On 15 May 2026, a new FAA staffing target figure was published in the agency's workforce plan, reducing its certified-controller count from 14,633 to 12,563, a cut of just over 2,000 positions, according to PolitiFact and CNBC. The agency had not hired those 2,000 controllers. It had simply decided it no longer needed them, and it declared the shortage almost closed in the same breath.
The move was first reported by the Washington Examiner. It prompted an immediate question that matters to every passenger, airline and airport that depends on the United States' air traffic system: was the gap between supply and demand genuinely closed, or was it closed only on paper?
What Changed, and What Didn't
A legislatively mandated review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine directly preceded the new 2026 to 2028 workforce plan. Its Transportation Research Board, whose findings are published here, concluded that the FAA should revert to its own longstanding staffing model rather than continuing with the collaborative workgroup model it had built alongside the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The FAA adopted that recommendation. The result was a new target of 12,563 certified controllers, against an existing workforce of approximately 11,000 across more than 300 facilities, as PolitiFact and CNBC both reported. The prior target, carried through two previous workforce plans, had stood at 14,633.
Nothing changed in the actual headcount. The agency simply recalibrated what the headcount needed to be.
The Union Was Not in the Room
PolitiFact reported that NATCA had no part in shaping the new plan and was caught off guard to learn it drew on the 2025 review. That exclusion carries particular weight given that NATCA had been a central participant in constructing the previous methodology.
Former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was pointed in his assessment. "We just saw, quietly, a Friday news dump out of the Department of Transportation at the end of last week saying that they were going to cut the target for air traffic control hiring, slash the air traffic control targets by about 2,000," he said, as quoted by PolitiFact.
FAA spokesperson Donnell Evans offered the agency's position, telling PolitiFact: "Our new staffing model and workforce plan will enhance the safety and efficiency of our skies."
Where the System Is Already Under Strain
Staffing figures at individual facilities illustrate just how strained the broader picture is. AvWeb reported, with DelayGuard repeating those findings, that the New York TRACON held only 129 certified controllers against a requirement of 226, placing it at 57% of its target. According to DWU Consulting and DelayGuard, Newark terminal airspace moved from the New York TRACON to the Philadelphia TRACON in July 2024, which trimmed the New York facility's official workload on paper without adding a single controller to the wider system.
Operational caps have followed the strain. The FAA capped Newark arrivals and departures at 36 movements per hour in each direction, with that limit extended through October 2027, according to CNBC and DelayGuard. DWU Consulting reported that an operations cap of 2,708 daily movements was imposed at O'Hare from 2 June 2026, also extended through October 2027. Caps are a management tool for an under-resourced system, not a sign of one that is adequately staffed.
For airlines and passengers, the practical consequence is reduced capacity at two of the busiest airports in the country, with no clear end date beyond October 2027.
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The Overtime Picture
The cost of running a chronically understaffed system has been accumulating for years. CNBC reported that in 2024 alone, FAA controllers logged 2.2 million overtime hours at a cost of $200 million. The same outlet reported that average overtime per controller rose 308%, from around 41 hours to 167 hours per year since 2013, and that controller overtime costs rose more than 300% over the same period to above $200 million annually.
The FAA said in its new plan that it intends to modernise scheduling and workforce management tools to improve efficiency and reduce excessive overtime, according to PolitiFact and CNBC. Whether better scheduling can substitute for additional bodies, given a pipeline that takes years to yield certified controllers, is the central question the plan raises but does not fully answer.
Earning full certification after graduating the FAA Academy can take a further two to three years of training at a operational facility, as CNN reported, with PolitiFact repeating those findings. PolitiFact and CNBC both note that a further 4,000 controllers are currently moving through the training pipeline, among them 1,000 previously certified controllers requalifying at new facilities, meaning that timeline will constrain any meaningful near-term relief whatever a workforce plan commits to on paper.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Michael McCormick, who teaches air traffic management, put the hiring challenge plainly to PolitiFact: "The FAA still needs to hire over 2,000 controllers per year for, at least, the next three years regardless of which staffing model they use."
The FAA Staffing Target and Pay
A separate strand of pressure runs alongside the staffing arithmetic. The Washington Examiner reported that Congress approved and funded a controller compensation package approximately four months before publication of the Examiner's report, and that FAA Administrator Bedford linked payment of a 2.8% retroactive raise to controllers agreeing to work five hours on position per shift rather than the current four. That reporting also noted, citing Washington Examiner's own figures, that approximately 11,000 certified controllers work today compared with about 16,300 in 1980.
NATCA's Hannon Wiseman, Boston Consolidated TRACON Facility Representative, responded directly to the conditions attached to the raise. "Congress put the raise money in the law in April and left the decision to pay it in the Administrator's 'sole discretion.' The law does not require a single thing from this union," Wiseman said, as reported by the Washington Examiner.
The dispute over pay conditions matters because compensation affects recruitment and retention at a time when the pipeline is already stretched.
The Bottom Line
The Transportation Research Board's review gave the FAA a credible methodological basis for revising its target downward, and the agency has adopted it. What the revision cannot do on its own is explain away the operational caps at Newark and O'Hare, the 57% staffing level at New York TRACON, or the 308% rise in controller overtime since 2013. A lower target is easier to reach; it is not the same as a system with adequate capacity.
The FAA's plan to modernise scheduling tools and work through a pipeline of 4,000 trainees may in time close the real gap, not just the arithmetic one. What is not yet clear is whether the new target accurately reflects the demands of a system still operating under caps at its busiest nodes, with a union that was excluded from the process saying the baseline assumptions surprised them.
Watch for the union's formal response to the workforce plan, progress on the pay dispute, and whether the operational caps at Newark and O'Hare are lifted or extended again after October 2027.
This article draws on information from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Transportation Research Board) and reporting by PolitiFact, CNBC, Washington Examiner, DWU Consulting and DelayGuard.
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