Flying into danger

"It's a crisis and the public doesn't know about it"

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 2 June 2025

What's wrong with the system?

For starters, there's an acute shortage of air traffic controllers, who are responsible for directing about 45,000 flights carrying 2.9 million passengers every day. The Federal Aviation Administration has about 13,800 certified controllers at more than 300 facilities, which is 3,000 below the recommended staffing number. With 90% of control towers understaffed, controllers are routinely expected to put in 10-hour days, six days a week. And those controllers have to rely on what the FAA itself describes as "outdated technologies that are unable to meet" modern demands. Partly because of those cascading problems, 2023 saw 19 "serious runway incursions" at U.S. airports where a collision was narrowly avoided, the highest number in nearly a decade. Public concern over air traffic control swelled in January after 67 people died in a midair crash between a military helicopter and a commercial flight over Washington, D.C.—a preliminary FAA report said staffing at the control tower was abnormally low for the shift. And concern surged again in April, when controllers for New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport lost communication with planes for about 90 seconds due to a single burned-out copper wire. The next month, an air traffic control facility in Colorado suffered a similar outage. "It's a crisis and the public doesn't know about it," said one Newark controller. "Nobody wants to pay attention until lives are lost."

Air traffic control is a historically understaffed profession, and the pandemic only made things worse. When Covid hit and air travel slowed, the training of new recruits was put on hold, even as many older controllers opted for retirement. These experienced workers can't be quickly replaced. To be considered for an air traffic control spot, candidates must be under 31, have U.S. citizenship, and pass a background check, skills assessment, and medical exam. Only about 10% of applicants to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City are accepted—the academy has capacity for 2,500 students but this year received only 1,950—and only about two-thirds of those complete the training program. "It's a lot of work," said one student. "It's like a full two-year degree in four months." After graduating, another two to three years of classroom and on-the-job experience is required to become a certified controller. The career lifespan of a controller is limited because the profession has a mandatory retirement age of 56; many quit before then, despite earning six-figure salaries.

Because it's a stressful job that controllers are expected to do in often less than ideal conditions. In recent years, controllers have submitted hundreds of complaints about run-down facilities with bug and mold infestations, dangerous staffing shortages, and unstable colleagues. Between 2021 and 2023, the FAA received at least seven reports of controllers sleeping on duty and five of people working while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some controllers develop physical and/or mental health problems because of nonstop schedules, but avoid seeking professional help lest it cost them their medical clearance. The result is a demoralized, distracted, and exhausted workforce that is more prone to making mistakes. A database of air safety issues maintained by NASA includes numerous accounts of mistakes by weary controllers, including one from a staffer in Southern California who instructed a plane to fly too low and attributed the error to being "extremely tired" after "continuous" overtime.

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Much of the equipment in control towers is decades old and analog. While other countries use digital displays and infrared-based systems, American air traffic controllers are trained to use floppy disks, paper flight-tracking strips, and World War II–era radars. Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told a March congressional hearing that the FAA has failed to request adequate funding for infrastructure needs for two decades. The agency's annual $3 billion budget for facilities and equipment, he said, has forced it to adapt a "fix-on-fail" model that leaves "little to no money" for modernization.

The Trump administration has promised to "supercharge" the hiring of controllers, who have been spared the cuts inflicted on other government workers. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently announced a $5,000 bonus for FAA Academy graduates, with an additional $10,000 for those willing to work at one of the 13 facilities deemed hard to staff, as well as annual 20% bonuses for controllers who stay on past the retirement eligibility mark at 25 years. Duffy has also unveiled plans to replace 618 old radars and build six new air traffic control centers, the largest such project since the 1960s. The tax bill currently working its way through Congress includes $12.5 billion for modernization over the next three years, but the Modern Skies Coalition—an organization that includes unions, aircraft manufacturers, and trade groups—says an extra $18.5 billion in emergency funding is needed.

Air travel remains by far the safest mode of transportation. The crash over Washington attracted so much attention in part because of the rarity of such accidents in the U.S.: It was the first fatal American commercial air disaster since 2009 and the worst since 2001. But some aviation experts worry that, after years of safety improvements, things may now be going backward. "I have friends and family [asking], 'Should I get on an airplane?'" one retired controller told Axios. "And I'm like, Well, it's not there yet. But it seems to be trending that way."

Could a private company run air traffic control better than the government? It's not a new question: The Clinton administration proposed privatization in 1995, only to back away in the face of opposition from corporate jet owners and private pilots, who pay almost nothing to use the current system. Following the crises at Newark and elsewhere, lawmakers are again contemplating privatization, which would free air traffic control from cumbersome government procurement requirements that slow the adoption of new technologies. Advocates note that in recent decades some 60 countries have separated air traffic control from their aviation safety regulators, often by creating an independent government corporation or other nonprofit provider. Under that arrangement, Canada today handles more air traffic with fewer controllers than it did three decades ago. Flying from Canada to the U.S. "is like time travel for pilots," said aviation consultant Scott McCartney. You "leave a modern air traffic control system run by a company and enter one run by the government struggling to catch up."