The transportation secretary said the campaign was “wildly successful.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ran a targeted recruitment campaign last month after the number of air traffic controllers retiring tripled during the government shutdown last fall. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they “leaned into” the gaming community after discovering that all but three of 250 students randomly polled at the air traffic control academy were gamers.
Within hours of opening online applications, 6,000 had responded. Secretary Duffy said, “We’ve had a flood of people – young people – coming in that want to be air traffic controllers. Again, they have to be qualified, we have to go through an assessment process, but this has been wildly successful.”
The transportation secretary explained, “If you think just what these gamers are doing on screens, and they’re talking and there’s a lot of things going on, they’re used to that, and that’s actually what you’re doing in a tower in a facility. And so they’ve become well-suited from the games they’ve played to actually have a great life job that pays well and can support their families.”
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For Secretary Duffy as he manages the effort to ensure the safety of air travel and adequate air traffic control staffing.
- For Administrator Bedford and FAA officials as they assess and oversee the training and development of the air traffic control workforce.
Sources: The Hill, Fox 11 News
