FAA Staffing

FAA's Definition of Its Controller Work Force Should Be Revised Gao ID: RCED-88-14 October 23, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO identified problems with the way the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defines its air traffic controller work force.

GAO found that: (1) the FAA definition includes air traffic assistants and controller trainees, who do not control air traffic, and excludes supervisors and traffic managers, who do control traffic; (2) if FAA had defined its controller work force more accurately, its work force would have totalled 14,400 at the end of fiscal year 1986, rather than 14,800; (3) FAA staffing in supervisory and traffic management positions is well below authorized levels; and (4) FAA no longer reports the number of developmental controllers separately from the number of fully qualified controllers, as it did before the 1981 controllers' strike.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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