Here's Why There's a Shortage of Air Traffic Controllers

A spate of plane accidents, botched landings and near-misses in the US and elsewhere has raised widespread concerns about air safety. While the likelihood of a plane crash remains incredibly low, experts are concerned that a global shortage of air traffic controllers could make flying more dangerous. Our transport reporter Danny Lee joins host Stephen Carroll to discuss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. I'm Stephen Carroll, and
this is Here's Why, where we take one news story
and explain it in just a few minutes with our
experts here at Bloomberg. I don't want to travel in
the air. I mean, this is part of the problem.
We just had the worst crash since two thousand and

(00:23):
nine on January twenty ninth over DC airspace. It seems
like we are seeing more and more air crashes.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I think we are seeing more operations that aren't going
as they should.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
It feels like a miracle that these people were able
to leave this plane and there was no fatalities.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
It's been a difficult few months for the aviation industry.
A space of midair incidents, botched landings, and near misses
has brought safety concerns to the four Flying is still
one of the safest modes of transports, with far fewer
deaths per passenger mild than travel by car, ferry or train,
but events like the mid air collision over Washington, DC
in January have prompted Donald Trump, among others, to promise action.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
My administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety.
We have to have our smartest people. It doesn't matter
what they look like, how they speak, who they are
matters intellect, talent the word talent. They have to be talented,
naturally talented geniuses.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Experts have voiced concerns that air traffic control staffing may
have played a role in the Washington crash, and it
reflects a wider problem in the industry around the world.
Here's why there's a shortage of air traffic controllers. Our
transport reporter Danny Lee joins me now for more. Danny,
First of all, how widespread is this shortage?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Stephen? Virtually in every corner of the world, there is
a shortage of air traffic controllers. In the United States,
the short full stands at three thousand, five hundred air
traffic controllers, and that's with almost eleven thousand already on duty.
In Europe, that number is closer to two thousand out
of nineteen thives in the ranks at the moment. So
the numbers don't lie when you look closer at the

(02:04):
decline of air traffic controllers employed around the world, and
in a snapshot of some major countries that we've taken
a look at. So that's the UK the US, Germany, France,
and Spain. These are some of the big countries with
airtraf controllers and have a lot of airflight activity. Since
twenty eleven, that number has actually fallen in terms of
headcount or just not grow at all, and that data

(02:26):
is remarkable against the backdrop of there may have been
advancements in technology to improve the efficiency of the role
of an aircraft controller, but the pace and the growth
of air travel overtime has made the role of an
aircraft controller busier than ever, and especially dealing with perhaps
a more global complex environment, whether it be related to

(02:47):
the climate or geopolitics. So clearly, for the role of
an aircraft controller day to day, they have to navigate
a whole list of issues that crop up, and it's
not getting any easier when the growth of aircraft has
been going up and up and up.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
So then what practical effects does a shortage of air
traffic controllers have on those of us that want to
get on planes.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
There are more delays, frankly, that air passengers face if
there are just not enough air traffic controllers on duty.
In some extreme cases we have seen in the places
like the United States, airports such as Newark and New
Jersey airlines have being forced to cut back on on
their flight schedules during some of the peak travel periods
because there are just not enough air traff controllers to

(03:31):
handle the volumes of planes wishing to come in and
out of that airport. And that is mirrored when you
look at other partstored particularly in Europe, where there have
been warnings over recent years that during the peak summer
period they just will not have enough manpower in order
to cope with the volumes of traffic that there is.
So clearly there is a growing problem and with the

(03:53):
number of air traffic controllers employed, there is a challenge
there on how to cope with that growth aviation and
their travel.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Does it have consequences for safety?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I think there is a concern, a lingering concern that
with the most recent accent that took place in Washington,
DC that brought into question the role of air traffic
controllers and the shortage that were there was at the
time that this accent could happen again if people are
not careful. And in the United States there has been

(04:26):
an increase in concern of the shortfall of air traffic
controllers and the likes of the Trump administration now trying
to take action to boost the number of staff on
duty and to improve the aviation infrastructure as a whole.
And clearly safety is paramount in aviation, and so a
lot of concern around the world about can the aviation

(04:47):
industry cope with the levels of growth and with some
parts of the system actually breaking down like that.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
What are the important reasons behind there being a shortage
in this particular role of air traffic controls.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well, during COVID there was an increasing number of staff
that had retired from from the various organizations that manage
the industry, and on top of that, there was not
enough training put in in order to allow the number
of people who were retiring to be replaced. And one
of the more challenging things for these authorities was the

(05:23):
fact that when you are socially distant, you cannot train
in close quarters. So training stopped. A lot of the
priorities at the same time were shifting focus, particularly as
air traffic demand collapsed, and so we have seen this
this backlog of training that has not been taking place,
and only now in the recent several months, and so

(05:45):
there has been an improvement in terms of backfilling these roles,
but still we have a long way to go, particularly
in the likes of the United States, where they have
seen a huge understaffing in some of its major air
traffic control centers and so there's a lot of catchup
going on. But it takes years, up to free years
in some cases for air traffic controllers to be trained properly,

(06:08):
and so this is not a quick fix when you
think about the training, because there is a multi stage
process along the way.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Okay, our transport reporter Danny Lee, thank you. For more
explanations like this from our team of three thousand journalists
and analysts around the world, go to bloomberg dot com
slash explainers. I'm Stephen Carroll. This is here's why. I'll
be back next week with more. Thanks for listening.