The US is struggling to hire air traffic controllers. A surprising age limit and grueling schedules could fuel the problem

CNN — Every day, millions of travelers’ lives are literally up in the air, relying on the acuity of air traffic controllers to orchestrate high-speed maneuvers and help prevent aircraft from crashing. Why air traffic controllers must start young Air traffic control applicants must be less than 31 years old so they can work the mandatory 20 or 25 years needed to qualify for pensions before their mandatory retirement age of 56, an FAA spokesperson said. So all that needs to be memorized … you can’t waste time and energy looking something up or trying to remember something.” The cognitive challenges intensify with age and when air traffic controllers move to larger airports – forcing them to memorize significantly more data and track more regional airports, McCormick said. It takes two to three years to get a controller from being qualified … just to enter the job.” After that, there are “multiple points where they can fail out of being an air traffic controller – everything from academy to simulation training locally and then eventually talking to aircraft on their own.” With the current staffing deficit, about 41% of air traffic controllers must work 60-hour weeks, the union said. How the situation got this bad McCormick attributes the ongoing shortfall to the “inability to hire and train controllers due to things like Covid, the recession, government shutdowns.” The number of air traffic controllers started plummeting around 2013, after a government shutdown, McCormick said.