| FAA embarks on hiring marathon |
The Federal Aviation Administration aims to grow the size of its air traffic controller staff by about 1,600 over the next 9 years. That won’t be easy given that about 12,300 air traffic controllers are expected to leave the agency during that period, mostly because of retirements.
So the agency is embarking on a nine-year hiring marathon in which it plans to hire roughly 1,400 to 1,800 new controllers a year.
To do that, it has streamlined the way it recruits and hires new controllers.
In 2006, the agency standardized the way its nine regional offices recruited and hired air traffic controllers. Before that, each region went about hiring in its own way.
And this year, the agency began holding hiring fairs around the country in which the agency subjects promising job candidates to a barrage of interviews, paperwork, tests, medical screenings and other steps - all in a single day.
This has dramatically shortened the time it takes job candidates to be hired and sent to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City for training. Before, it took 6-9 months for a candidate to apply for a job and start training; now it takes 2-3 months.
Air traffic controller candidates “are ready to work, and we want to get them processed and in training as soon as possible,” acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell said in a Feb. 15 statement.
The key to speeding up the time to get new controllers in place is the agency’s new hiring centers - temporary centers that rotate among FAA sites around the country.
This isn’t the first time FAA has experimented with intensive hiring processes. It set up similar hiring centers after Sept. 11 to quickly stand up the Federal Air Marshal Service, and in 1981 after President Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers.
FAA employs 14,745 air traffic controllers.
|
|
| |
| Article Rating
|
Average Score: 0
Votes: 0
|
 |
|
