The Federal Aviation Administration is facing a surge in resignations and retirements, driven in part by a Trump-era program to cut labor costs, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
A May 7 internal presentation obtained by the Journal outlined widespread departures across the agency, affecting employees at all levels—including senior leaders, technical specialists and mission-support staff. A separate report from FAA human resources tallied more than 1,200 exits under the program. While the agency says this accounts for about 3% of its 46,000-person workforce, it emphasized that critical frontline roles—such as air traffic controllers, engineers and inspectors—are not part of the program and remain unaffected.
Still, the staffing shake-up comes at a time of increased scrutiny for the FAA, following the January midair collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial airliner, as well as radar issues impacting flights into Newark Liberty International Airport. Internally, concerns are growing that the loss of experienced personnel could hinder key functions such as issuing airworthiness directives, processing pilot medical clearances, managing runway safety and regulating commercial space launches.
The Journal also reported that some inspectors are weighing whether to resign, citing dissatisfaction with return-to-office mandates, uncertainty over pension reforms and growing political pressures on the agency.
In response, the FAA says it is actively hiring to rebuild its workforce. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is also seeking increased funding from Congress and offering new pay incentives to retain and attract air traffic controllers as part of a broader effort to modernize the nation’s airspace system.
“…some inspectors are weighing whether to resign, citing dissatisfaction with return-to-office mandates.”
Poor babies, they have to get out of their pajamas and go to work. Go ahead quit, you will show us!
This reads like a press release from a labor union. OMG people have to show up to work again! How unreasonable! Cutting the staffing in bloated back office staff positions to be able to increase staffing in front line air traffic controllers, engineers and inspectors… how unreasonable. The notion that there isn’t a lot of waste and bloat in the lethargic FAA is nuts.
I’m sick of politics. The only ‘spinning’ that makes any sense is at a safe altitude and in an aircraft approved for such.
Hmm - 3%. That means it will take about 33 years for the entire staff to turn over. Sounds like business as usual to me.
Politics have no place in this forum.
From Russ:
I disagree but name calling and baseless “fact” distribution do not.
A 3% cut in non-ATC administrative positions is a crisis? Give me a break.
Private companies routinely do this at much larger numbers and I feel certain they are starting from a higher efficiency/effectiveness base.
This whole forum exists primarily for these beatings and peoples inability to stop commenting.
I don’t work for the FAA, but you need to expand your thinking. For people that work “from home” doesn’t always mean what you picture it as. In many cases, an employee (ie : Inspector) goes to an alternate work location. So if an employee were to go "to the office " but then have to turn around and drive 100 miles in the opposite direction, would that be more efficient? So Inspectors go to manufacturing sites, or maybe check out a part 135 operation at an airport, not something that can be done from a desk. I worked with many FAA guys, and they were conscientious in their duties and decent people. And I know from experience that sometimes FBO’s or manufacturing sites will try to cheat and game the system.
I DO work for the FAA, as an Inspector. We have been, collectively, holding our breath since the Duncan/Gilligan “culture change”, waiting for the “big smoking hole”.
You don’t quit your job, you quit your management and ever since 2015 and before the experience level and aggregate technical knowledge of the inspector workforce has been dwindling as people get sick and tired of the Lieutenant Syndrome mentality seeping into the management group. We have so few managers who’ve actually done what they’re trying to manage it’s absolutely pathetic. Duncan did away with the Leads and Supervisors leaving the managers to try and run things. In their frustration more and more managers are bailing.
Now we’ve reached a point where if we ever had to return to the technically savvy workforce that once existed, pre-2010, we no longer have the Inspectors with the experience in what they’re inspecting to teach the newbies that now occupy the cubicles in the offices.
Covid taught us that we can get along just fine with Zoom and Teams and when we need to collaborate all it takes is a quick mouse click and you have the answers you need. Our job is on the ramp and in the hangars of the world. Not in some office just for the sake of having the workforce in an office.
The absolute worst reason to standardize is for the sake of standardization. The claim of returning the workforce to the office so they may collaborate is patent nonsense. It’s simply about control. Now they’re looking for places to house us in non Flight Standards facilities. Collaboration???
I call Bull shirt on this one. It’s all about control and dominance. Nothing else.
The Return To Office mandate is simply the last straw for entirely too many experienced Inspectors.
I’m checking my hold card and will be taking my 55+ years with me when I go back to teaching or whatever, (Maybe Wal Mart Greeting). Fact is I’m not done yet but I’ll be damned if I’ll be part of an organization that causes the next “smoking hole”.
I really wonder how many bright college or trade school graduates want to take a job with the FAA or any other branch of government, if they have any other options.
These people are not leaving because of politics. They were leaving anyway, they probably took other jobs elsewhere, and yes a few that qualify for retirement might have decided to leave. But the fact of the FAA is that it’s an antiquated agency that hasn’t updated its system since the wright brothers, and it’s catching up to them. Most of the FAA administrative function can and should be automated, but unfortunately for anything to get done requires months and years of planning and by the time they put in place it’s already old.
What part of their job requires going to an office?
None of it requires going to an office if they are an inspector.
During COVID, FAA inspectors were some of the few still doing their jobs. My local FSDO leases it’s building for $20,000 per month plus additional infrastructure costs such phone lines, electricity, water, internet, emergency equipment…etc. Except for airman certifications, an ASI’s work is done almost solely in the field. And even those aforementioned certifications can and were completed in the field during COVID. The only reason for a brick and mortar location is to complete administrative work and to socialize. And even admin work can be done anywhere because the government has given those ASIs the tools to do it anywhere. So you tell me where the tax dollar waste is. Is it the previous telework policy where the employee paid out of pocket for their operating costs or is it the $20k+ per month of tax dollars for nonvalue added expense?
