​‘Aviation Start’ Episode 5 Maps Every Path Into Air Traffic Control

The fifth episode of Aviation Start, FLYING’s career-focused video podcast hosted by Jamail Larkins, turns from the cockpit to the radar scope. Larkins’ guest is Marcus Miller, an air traffic controller at an FAA en route center who has built a following on social media as “PropHatCat,” explaining what controllers do and why.

The timing is deliberate.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is air traffic controllers are in a huge hiring surge right now, and is scheduled to happen for the next probably close to a decade,” Larkins said.

Miller, who noted that his opinions are his own and that he does not speak for the FAA or the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, came to the job by an unusual route.

He celebrated his fifth birthday at Waco Regional Airport (KACT) in Texas, caught the bug with Flight Simulator X in eighth grade, and started college pursuing a bachelor of fine arts in musical theater before pivoting to aviation.

Hours spent on VATSIM (Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network), which lets flight simulator pilots talk to simulated air traffic controllers online, convinced him to pursue the real thing. He enrolled in the FAA’s Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, and applied to the FAA every year for five years before he was hired.

Three Ways In

Miller and Larkins walked through the main paths into the FAA.

Military controllers transition directly. Off-the-street applicants need only be 18, hold a high school diploma, and have a year of work experience. CTI graduates skip the Air Traffic Basics course at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City but still complete their tower, terminal, or en route training there.

The newest option, Enhanced CTI, allows accredited colleges to deliver that track-specific training on their own simulators, with an FAA evaluator signing off before graduates go straight to a facility.

“If you pass all of that, you don’t have to go to Oklahoma City,” Miller said.

Asked which path he would choose if he were starting over, Miller picked Enhanced CTI, in part because of what he saw at the academy.

“Whatever I went through back in 2019, it was maybe 50 percent, 60 percent,” he said of the washout rate. “It’s made to be difficult because you need to be able to show the FAA that you are teachable, that you are coachable.”

The academy compresses the material into about four months, he said, while an Enhanced CTI program spreads it over a two- or four-year degree. He added that he would still apply off the street at the same time, since candidates can pursue both.

For anyone headed to the academy, his advice was simple: “Just be teachable. Just be prepared to not know anything, because you’re going to be taught everything that you need to know.”

What the Job Pays, and What It’s Like

Controller pay starts around $70,000 and can reach the federal pay cap of about $228,000 at the busiest facilities, with full federal benefits, Larkins said, noting that the top figure exceeds a member of Congress’ salary.

Miller put that in context. Most new certified controllers at towers and TRACONs earn closer to $80,000, while the largest centers and approach controls pay in the $180,000-$190,000 range. Trainees are paid while at the academy.

The three tracks are not interchangeable.

“I like to think of it like doctors,” Miller said. “You have like a brain surgeon and a heart surgeon and then a foot surgeon. A brain surgeon is not going to go the next day and do foot surgery. They have to kind of retrain. All of them are there to keep the patient healthier, keep them safe, but they all have very specialized jobs. Same thing, center, TRACON, tower.”

Does the pressure of managing thousands of lives a shift ever ease?

“I don’t think it gets easier,” Miller said. “I think you just learn to manage it.”

What keeps him in the chair is the people on the airplanes.

“We think of the airplanes as just little radar blips, but there are people on those planes.”

Contract Towers and the Age Limit

Larkins also raised contract towers, which are FAA-funded but staffed by private companies and typically serve smaller airports. Miller explained that FAA controllers face mandatory retirement at 56, while contract towers have no such rule, so many retirees keep working there.

The path also runs the other direction. Schools such as Advanced ATC and the Community College of Beaver County in Pennsylvania offer control tower operator certificate programs. A graduate can be hired at a contract tower, build the 52 weeks of experience the FAA requires for its prior-experience hiring bid, and be hired directly into the agency without attending the FAA Academy.

That matters for anyone past the FAA’s age cutoff of 31 for new-hire controllers. Larkins noted that the limit does not necessarily apply to contract towers, and both men encouraged viewers to confirm the details for themselves.

For pilots, Miller closed with a reminder about the voice on the other end of the frequency. In seven years he has issued a possible pilot deviation exactly once.

“We’re human just like you,” he said, “and we want everybody to get from point A to point B safely.”

Episode 5 of Aviation Start is available now on FLYING’s YouTube channel and all major podcast platforms. Aspiring aviation professionals can get matched with eligible scholarships from a database of more than $20 million scholarships at aviationstart.org.