FAA: Who keeps America flying? 

Nearly 400 Federal Aviation Administration employees were laid off earlier this year. These included administrative and logistics professionals, environmental compliance workers, and road/facility maintenance workers. Air traffic controllers, who have been especially top-of-mind given the high-profile and deadly air crashes in the first months of 2025, were exempt from these cuts. 

 

Here’s more on the Federal Aviation Administration pre-DOGE cuts. 

 

 

The FAA is part of the Transportation Department. The department ranked ninth for federal agency spending last fiscal year, using 1.7% of the nation’s budget. 

The FAA spent $23.1 billion in FY 2024, making it the third-highest spender among Transportation Department agencies after the Federal Highway Administration ($61.1 billion) and the Federal Transit Administration ($23.4 billion). The FAA’s total budget for 2024 was $25 billion, meaning it didn’t quite spend everything it was allotted. 

 

The FAA’s budget breakdown was: 

Those federal dollars support approximately 46,170 employees who worked for the FAA as of September 2024. The largest job category was air traffic control, employing 18,687 people, followed by transportation specialists, employing 5,570. 

 

Air traffic controller staffing has been a persistent challenge. The number of certified professional controllers declined from 11,753 in 2012 to 10,228 in 2020, before rising again.

 

The average certified professional controller makes over $160,000 per year, but becoming one isn’t easy. Applicants must be American citizens, speak English, be younger than 31 when applying, have at least one year of work experience or higher education, and pass rigorous testing. 

In 2023, the FAA set a staffing goal of reaching 85% of target staffing levels at terminal air control facilities. Of its 290 facilities, 128 fell short. Among these, 84 facilities had staffing levels between 75.0% and 84.9%, and the remaining 44 had staffing levels below 75%. These staffing figures included trainees. 

 

Trainees spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City and up to three years gaining on-the-job experience nationwide to become fully certified. Despite recent hiring initiatives, 15.2% of air traffic controllers (2,833 people) have two or fewer years of experience, while 41.7% (7,785 people) have 15 years or more. 

 

Safety and modernization remain critical issues. Approximately $13 billion has been appropriated for Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) programs since the mid-2000s. Yet, the Transportation Department noted in a November 2024 report that the FAA still relies on aging systems to manage airspace, further complicated by challenges in training and retaining controllers. 

 

Runway incursions — incidents involving unauthorized aircraft, vehicles, or people on runways — fluctuated from a low of 12 incidents in fiscal year 2019 to a high of 22 in fiscal year 2023. 

 

The  report also highlighted ongoing weaknesses in how Boeing oversees its thousands of suppliers, noting the FAA has yet to achieve a proactive approach to Boeing oversight. 

 

We have even more on the FAA, including its zero-tolerance passenger policy and how passenger flights fund the agency. Plus, more facts on air traffic controllers. If this has you wondering if it’s safer to fly or drive, we have that too.  
 

We’ll see you next week.