One Controller at Miami Tower: Air Traffic Control Crisis

[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Ze’ev Nafte, an airline pilot and ALPA union leader.]

Miami International Airport, late at night: I was sitting at the hold-short line trying to call for clearance, but the frequency was impenetrable. One controller; just one, was working clearance, ground and tower at the same time at one of the busiest airports in the United States. His voice never stopped. Every second was another instruction, another aircraft to move, another conflict to untangle.

Out on final, a Boeing 787’s captain kept trying to request landing clearance. He couldn’t get in either. His calls were swallowed in the constant stream of radio traffic as the lone controller tried to run an entire airport by himself, taxiways, approaches, departures, all of it.

This wasn’t a dramatic movie moment. It was a real-world snapshot of an air traffic control system stretched far past safe limits, now pushed even closer to failure by the ongoing U.S. government shutdown.

Shutdown Strains an Already Fragile System

As the federal shutdown grinds through November 2025, critical aviation safety operations are feeling the impact. Air traffic controllers, deemed essential employees, have been working without pay since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, staffing towers and radar centers to keep flights moving. Morale is plummeting and fatigue is soaring. 

“During the shutdown, these professionals are required to oversee the movement of the nation’s passengers and cargo while many are working ten-hour days and six-day workweeks due to the ongoing staffing shortage, all without pay,” says Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). 

Financial and mental strain is mounting, creating “substantial distractions for individuals who are already engaged in extremely stressful work” and making the skies “less safe with each passing day of the shutdown.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) itself has acknowledged the pressure on air traffic controllers. Facing a record-length funding lapse (now the longest U.S. shutdown in history), the FAA has resorted to extraordinary measures to maintain safety. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a nationwide reduction of airline flights by up to 10% at 40 major airports, an unprecedented step aimed at easing the workload on besieged controllers. Starting with a 4% cut in flights and scaling up to 10%, this plan seeks to alleviate controllers after tens of thousands of flights have been delayed since the shutdown began. 

Airlines report at least 3.2 million travelers have already been impacted by air traffic control shortages and resulting delays. By early November, on a single day, more than 1,500 flights were canceled and 6,700 delayed as staffing issues spread to a dozen major facilities. The FAA even warned it might have to double those flight cuts – reducing traffic by 20% – if more controllers begin to stay home for relief .

Front-line controllers describe doing their best to keep the system safe, but under increasingly tough conditions. 

“After 31 days without pay, air traffic controllers are under immense stress and fatigue,” the FAA itself admitted in a recent advisory. 

At airport terminals, NATCA members have been leafleting passengers about the dangers: the shutdown is introducing risk into an already fragile air traffic control system that was already stretched thin before this stalemate. The union warns that key safety activities have stalled. Training of new controllers is halted, equipment maintenance and modernization projects are suspended, and even routine safety oversight like inspections and software updates are delayed. 

In other words, the safety net that supports the controllers in the tower is fraying. 

“When [staffing] shortages happen, the FAA slows traffic into some airports to ensure safe operations,” an FAA spokesperson noted. 

That means more delays for travelers, but officials say it’s necessary to avoid overloading the few controllers left on position.

A Longstanding Shortage Reaches a Breaking Point

The current air traffic control crisis did not appear overnight. The United States has faced an air traffic controller staffing shortage for years, and the shutdown has poured fuel on an already smoldering fire. Even before October, the FAA was short by roughly 3,500 certified controllers compared to its target staffing levels. In late 2024, there were only about 10,800 fully certified controllers on the job – about 3,800 fewer than the FAA says it needs to adequately handle traffic. 

That gap – nearly 25% of the workforce – meant mandatory overtime and six-day weeks had sadly become routine at busy facilities. 

“Many [controllers] are already working six days a week,” NATCA’s Daniels noted, and the system has become “increasingly dependent on mandatory overtime” just to keep up.

This air traffic controller shortage is a slow-moving crisis years in the making. A wave of retirements and a training pipeline that can’t keep up have hollowed out the ranks. By law, controllers must retire by age 56, and many retirees have not been fully replaced. The training process for a new air traffic controller takes as long as 2–5 years of intense education and on-the-job experience, and not all trainees make it through. 

Hiring has lagged behind attrition; despite bringing on 1,500 new air traffic controllers in 2023, the FAA still fell far short of needed numbers. When the shutdown hit, it slammed the brakes on what hiring and training was in progress. All new controller classes at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City were paused, and no new trainees can be added until funding is restored. 

