The FAA is expanding its capacity to train air traffic controllers (ATCs) as it contends with a chronic shortage of about 3,000 certified professional controllers (CPCs).
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday announced Sacramento City College in California as the 10th member of the FAA’s Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (E-CTI). The E-CTI provides the exact same curriculum and technology as the FAA’s ATC Academy in Oklahoma City.
Graduates head directly to FAA facilities, where they train in the airspace they will one day oversee, after they pass the Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA) and meet medical and security requirements.
“The addition of new schools to our air controller pipeline will allow us to bolster our controller workforce while maintaining the highest training standards,” Duffy said in a statement.
Though the FAA beat its fiscal year 2025 staffing target by hiring 2,026 new controllers, it continues to ramp up recruitment and retention efforts after the ATC system faced renewed scrutiny in 2025. A January 2025 analysis by The New York Times found that more than 90 percent of the country’s 313 ATC facilities are understaffed, which has contributed to disruptions at locations such as Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR).
How E-CTI Works
The E-CTI was borne out of the FAA’s Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI), which has partnered with American schools since the late 1980s. The AT-CTI allows graduates to bypass the FAA Academy’s Air Traffic Basics Course. But they are still required to complete initial qualification training in Oklahoma City before moving to facility-specific training.
E-CTI students, by contrast, receive an official endorsement once they pass final written and performance evaluations at their institutions. That allows them to apply to be an ATC and head straight to facility training. The E-CTI schools also have more stringent requirements around curricula, faculty expertise, and simulation equipment.
Sacramento City College’s arrangement covers its En Route program and will send graduates to an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC).
The FAA announced the first two E-CTI schools, Tulsa Community College and the University of Oklahoma, in October 2024. The others are the University of North Dakota; Middle Georgia State University; Nashua Community College in New Hampshire; Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology and SUNY Schenectady County Community College in New York; and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s campuses in Arizona and Florida.
Sacramento City College is also the 10th new CTI program Duffy has announced since January 2025 as the initiative continues to expand.
The ATC Conundrum
The E-CTI addresses at least one factor in the ongoing ATC shortage—capacity.
Per a January Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, only about 2 percent of applicants to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City completed their full training. That’s due in part to the program’s rigor but also a lack of instructors, who are typically CPCs themselves. The FAA is using additional educators and teaching assistants to supplement controller-instructors at the Academy. But E-CTI schools open up even more resources.
The program is just one of many FAA efforts to address the shortage.
Several were introduced in 2025. In February, for example, Duffy raised starting salaries for academy candidates by 30 percent and streamlined the previous eight-step ATC hiring process to five steps. In March, he said those moves netted the FAA more than 8,000 new candidates.
In May, the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) agreed on a limited-time incentive package to further ramp up hiring, offering $5,000 bonuses to academy graduates and new hires who complete initial qualification training.
Personnel assigned to one of 13 “hard-to-staff” facilities receive a $10,000 bonus. Retirement-eligible ATCs who choose to stay on the job will receive a lump sum of 20 percent of their base pay for each year they continue working.
Duffy in May said he would use his authority to grant exemptions to the mandatory ATC retirement age of 56. But NATCA said the focus should remain on recruitment and retention.
In addition, the FAA is recruiting controllers from the military and private sector and giving high-scoring ATSA applicants priority for academy placement. It is also expanding the use of modernized tower simulation systems, the first of which was installed at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (KAUS) in January 2024. At the time, the agency said it would install systems at an additional 95 towers by the end of 2025.
Simultaneously, the FAA’s multibillion-dollar Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) project is replacing outdated radios, radars, and voice switches, many of which were installed decades ago.
In fiscal year 2026, the FAA aims to hire 2,200 more controllers. Through 2028, it plans to onboard about 8,900 personnel, according to a staffing blueprint released in August. But it also expects to lose about 6,800 controllers during that stretch. Of the remaining 2,000 or so personnel, less than half would be CPCs—the rest would be developmental controllers.
A June report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that ATC staffing levels have declined for more than a decade due to years of underhiring. Between 2013 and 2023, for example, the FAA hired only two-thirds of the personnel called for by staffing models. By fiscal year 2024, almost one-third of ATC facilities were at least 10 percent short of staffing targets. The situation was similar in 2025.
The GAO estimated that the number of ATCs declined 6 percent in the past decade due to government shutdowns, the COVID-19 pandemic, and attrition. At the same time, air traffic volume increased 10 percent.
