The Transportation Department is recruiting gamers to solve its air traffic controller shortage
For more than a decade there has been a shortage of air traffic controllers in the U.S., which has resulted in flight delays and increased risks for air travelers. And the Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to video game enthusiasts to help fill those gaps.
The DOT first launched a program in 2025 to recruit gamers. Now Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is extolling the success of that program on social media.
Reaching out to gamers, he wrote on X, has resulted in the DOT meeting 94% of its hiring goal for new controllers, a record-setting pace. More than 2,000 people have been hired, he said, with candidates “reaching the Academy quicker than any class before them.”
To be clear, that doesn’t mean those gamers are already guiding actual aircraft through takeoff and landing. Even with the streamlined hiring process the DOT has enacted, it takes two years for a trainee to complete the air traffic controller training program. And roughly one in three trainees drops out before completing the program.
Still, gamers remain an area of interest for the DOT as it looks to fill empty seats. In a past interview, Duffy said “they problem solve. They’re spatially aware. They do multiple things at the same time.”
For the gamers, there are definitely some advantages and disadvantages of taking this job. On the upside, the pay is good. The median salary in 2024 was $144,580—and all you need, education-wise, is an associate’s degree. However, those paychecks haven’t been steady of late, thanks to government shutdowns. Controllers were ordered to work without pay for 43 days last year (with back salary given when the government reopened). And hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration jobs have been cut in the past two years.
There’s also the job itself. Air traffic controllers have one of the most stressful occupations in the country. Decisions are literally life and death. The equipment they rely on is often outdated. Many work six days a week. And because of the staffing crisis, controllers are often handling several more planes than they expected to.
Roughly 20% of trainees fail to certify as a controller at the first assigned facility—and some facilities have a much higher washout rate. And while it’s easy to rage quit a game, the stakes are much different with a real-world plane.
Shifting numbers
While Duffy celebrated reaching 94% of the hiring goal, it’s worth noting that the FAA, in May, cut its staffing target for air traffic controllers from 14,633 to 12,563. It said, at the time, that modernized staffing models were behind the change. But the agency actually increased the amount of time employees spent managing air traffic, to avoid the overtime bills the FAA ran up in 2024, which totaled approximately $200 million.
The substantial number of hires is also raising eyebrows because, traditionally, less than 10% of applicants are accepted into the training program, according to the FAA. The higher acceptance figures could be because of the new fully automated qualification process the FAA adopted last year. That process allowed applicants to proceed individually, rather than in a group. It also made the required comprehensive medical and security checks concurrent, though that doesn’t necessarily account for the large acceptance level.
Even if it did, the FAA has its work cut out in the years ahead. Hiring goals for 2026, 2027 and 2028 are all staggered higher than the previous year. And the GAO reports that the attrition rate from applicants for an air traffic controller role to a fully successful hire (passing all clearance approvals, finishing the academy and becoming fully certified) is incredibly high. Just 2% of all applications fully complete the training process.
Over the past decade, the number of air traffic controllers in the U.S. has declined by 6%, while the number of flights has increased by 10%. Even with the FAA’s successful wooing of gamers to fill the jobs, there’s no definitive sign, at the moment, that either number’s trajectory will change.