FAA: In A Holding Pattern

Prepare to spend even more time waiting in airports. A perfect storm of events–delays in the hiring and training of air-traffic controllers because of the government shutdown and federal budget cuts, combined with a glut of controllers eligible for retirement–could create a shortage of the men and women who keep planes moving. By the end of 2016, about 4,500 of the nation’s 14,602 controllers will be able to retire, according to the FAA’s most recent projections. That’s almost a third of the current workforce.

Efforts to replenish the ranks, largely hired after the nationwide controller strike in 1981, hit a snag when the government sequester shut the FAA’s training academy and imposed a hiring freeze. In 2012, the FAA projected it would bring in 1,234 new controllers in 2013. The agency has added just 554. “So many pieces in the machine have to work in unison,” says Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. “There are not enough people in the pipeline.”

–ELIZA GRAY