February 16, 2007 DOT OIG: ATC Hiring Makes Progress, Needs Work |
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By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor
 The Department of Transportation Inspector General last week released
a report covering FAA progress and key elements
of the FAA's congressionally mandated controller workforce plan
created to counter an anticipated surge in controller attrition. The
report concludes that the "FAA has made significant improvements by
centralizing its hiring process" and has reduced "the time and costs"
to train controllers (largely through increased use of simulator
training), but the report also identifies and expands on five
shortcomings: staffing standards, projected retirements, controller
training, productivity initiatives and costs associated with training
as it relates to on-the-job training times. To expand, the
Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports that facility staffing
standards remain undefined -- this precludes effective placement of
new hires and so staffing ranges for each location are recommended
for the FAA's next update of the workforce plan. Controller
retirements in 2005 exceeded FAA projections by 36 percent -- the
FAA's forecast method needs to be refined. Overall training
improvements are evident, according to the OIG, but on-the-job
training time is still too high -- OIG recommends that clear
instructions should be issued to all facilities. The FAA's goal of
reducing controller staffing were met in 2005, but increases in
productivity can not be measured, because the FAA failed to define
baseline metrics for measuring improvement. Finally, the FAA has not
yet identified the cost of hiring and training more than 11,800 new
controllers, according to the report. The bright spot, according to
the report, is the FAA's controller hiring process, which has been
centralized, allowing earlier management of process, earlier notice
of new hires to facilities and reduced clearance time.
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