Forecasting attrition, retirements and hiring needs.

From 2018 to 2019 I was a Senior Associate in Grant Thornton LLP's public sector practice in Washington, DC, and the FAA was one of my clients. Agency facts, figures and dates come from the public documents listed at the end. No figure on this page comes from the FAA records I worked with.

What I did

I built an attrition and retirement forecasting model on FAA separation records for two workforces: air traffic control staff, and Airway Transportation Systems Specialists (ATSS), the technicians who install, maintain, repair and certify the equipment of the National Airspace System [1].

The model combined three methods: ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, logistic regression and Cox survival models. For each employee it gave the chance of leaving in each of the next three years. From those chances it gave hiring needs by location, and the training budget that follows from them.

My tools in this role were R, Python, SQL, Excel/VBA and Tableau.

What the public record shows

Section 221 of Public Law 108-176 requires the FAA to report a controller workforce plan, and the FAA updates it each year [2]. The 2019 plan, the fourteenth, projected retirements from who becomes eligible and how eligible controllers have behaved: in recent years, 16 percent retired in their first year of eligibility, and controllers are usually required to retire at 56 [2].

Technician staffing drew outside reviews. In 2013 the National Research Council, under a mandate in the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act, found that the FAA's district staffing model "is not an adequate framework for future work." It named upcoming retirements from an aging workforce as one of nine staffing factors, and advised handling attrition models as separate human resources algorithms [3]. In June 2018 the Department of Transportation Inspector General found that the FAA had no effective method for setting technician staffing levels, and that, as of March 2018, it was testing a separate attrition model [4]. In May 2023 the Inspector General found that the FAA projected technician training and hiring needs only one year ahead, while it had 10-year plans for controllers and aviation safety inspectors [5]. The FAA's first comprehensive ATSS workforce plan covers 2026 to 2030 [1].

The two workforces in the FAA's own plans, seven years apart:

Controller staffing stayed under strain. In June 2023 the Inspector General found 20 of 26 critical facilities staffed below the FAA's 85-percent threshold [6]. In December 2025 GAO reported 13,164 controllers at the end of FY2025, about 6 percent fewer than in 2015, and a hiring and training process that can take 2 to 6 years [7].

Try it: the FAA's technician workforce on public data

In September 2024, OPM's public FedScope files counted 5,570 FAA employees in occupational series 2101, the series the FAA hires its Airway Transportation Systems Specialists in; see their ages, who left and who joined from April 2024 to March 2025, and where your own hiring and separation settings would take them. [8]

Timeline

1. 2013The National Research Council reviews ATSS staffing. [3]
2. 27 June 2018The DOT Inspector General reports on technician staffing. The FAA is testing a separate attrition model. [4]
3. 2018 to 2019At Grant Thornton, I build the attrition and retirement forecasting model on FAA separation records.
4. 2019The FAA's fourteenth controller workforce plan covers 2019 to 2028. [2]
5. 2 May 2023The Inspector General recommends that the FAA establish a maintenance technician workforce plan. [5]
6. 21 June 2023The Inspector General reports on controller staffing at critical facilities. [6]
7. 17 December 2025GAO reports on controller hiring. [7]
8. 2026The FAA's first comprehensive ATSS workforce plan, for 2026 to 2030. [1]

Sources

1. FAA, The Airway Transportation Systems Specialist Workforce Plan 2026 to 2030
2. FAA, Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan 2019 to 2028
3. National Research Council (2013), Assessment of Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation: Summary
4. DOT OIG AV2018057, Underlying Data Quality Issues Hinder the Staffing and Placement of FAA's Maintenance Technicians (27 June 2018)
5. DOT OIG AV2023027, Opportunities Exist for FAA To Strengthen Its Workforce Planning and Training Processes for Maintenance Technicians (2 May 2023)
6. DOT OIG AV2023035, FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities (21 June 2023)
7. GAO-26-107320, Air Traffic Control Workforce: FAA Should Establish Goals and Better Assess Its Hiring Processes (17 December 2025)
8. OPM, FedScope datasets: Employment Cube (September 2024), and Separations Data and Accessions Data (April 2024 to March 2025)

Agency names are where the work was done. They are not endorsements.