Duffy touts air traffic controller applications amid push to recruit gamers

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration received 12,000 applications in 24 hours after its annual air traffic control hiring window opened Friday, a figure Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described as record breaking amid the agency’s new campaign to recruit video gamers to the job. 

In a post on X over the weekend, Duffy said the 12,000 applications marked “the most in one day since the FAA was created 68 YEARS ago!” He told Fox News in an interview Sunday that 11,000 of those applicants were considered qualified and 8,000 have already been sent a skills test required to move forward in the process. 

Duffy specifically credited the Transportation Department’s fresh effort announced earlier this month — just a week ahead of the opening of its hiring window at midnight April 17 — to seek out those who play video games to apply. 

“To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt,” Duffy said in a press release on the new campaign at the time. “This campaign’s innovative communication style and focus on gaming taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller.”

The transportation chief told Fox News on Sunday that the idea was sparked by a poll the agency took of students at an FAA academy in Oklahoma City in which all but three of the 250 people randomly surveyed said they were gamers. 

“And so we thought, listen, there’s a connection here,” Duffy said. “They problem solve, they are spatially aware, they do multiple things at the same time. It is very reminiscent of what air traffic controllers do.”

Since then, Duffy said the agency has reached out to the community, including with a video appearing to target gamers he posted earlier this month. He called the response the agency has received “remarkable.” 

“YOU can be the future of air traffic control,” Duffy said in a post on X earlier this month that included the video ad. “It’s not a GAME, its a CAREER.”

The push comes as the FAA has been plagued with air traffic controller staffing issues for years, a reality that has been amplified amid recent government shutdowns, which leave them working without pay until the matter is resolved.

During the government shutdown last fall, Duffy told CNN in an interview that the FAA was seeing 15 to 20 air traffic controllers retiring a day, up from four before the lapse in funding. He added at the time that the FAA was short “about 1,000 to 2,000” air traffic controllers in general and noted he had embarked on an effort to pay experienced people in the position to stay on the job and not retire. 

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office released earlier this year found that the number of air traffic controllers in the country has declined by about 6% over the last 10 years. The GAO cited government shutdowns in 2013 and 2018-2019, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, as contributing factors in the decline, noting both disrupted training. 

In the report, the GAO also noted that there has been a 10% increase in the number of flights that rely on the air traffic control system over the same period, exacerbating the issue. 

President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget proposal to Congress includes a request of a $481 million increase to “continue to support the Administration’s air traffic controller hiring surge, as well as enhancements to aviation safety, commercial space operations, and updates to FAA’s outdated telecommunications systems,” according to a fact sheet from the White House. 

There are a number of prerequisites to qualify to be an air traffic controller, including being under 31 years old and being able to “Speak English clearly enough to be understood over communications equipment,” according to the FAA website. 

Those interested must also pass a medical exam, as well as the agency’s air traffic pre-employment tests. The FAA notes that less than 10% of all applicants meet all of the requirements and are accepted into the training program.