FAA Training

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) training of developmental and full-performance-level air traffic controllers, focusing on: (1) FAA changes to improve its training; and (2) whether FAA evaluated contractor-provided training, as required.

GAO found that FAA: (1) needs to standardize its on-the-job training (OJT) for developmental controllers to achieve its objectives; (2) use of multiple OJT instructors was ineffective because developmental controllers did not receive consistent training or the benefit of a primary instructor; (3) certification procedures for controllers varied, and did not specify the required certification process; (4) inconsistently provided refresher training to full-performance-level controllers; (5) has not developed or tested its 10 proposed core training courses scheduled for implementation by 1990; (6) provided informal training, rather than thorough classroom instruction; (7) first-line supervisors believed that training was limited in such areas as backup systems, simulation, and specialized training; (8) data on developmental controller training was inadequate to assess training quality; (9) issued a new contract, at a cost of about $120 million, for classroom and laboratory training for developmental controllers; and (10) plans to expand its use of contractor-provided training, but does not intend to evaluate contractor performance.

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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