Office of Inspector General Audit Report: FAA Continues to Make Progress in Implementing Its Controller Workforce Plan, But Further Efforts Are Needed in Several Key Areas: Project Id: AV-2007-032

On February 9, we issued our audit of FAA's progress in implementing key initiatives of its strategy for hiring approximately 11,800 new controllers to replace those expected to leave over the next 10 years. We found that FAA has made significant improvements by centralizing its hiring process and has made progress in reducing the time and costs to train new controllers. However, FAA needs to: (1) complete the process of developing accurate facility level staffing standards; (2) refine its methodology for projecting controller retirements; (3) continue reducing on-the-job training time as part of the controller training process; and (4) identify the total costs associated with the Controller Workforce Plan. FAA generally agreed with our recommendations.