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Duffy Announces a New Package to Boost the Air Traffic Controller Workforce, May 1, 2025

May 1, 2025 · US Department of Transportation · 0:53:42

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy held a press conference to unveil a new package to boost the air traffic controller workforce, in the Department of Transportation’s upload of the May 1, 2025 event, alongside the FAA’s acting administrator and the president of the air traffic controllers’ union, NATCA, as Duffy introduced them. The shortage, as he stated it, stands at about 3,000 air traffic controllers, covered today with substantial overtime and stress on the existing workforce.

Duffy first recapped the March supercharge initiative as he stated its measures: academy salaries increased 30 percent, five months shaved off a hiring process that could take over a year, and preference for the best-qualified entrance-exam scorers to cut the academy’s 35 percent washout rate, as he stated the figures. The new package announced May 1 adds the next phase, as he laid it out: a better pathway for military air traffic controllers to move into civilian control, with more choice of location; a $5,000 bonus for academy graduates who pass their exit certification; additional bonuses for graduates who take harder-to-fill locations; incentives for experienced, retirement-eligible controllers to stay on rather than retire; and more academy instructors and learning support to move students through faster, as the FAA’s acting administrator detailed the academy measures.

Why it matters

The May 1 package is the workforce half of the airspace fix, completed a week before the May 8 infrastructure plan: every lever is financial or procedural — pay, bonuses, retention incentives, a military on-ramp — aimed at a 3,000-controller hole the Secretary priced in overtime and stress on the controllers already in the towers.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the BOOST ATC workforce package announced May 1, 2025 — $5,000 graduation bonuses, hard-to-fill location bonuses, retirement-eligible retention incentives, and a military controller pathway, as stated at the press conference. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “Secretary Duffy Holds Press Conference to BOOST ATC Workforce” (official upload, embedded above; description states Secretary Duffy unveils a new package to boost the air traffic controller workforce). Remarks and figures as delivered at the press conference.