FAA air traffic shortage due to hiring constraints, staffing decisions, report says

June 18 (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration's shortage of staff at key air traffic control facilities is due to past hiring constraints and a misallocated workforce, a report from the National Academies of Sciences released Wednesday said.

From 2013 to 2023, the FAA hired only two-thirds of the air traffic controllers called for by its staffing models, the report said, adding the agency has also been unable to implement a robust shift scheduling software package it acquired in 2012 that may be making the issue worse, the report said.

The FAA air traffic control workforce's overtime is rising and in 2024 controllers logged 2.2 million hours of OT costing $200 million and the report added "widespread overtime use may be partly due to inefficient scheduling of the controllers available at facilities."