The FAA does not drive safety. They regulate the number of businesses that are certificated. Most FAA are retired military and have no business being in civilian aviation. I would require that no retired military be hired into the FAA. All hires are to be taken from the industry with at least 10 years experience.
Sounds like you are venting more than giving a fair take. If you are frustrated with the FAA, fine, but going after everyone with a military background is off base.
A lot of veterans bring solid experience. These are people who flew or worked on complicated aircraft, handled tough situations, and followed safety rules to the letter. That kind of know-how does not just fade when they take off the uniform.
Raf
Here is an example of what I am talking about. I hired a retired air force mechanic to work on small general aviation aircraft. He could not troubleshoot simple 12 volt systems. He was lacking in other areas too. And guess what, the FAA hired him because he gets more points for being a retired veteren than someone not with veteran status. The guy should not be anywhere near any type of aviation. Here’s another one of many that I have experienced. I maintained a fleet flight school aircraft. The FAA showed up and I happened to be on the flight line. This guy was retired Navy. He grounded the aircraft because the tires were not round. I am kidding you not and this same idiot asked me where the flight instruments were. I asked him if he was kidding but he was serious. Hard to believe, huh? The FAA is a joke. Manned with a bunch of idiots. Yes there are some good people buy they are few and far between.
They’re leaving because in the Brave New World of DOGE, the atmosphere is so toxic that those who can leave and take their expertise with them are choosing to do just that. It’s not going to help anything, but it’ll sure make a lot of things worse - just the way Elmo wanted it.
None of the recent cuts had any rational basis - they were purely ideological. Trump is trying to turn the civil service into a bunch of goose-stepping robots loyal to him, not the Constitution or any ethical standards. Rational people won’t tolerate that.
I worked 29 years in air traffic at the 3rd busiest airport TRACON in the country. I don’t recall anyone “goose-stepping”, acting like robots, or screaming “this is unconstitutional”, But I do remember working radar short-staffed virtually forever, but you know what group was never short-staffed? Management and staff, they were always overflowing with people. The sad part about it, most of them came from the controller ranks and could not wait to let their proficiency and currency lapse so they never had to work traffic again. You could have furloughed a third of them and no one would have ever noticed them being gone. So save your TDS for someone who cares, you always showcase all the problems but never have a solution.
Why are some people convinced that some work can’t be done from home?
Seems like they just have intractable opinions and refuse to even try to accept that it can be done.
That’s cool.
Sigh.
Yeah, you’d probably have noticed if the people who did all the airspace and procedure design, did the engineering and technical work need to spec and deliver new systems, maintained them, and got everybody hired and through training suddenly went away. A lot of controllers are blissfully oblivious (if not openly contemptuous…) about everything it takes to keep the system running besides controlling. Perfectly understandable - if you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But there’s a lot of good and necessary work going on outside control rooms - and I’ve been on both sides of it, as well as up to my eyeballs in safety issues. There’s no way that a group like the DOGE kiddies, completely ignorant about every aspect of both civil service in general and specific agency operations, obligations, and responsibilities, is going to parachute in and start making sensible decisions two days later. They’ve done a lot of damage, and FAA is not going to benefit by having lots of good and experienced people decide to just get out rather than fight with organizational vandals. Let me be clairvoyant here: Duffy’s “whole new system in three years” plan ain’t gonna happen. No way, no how, nope. It’ll happen right after Trump’s bigger and better health plan, due in two weeks from 2017.
They generally seem to start from “My job sucks, so yours should, too.” I worked remote for years as a safety investigator, Most of your actual work is remote, too, so dragging yourself in and out of an office each day only added dragging yourself in and out of an office each day. I did work fewer hours, though, since I had to catch the train at the end of the day instead of carrying on working like I did at home. My wife works remote for a law firm, and frequently WAY outside of the time she gets paid for. You do what you have to do to get the job done. “Where” isn’t the most important thing by any stretch.
Thank you for this post. It’s a relief to learn that the FAA is the one Federal organization not burdened by bloated bureaucracy and runs like a Swiss watch. No waste or excessive management overhang to trim. FAA HR is a lean, mean hiring machine; all candidates are hired based on technical qualifications and add real value to the FAA mission. Nothing to see there, it’s all good.
Any organization can be examined for improvement. Nothing wrong with that at all. But unless you’re obsessed with doing it wrong, you don’t do it like DOGE. Setting a bunch of ignorant flying monkeys loose on the government has worked about as not-well as expected - and all to save an underwhelming 2% of the annual budget (if you believe Musk, which is a bad bet…) in exchange for decades of damage. Woohoo.
Here’s a thought: “RTO” was an idea pushed by the politically powerful and influential realty office space management companies. These groups were property investors — just like our president — and they “had his ear.” These types of companies — for obvious reasons — were near-and-dear to our president’s heart.
These realty groups saw their current and future property contracts tanking because of telework.
… it had zero to do with “lazy government workers.”
If I was to wager a guess, I’d say that productivity has declined - precipitously. Burning gas in bumper to bumper traffic and paying tolls adds zero to worker efficiency.
Technology - like telework - is a “force multiplier.” It’s still not clear — why all of a sudden — this is no longer true.
Yup. At home, I wrote reports on a laptop connected to the mother ship via a docking station and a VPN. When I had to go to the office, I took my laptop in, put it in a docking station, wrote the same reports, no VPN. Woohoo.