The FAA continues to expand its use of universities as hubs for training the next generation of air traffic controllers as it contends with a long-standing shortage of personnel.
Shenandoah University on Thursday became the 13th school and first in Virginia to join the agency’s Enhanced Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (E-CTI). The program will allow graduates to bypass the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, where most ATCs receive initial training, and immediately begin instruction on the airspace they will one day oversee.
Shenandoah is the 10th university to join the E-CTI under the current presidential administration and the fourth of 2026. Angelo State University in Texas joined the program in May.
“This collegiate level air traffic controller training program will help young Americans build lifelong aviation careers and get us one step closer to solving our controller shortage,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement Thursday.
During a congressional hearing Tuesday, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said there are about 11,000 certified professional controllers (CPCs) who have completed their training and are deployed at one of 313 federal ATC facilities. That figure is unchanged from April and is more than 3,500 CPCs short of the amount called for under the agency’s previous staffing blueprint.
A new workforce plan published in May offers a more favorable outlook, reducing the CPC target to 12,563 and putting the shortfall closer to 1,500 personnel. However, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) told FLYING it was left out of the decision to change that target.
Bedford also said there are about 4,000 controllers in the training pipeline, 900 of whom were previously certified but have relocated and are completing facility-specific training.
The FAA met its goals for hiring 2,000 ATC trainees in fiscal year 2025 (FY25) and 2,200 in FY26. The agency’s FY27 budget request includes about $95 million to hire another 2,300 trainees. But it will take years before they are certified.
Per a January Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, only about 2 percent of applicants to the FAA Academy completed their full training. That was due to normal attrition as well as a lack of instructors, who are typically CPCs themselves. The E-CTI aims to augment the Academy’s resources—its members provide the exact same curriculum as the Academy and use simulators that meet its standards.
Closing the Gap
E-CTI students who pass performance and written exams receive an official FAA endorsement certificate, allowing them to be placed directly in an agency facility. Shenandoah University’s program will feed graduates to control towers, while Angelo State’s will send them to air route traffic control centers (ARTCCs). The students will also need to pass the Air Traffic Skills Assessment (ATSA) test and meet medical and security requirements.
The program is different from the standard AT-CTI, whose graduates must still attend the Academy to receive initial qualification training before moving to facility-specific training. The E-CTI schools also have more stringent requirements around curricula, faculty expertise, and simulation equipment.
Expanding the E-CTI is one of many pillars of the government’s push to supercharge controller hiring and improve retention.
The administration has implemented starting salary increases, as well as bonuses for academy graduates, new hires, retirement-age controllers, and ATCs assigned to hard-to-staff facilities, such as those in the New York City area. It has also begun recruiting former military ATCs, private industry controllers, and even gamers.
However, Bedford on Tuesday would not commit to giving controllers and their managers and supervisors a 3.8 percent raise that was provided for by a bill passed earlier this year. According to the FAA’s May workforce plan, “most controllers still leave the controller workforce prior to reaching the mandatory [retirement] age” of 56.
