Air traffic controller shortage of 3,800 due to DEI practices cutting ‘too white, too elite’ candidates: lawyer

A critical shortage of 3,800 air traffic controllers is because of the Federal Aviation Administration’s DEI practices leaving a “gaping hole” in recruitment, a lawyer claimed to The Post.

Over 1,000 would-be air traffic controllers were wiped out from consideration overnight because of diversity and inclusion hiring targets suddenly being implemented, according to the lead lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against the FAA.

Michael Pearson told The Post his clients had completed all of their training at FAA approved institutions before they were placed into a direct hiring pool for air traffic controllers – as was standard at the time.

Within months of graduating, they were informed by the FAA they would need to pass a new ‘biographical assessment’ which, he claimed, awarded extra points to people with “no aviation experience”.

“The FAA basically decided the students were too white and the schools too elite, so in 2013 knocked them off the preferred hiring list they had trained and worked hard to get onto – all because of their race,” Pearson claimed.

According to the attorney, 95 per cent of the previously qualified candidates he represents then failed the biographical assessment questionnaire – essentially a personality test – and were “screened out”.

“They had the training and the passion and they were ready to be hired,” he said.

The air traffic control issue was sharply brought into focus on Jan. 31 when an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter collided at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC, killing 67 people in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost 25 years.

The air traffic control tower was operating with 19 full time staff, two thirds of the 30 recommended by the FAA. Nationwide there are 10,800 air traffic controllers (ATCs), but 14,600 are needed to meet the current demand, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

“The FAA engaged in staffing suicide. It takes two to five years to train as an air traffic controller and a long time to get these people through,” Pearson claimed.

“Losing them meant a gaping hole was left in the ATC talent pool.”

Simultaneously, a four year near-freeze on air traffic controller hiring was also underway as the DEI policies were introduced, according to Pearson, who was formerly an air traffic controller and trainer.

“The FAA, because of DEI policies, stopped hiring for 3-4 years and that directly correlates to the lack of staffing, and controllers being overworked and getting fatigued and burnt out,” he told The Post.

In 2018 the biographical assessment was “removed as a screening tool,” according to the FAA

“If the DC crash is determined to be linked to ATC fatigue or lack of awareness – it’s directly related to DEI – President Trump was right about that,” said Pearson.

He said he believes the tragedy was by “human error” on the part of air traffic control.

On the night of the DC disaster understaffing resulted in one controller pulling double duty — overseeing helicopters while also guiding arriving and departing planes on the busy airport’s runways, an initial report by the FAA found.

“The occupation requires attentiveness and awareness,” Pearson said.

“This was not the helicopter’s fault – it was air traffic control whose primary job is to apply separation.

“The controllers put planes on converging courses without a means of separation.

“The [aircraft] were headed at each other, where systems would have been predicting they were about to collide.

“ATC did nothing when it was their job to do something.

“Pilots screw up every day. I never worked a day in the FAA where a plane didn’t make a wrong turn – your job as an ATC is to correct that in a timely manner.”

The aviation agency and US Department of Transport are fighting the class-action suit, filed in 2015, which is slated to go to court early next year.

Meanwhile, there are other factors contributing to the lack of ATCs according to other sources, including “deeply flawed” recruitment and training which hampers its own ability to replenish its talent pool.

One ATC hopeful who passed all the skills tests and traveled to Philadelphia for an interview for a place at the training academy told The Post he was forced to turn it down because the hiring process took too long.

“I’d submit something they requested as part of my application then six months would pass until they asked for the next thing and repeat – it went on like that for years,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“I did the test in 2019 and I didn’t receive the final letter saying I had made it through the process until December 2023.

“I had a few days to respond and let them know if I wanted to do the training at the academy in Oklahoma, reporting there in January 2024.”

The source said it had been his dream job but that he ultimately decided not to accept because “they made me jump through way too many hoops”.

After successfully completing training at the FAA Academy, trainees are placed in a radar facility or air traffic tower which can be anywhere in the US. Employees should expect to work day, evening and night shifts, along with weekends and holidays depending on assigned schedules, the FAA states on its site.

After all the training, entry-level positions still only pay $35,000–$45,000 per year and although experienced ATCs make six figures, it typically takes years to reach top-end earnings.

One prominent air traffic controller source who spoke to The Post claimed training at the national academy, based in Oklahoma, is inadequate.

They point out the academy has not yet adopted “automated grading” and instructors therefore pick and choose who can and can’t become an ATC.

“The academy is flawed because it is not teaching everything that is needed to become an ATC and it’s subjective to the opinion of an instructor who thinks you can or can’t do the job,” they said.

The academy did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Post.

Sources said hope was on the horizon through new Enhanced Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) programs which will allow approved institutions to provide students with FAA Academy air traffic control training.

“The college training is better because it is longer and more in-depth and comprehensive,” one of The Post’s air traffic controller sources said.

There are currently just a few schools approved to offer the program in Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida; the University of Oklahoma and Tulsa Community College; as well as the University of North Dakota.

“The FAA is working to strengthen our controller workforce and create a continuous pipeline of talent,” Tim Arel, Chief Operating Officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, said in a November 2024 statement.

However they are “losing Air Traffic Controllers much faster than they are gaining them”, according to another source, particularly due to a wave of retirements which started during COVID-19.

The pandemic forced the FAA to close its academy for six months in 2020 and pause on-the-job training at facilities for almost two years. 

“The [air] traffic was very reduced so you couldn’t do quality training without the volume of traffic to train someone and certify them,” one source told The Post.

“Then 2022 comes in and traffic started rolling back faster than anticipated — and [the FAA] lost more ATC’s than anticipated to retirement.”

The FAA last year claimed that it had more than 14,000 air traffic controllers after it was revealed that all air traffic control sites in the country were understaffed in 2023.

However, that number includes around 3,400 controllers in various stages of training, the FAA announced at the time.

While they hired 1,811 ATCs in 2024, the largest number of hires it had made in nearly a decade, it is still working to “reverse a decades-long air traffic controller staffing level decline”.

Trade association Airlines for America (A4A) described the situation as an “urgent and dire air traffic controller (ATC) shortage” in May last year.

“We have been sounding the alarm on this issue for more than a year that our nation’s air traffic control radar facilities are understaffed and overworked,” Airlines for America (A4A) President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio said at the time.

The FAA’s goal is to hire 2,000 controllers from the military and private industry in 2025, the agency said in a Nov. 2024 statement.

“We are enhancing training with modernized simulators to help us get new hires through training more efficiently,” it added.