ORLANDO, Fla. — As the Federal Aviation Administration looks to fill thousands of Air Traffic Control vacancies – to reduce flight impacts – the agency is turning to schools like Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. 

What You Need To Know

  • The FAA is looking to hire another 2,000 air traffic controllers

  • U.S. airlines are planning nearly 27,000 daily flights this summer

  • Median annual salary for Air Traffic Controller is $137,000

  • Embry Riddle's ATC training program helps students jump right into the workforce

Often working out of sight, air traffic controllers have direct and vast impacts on flights, and ultimately, if or when passengers make it to their destinations.

“Air traffic controllers are responsible for the safe, orderly, and expeditious flight of aircraft in the United States,” said Dr. Michael McCormick, Assistant Professor of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. “From the moment you leave your gate to the time you arrive at your gate; air traffic controllers are the hidden heroes, making sure you get there safely and on time.”

Dr. McCormick is a 33 year veteran of the FAA’s air traffic control service. He started his career working in a tower in Philadelphia, eventually becoming a Vice President within the organization. He now teaches and oversees Embry Riddle’s Air Traffic Control training program.

Most of the commercial planes in and out of Central Florida airports rely on an ATC center in Jacksonville to receive permission, or “clearance,” to fly in and out of the sunshine state. Various ATC centers, and controllers, direct pilots on routes to fly, altitude, speed and other factors.

“Jacksonville Center, on any one given shift, they’ll have about 120 controllers working,” Dr. McCormick said. “It’s a large air traffic control facility with many radar displays. The more radar displays that are being staffed and utilized, the easier the traffic flows and greater volume you can handle.”

By hiring more air traffic controllers in centers like Jacksonville, it means the ATC will be able to spread out the workload to have more controllers handling more flights, meaning fewer flight disruptions like cancelations and delays.

VIDEO: Watch the full story above to see how students are gaining real-world hands-on experience to prepare for future Air Traffic Controller jobs.

With airlines planning 27,000 daily flights in the U.S. this summer to meet record demand, they’re also looking to avoid mass cancelations and delays. Airlines say the FAA shares partial blame for these flight impacts, pointing to chronic staffing shortages at air traffic control towers.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Spectrum News that air traffic control staffing issues have minimal impacts, citing weather, maintenance and flight schedules are more prevalent reasons for cancellations and delays, although saying the agency is making strides to fully staff air traffic control towers.

“What happens is there are certain scenarios where a tower or facility needs to make sure the airflow of traffic is limited so that it continues to be safe while you have those limited resources,” Buttigieg said. “Any time that happens, of course, the FAA is going to make sure it remains safe, but that can affect on-time performance. We just don’t want to see that happen.”

Buttigieg said the FAA hired 1,500 new air traffic controllers last year and are in the process of hiring another 1,800. President Biden recently signed a five-year FAA reauthorization bill that includes funding to hire another 2,000 air traffic controllers.

Training through the FAA academy can take 3 to 4 months, then another 1 to 5 years to become certified. The median annual salary for an air traffic controller is $137,000.

“This is one of the reasons why we’re taking the steps to increase the flow of air traffic controllers into the system,” Buttigieg said. “As you can imagine, you can’t just walk in off the street and be an air traffic controller. A huge amount of training goes into these safety critical positions. Over the last 10 or 20 years, we’ve seen the number of controllers really decline and we finally turned that around. On our watch, the number of controllers is growing, but America really needs to pick up the pace and we’re getting the resources for that.”

Among those resources are universities, like Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, who are pulling pressure off of the FAA’s training center in Oklahoma City.

“We have an outstanding facility in our Oklahoma City academy, we’re very proud of that, but we need to make sure we are adding capacity and augmenting that resource,” Secretary Buttigieg said. “We have phenomenal educational institutions around America. Embry Riddle is known nationwide, really worldwide, for its aviation program, so we are engaging these institutions through what’s called Controller Training Initiative.”

As part of the Enhanced Collegiate Training Initiative, Dr. McCormick said Embry Riddle students can graduate and go right into the FAA, bypassing the agency’s training academy, and go directly to an air traffic control field facility.

Alejandro Jarmillo, Antonio Moreno and Rachel St. Louis are among the students looking to become controllers soon.

“It’s a job with pressure, but it’s one of those things where you have to be passionate about aviation,” Jaramillo said.

The students operate multiple roles in a simulated air traffic control tower, guiding aircraft through a variety of scenarios.

“In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking these are real aircraft even though it’s on a simulator,” Antonio Moreno said. “The key is to never panic.”

It’s a rigorous program for the students who graduate with advanced skills to head right into the workforce.