By Andrew Tangel

OKLAHOMA CITY -- -- U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the federal government would take steps to hire more air-traffic controllers and spend billions of dollars to upgrade the nation's aviation system.

As part of plans to increase staffing, Duffy said the Federal Aviation Administration would boost pay for students at its air-traffic control academy in Oklahoma City by 30% to $22.84 an hour in the coming days.

Duffy said Thursday the FAA would streamline hiring and shave more than four months from the process of training new air-traffic controllers.

"We have to pay young people more to stay in the academy," Duffy said, after touring the FAA"s academy and meeting with students and staff. "If we have the best and brightest and we pay people more, we're going to address one of the problems we have, which is the washout rate."

The secretary touted what graduates can earn: an average of $160,000. Pay varies by location, and the FAA said the figure didn't include overtime.

The FAA has struggled with low staffing at its air-traffic facilities in recent years. The shortages have strained controllers who often work long weeks and at times have led to delayed flights.

As of late 2023, the FAA had about 81% of the fully certified controllers it needed then, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Airline executives and controller-union officials praised Duffy's plan to boost hiring. "This is a critical initial step to making our aviation system even safer," American Airlines Chief Executive Robert Isom said in a written statement.

The controller hiring push comes as the Trump administration has been cutting jobs across the federal government, including at the FAA. Controllers and aviation-safety inspectors have been exempt from the cuts. President Trump has separately criticized diversity, equity and inclusion programs after a Jan. 29 crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that took 67 lives.

Duffy said the goal was to attract the best candidates for air-traffic control. "I don't care your race, religion, sex, sexual preference," he said in an interview. "If you're the best, I don't care. Come on in."

Duffy said he would ask Congress to fund upgrades to the technology underpinning the nation's air-traffic control system, pointing to its reliance on decades-old copper wire, floppy disks and phone jacks.

"This is unacceptable. We're the greatest country on earth, and this is the system...we use?" he said. "I don't want to see people lose their lives because we have an air-traffic control system that fails."

Duffy said he hadn't made a decision about whether to use the Starlink satellite communications system to improve air-traffic control technology. The FAA has been testing Starlink, owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, in New Jersey and Alaska.

Musk, on his X social-media platform, said Thursday he was providing Starlink terminals at no cost to taxpayers on an "emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity."

Write to Andrew Tangel at andrew.tangel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2025 16:43 ET (21:43 GMT)

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