FAA Technical Training

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) efforts to upgrade its Technical Training Management System (TTMS), focusing on the: (1) cost and status of the planned upgrades; and (2) extent to which TTMS affects FAA technical training programs. GAO noted that: (1) although FAA has identified many problems in its training system, long-term planning and resource allocation process, and design and evaluation process, it has not resolved these problems; (2) FAA has spent $81 million on flight plan projects through fiscal year 1994; (3) in 1995, FAA will decrease its annual spending by 34 percent for flight plan projects; (4) over 25 percent of FAA projects have been terminated and 65 percent of FAA ongoing projects are behind schedule because the flight plan was overly ambitious and poorly planned; (5) the FAA process for identifying training requirements is ineffective and lacks adequate review, prioritization, and involvement from FAA service organizations; (6) although TTMS enables FAA to identify and fund training requirements systematically, FAA does not have policies that hold managers accountable for the use of training slots; (7) between 1991 and 1993, nearly 20 percent of the training slots were not used; and (8) FAA has not evaluated its training programs as required to determine the effectiveness of its training.