It’s a déjà vu of 2019: during the 35-day shutdown that winter, the FAA’s academy closed and the pipeline of new air traffic controllers was severed – a disruption the system never caught up from. Today, NATCA’s president says the nation has 400 fewer controllers on board than it did even during the last shutdown in 2019, highlighting how much ground has been lost.

Alarmingly, the shutdown is now accelerating the loss of veteran air traffic controllers. With paychecks on hold, resignations and retirements are spiking. 

“Controllers are resigning every day now because of the prolonged nature of the shutdown,” Daniels warned in one interview. 

Many air traffic controllers who were eligible to retire have decided to walk away rather than work indefinitely with no pay. Secretary Duffy reported that retirements have quadrupled – up from about 4 per day to as many as 15–20 per day – since the shutdown started. Each departure takes years of experience out of the tower cab and leaves remaining staff to pick up the slack. The FAA is already short by thousands of air traffic controllers, and could be facing an even deeper staffing hole by the time this impasse ends.

“Safety Last” – Controllers and Pilots Voice Concerns

From the control tower to the cockpit, professionals are raising red flags about what this means for aviation safety. Exhausted controllers worry that an already stressful job is becoming downright untenable. 

“We’re not just tired; we’re broken,” one controller confided about the relentless workload in Florida’s packed airspace. 

Another described every shift as “a marathon, and there’s no finish line.” 

The level of fatigue is unprecedented, union leaders say, and it’s already manifesting in mistakes. Senator Ted Cruz, after being briefed by the FAA, said that pilots have filed more than 500 safety reports since the shutdown began about errors made by controllers due to fatigue. These are warning signs – confidential reports of aircraft getting too close, instructions that have to be corrected, or other lapses that could portend a serious incident if conditions don’t improve.

Both federal officials and outside experts have voiced unusually candid worries about degraded safety margins. 

“Let’s not lie about the pressure,” Secretary Duffy remarked, acknowledging that controllers working six days a week, 10 hours a day will “get burned out” – and that a higher level of fatigue is now evident. 

Ross Sagun, a former air traffic controller turned aviation consultant, likened the situation to a three-legged stool missing a leg: when you remove one layer of redundancy or staffing, “things get a little bit shaky.” 

“I’m real concerned about the level of safety right now,” Sagun said bluntly. 

Airline pilots are concerned, too. They’re trained to handle situations when a tower is short-staffed – or even closed – but no one likes flying blind without the extra set of eyes that controllers provide on the ground. If one controller is doing the work of three, critical calls can go unanswered.

Holiday travel season is looming, compounding fears about a cascading gridlock. Millions of Americans typically fly around Thanksgiving at the end of November, but this year many may find fewer available flights and longer journey times if the stalemate continues. 

“It’s only going to get worse… the two weeks before Thanksgiving, you’re going to see air travel reduced to a trickle,” Secretary Duffy warned. 

Airlines have already canceled hundreds of flights and are preparing to trim even more from schedules in the coming days. The trade group Airlines for America estimates that over 4 million passengers’ travel plans have been disrupted since Oct. 1 due to staffing shortages. 

The ripple effects extend beyond frustrated passengers: economists caution that a sustained hit to air travel during the busy holiday period could even dent the broader U.S. economy, as business trips and holiday spending are curtailed.

Back in Miami

Back in Miami, the late-night scene at the airport offers a snapshot of this fragile status quo. The solitary controller in the tower somehow keeps all the pieces moving – clearing a jet for takeoff on one runway while guiding an inbound flight onto another, and instructing ground crews all at once. 

Planes are still taking off, still landing; the traveling public is largely unaware of the tightrope being walked above them. The fact that it works, day after day, is a testament to the dedication of those unsung individuals on the other end of the radio. 

But as the shutdown drags on and the air traffic controller shortage worsens, the margin for error is razor thin. 

“When you take one of the legs off the stool, things get a little bit shaky,” warns Sagun, the former controller. Aviation has always layered backup upon backup to make flying the safest mode of transport – yet today, many of those layers are wearing threadbare.

The nation’s airspace remains safe – for now – but it is operating on the sheer willpower of a workforce under extraordinary strain. Air traffic controllers and pilots alike are urging leaders to restore the support system before luck runs out. 

As my experience in Miami illustrates, it’s an apt metaphor for America’s aviation system in this shutdown: overloaded, overworked and in urgent need of relief. Each day without a funding deal is another day that relief is delayed – and another day that the people guiding us home do so under growing duress. 

The hope is that help comes before the situation crosses an unforgivable line. In the meantime, if you find yourself on a flight arriving in Miami or any major airport, spare a thought for the voice on the other end of the radio – and the heavy burden they carry to get you safely on the ground.