U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy holds a press conference at Mike Moroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Graycen Wheeler/KOSU)
If you’re a civilian who wants to become an air traffic controller, you can only get trained in one place: the Mike Moroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. Amid a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is trying to “supercharge” the number and quality of trainees coming through the facility.
Duffy toured the academy, which is near OKC’s Will Rogers International Airport, on Thursday and met with students about how to recruit and retain future trainees.
“We want those smart kids out there who are making career decisions to consider coming here to Oklahoma City and engaging in what is a great career for your future and for your family,” Duffy said.
To entice them, Duffy announced a 30% pay increase (from $17.61 to $22.84 an hour) for students training at the academy. The Federal Aviation Administration’s hiring process for air traffic controllers will also be streamlined, which is expected to shave four months off the average “time to hire” for air traffic controllers, according to a press release from the Department of Transportation.
Duffy also said he plans to ask Congress for money to upgrade air traffic control infrastructure. He says the cost will be in the billions.
“We have to upgrade all aspects of how our controllers interface with technology,” Duffy said. “I mentioned that we use floppy disks. We use, like, 1956 phone jacks in our towers. This is unacceptable.”
The announcement comes after a spate of high-profile air accidents and near-misses. And it’s in the middle of Pres. Donald Trump’s push to increase government efficiency, largely by reducing the number of federal employees.
Duffy acknowledged that the FAA has been affected by layoffs, but he said air traffic controllers and inspectors were not among the recent probationary employee layoffs. He also said that while 352 FAA employees were terminated, around 100 more have been hired.
“This is not all about cutting, right?” Duffy said. “There is a point to go, ‘Can we do more with less?’ But in this space, we need serious investments to make sure that we have systems that work, not just today, but into the future and for next generations.”
For now, those training systems will stay solely in Oklahoma City.
“This one is built,” Duffy said. “I can’t wait five years to build a whole new system like this. I’ve got to figure out how I make this system work, to get more controllers into towers.”
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