current 2,000 to 2,500 or 2,700 to meet demand. “But the second problem is that we have too many controllers [who] retire after 25 years of service,” he stated, raising the possibility of it being a national security and safety issue. The Code of Federal Regulations mandates that ATCs must retire by age 56 or after completing the service requirements for an annuity, whichever is later.
The Secretary of Transportation indicated that the administration, under President Donald Trump, is considering modifications to the system and emphasized the need to add 2,000 controllers without having simultaneous retirements. “This will be a broader conversation,” he said, reaffirming that air travel remains “the safest mode of transportation in the country.”
On February 27, Duffy initiated a plan to expedite the hiring of ATCs following his visit to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. This initiative aims to alleviate the existing shortage, as heightened by FAA updates on March 21, which stated the initiative reduced the hiring process by five months, with over 8,320 candidates qualified for the aptitude exam.
Meanwhile, Tim Arel, Chief Operating Officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, recently accepted an early retirement offer from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. In June 2023, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General reported that 20 out of 26 critical facilities were inadequately staffed, attributing this to a pause in training during the pandemic.
