During Wednesday’s Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned Franklin McIntosh, the Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the Air Traffic Organization at the Federal Aviation Administration, about FAA hiring goals.
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00:00Thank you. Senator Klobuchar.
00:02Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Duckworth, Senator Duckworth for your
00:08leadership as well. So we have been rightfully focused on the tragedy, the loss of life with
00:16the American Airlines flight, but as been pointed out by my colleagues, so many problems
00:21at Newark and as I go into the summer season, it's hard to believe that they won't get worse.
00:27And then just across the country, there was one incident near miss recently. It was on
00:34March 28th between a Delta flight and a military aircraft shortly after the tragedy, actually,
00:42where the military flight was just 500 feet below the Delta flight. And the Delta pilot
00:47said, is this, I'm paraphrasing, but it was picked up from air traffic control. Is there
00:53actually a flight 500 feet below us? That flight was headed to Minneapolis, contained
00:59a bunch of Minnesotans, families. One of my staff members was on that flight. And I had asked
01:07and I appreciated that the DOT got back to me close after it, but I'm still waiting for a
01:15final answer about what happened. Do you know, could any of you give me a timeline on that?
01:20Yes, ma'am. I believe, I believe I can. What occurred was the military flight was doing
01:25a national fly over, over Arlington. And it was opposite direction to departure traffic
01:32at DCA. Potomac TRACON, which is the radar approach control that feeds all the aircraft
01:37into DCA, were work, was working the military flight. And there was a communication exchange
01:44between the supervisor at Potomac and the supervisor at DCA. And what I mean is, the Potomac supervisor
01:52coordinated with DCA to stop departures at a certain time. And that, that stop time is,
01:57you stop departures and let the flyover proceed. You sterilize the airspace essentially to keep
02:03traffic safe. The, the, the controller or the CIC that was at DCA misunderstood the timer, misunderstood
02:12the verbiage on what that stop time was. So they let one more aircraft go versus holding
02:19that aircraft on the ground. In reviewing that, we said, we have to clean up the phraseology
02:25and how we give times to ensure that, that we know exactly which aircraft we're going to
02:29stop and keep that kind of incident from occurring. So what we did, we put both of those facilities
02:33together along with the management team to ensure that we had a better process in place
02:38to keep that from happening again. So that was unfortunately an event that happened, but we
02:43improved the procedures to keep something like that from happening again, ma'am.
02:46Okay. And then what about the, as you look at changing the processes and protocols,
02:52how about the number of people that are working there? I just, in general, what are the FAA's
02:58hiring targets for the next three years when it comes to air traffic control for 2026, 2027, 2028?
03:07Thank you for the question, ma'am. So this year is 2,000. Next year, it's 2,200. The following
03:16year, it's 2,300. And the year after that, it's 2,400. Those are the FAA hiring goals. And it's,
03:25it's quite robust, but with Secretary Duffy's supercharged hiring, I believe that that's a target
03:30that, quite honestly, we will achieve.
03:32And so how many down will we be even with those targets?
03:36So for the first time, are you asking me about 100% staffing or do you think we're going to have
03:41further attrition? Yeah, 100% staffing.
03:43So right now, I believe the number is that we're 3,000 short controllers is, I believe is what the
03:48number was. And right now we have 3,100 trainees that are in the pipeline. We have to account for
03:54attrition, meaning we're going to see controllers retire, controllers separate. With the numbers that I'm
04:00speaking to, I think we'll finally start gaining traction this year where we outpace attrition. And then we'll
04:05start seeing over the next 18 to 24 months where we actually see a positive gain in the controllers and we
04:11start, we start feeling better about where our staffing targets are and how we're staffing the facility.
04:16Senator Klobuchar, I'm sure you can appreciate that it takes time to make a quality air traffic controller.
04:24It's a high skilled position. The average time to certify across the country is approximately two years from when they graduate.
04:31So it's going to take some time to get this process done.
04:35I understand. It's one of the reasons as we look at the FAA reauthorization from a year ago that we decided
04:40on a bipartisan basis to add funding. And it's just one of the things that bothers me outside of the air traffic
04:46control world is just when the administration engages on attacks on government employees just wholesale or says,
04:55hey, we want everyone to be fired that's only been there two years or whatever it is. It doesn't exactly make
05:00it an enticing place to work. And so I hope you bring that back to the administration in general,
05:07because it just keeps happening. And then people don't want to work there.
05:10They don't think they have job security. It doesn't seem like a great place to go.
05:14And then we don't get people that work there. And then you don't get medical devices approved,
05:18or you don't get planes to leave on time or worse. And so that's just one of the things I want to pass on.
05:24I have one last question, Mr. Chair. It's very short. Mr. Hybeck, I've been working to get federal funding
05:31for the third oldest air traffic control tower in the country. That's in Duluth, Minnesota.
05:37Representative Stauber, Republican from the House, and I and Senator Smith have joined forces on this.
05:43We've seen flooding, and there's an air base up there. There is a National Guard air base.
05:51Cirrus is up there that makes jets. And then we, of course, have an airplane.
05:55So just anything you can do. We just got a grant, which was helpful, and got one last year as well.
06:01But we are only about, you know, 20 percent in, and we need more funding for that,
06:06because it really is the third oldest tower in the nation.
06:10I'm glad that we could provide grant funding to start that project, and we'll continue to support it.
06:18Okay. Thank you.