During Wednesday’s House Appropriations Committee, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) questioned Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau about air traffic control hiring processes.
00:00Ranking Member and Acting Administrator Rochelle, thank you for being here this afternoon to talk about some of this.
00:07I want to go back to the ATCs and talk a little bit about that as well because it's very important to my district where we have the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center for all of Northeast Florida,
00:22which has that funnel effect and it's incredibly busy, 160,000 square miles of airspace, 20 military installations, 200 civilian airports.
00:35How these folks do it, I have no idea. It really is incredibly proud of those guys and gals and what they do.
00:44I was really happy to see this $97 million to hire $2,500.
00:51Question, though, how much of that we're going to be able to accomplish. I'm concerned about that.
00:59One of the things that I'd like to ask in finding those people,
01:05the DEI biologics assessments that were being used previously for selection of ATCs, air traffic controllers,
01:17that were part of the DEI process before, which I think 1,000 that were proficient but refused hiring because of their biologics,
01:29were then filed a lawsuit. Of that 1,000, are we going back to those folks?
01:40I know we've gone back to performance-based selecting, correct?
01:47Yes, sir, that's correct. Merit-based approach to hiring.
01:50Right, right. And so have we gone back to those that were rejected, who were proficient but rejected
01:58simply because of their race back, you know, three years ago, whatever that was?
02:05I am not specifically aware of those individuals or an effort to go back to them.
02:10I will be happy to take the IAU and get back to you and your staff to make sure that we follow up on that.
02:14I mean, if they're still willing to come, that would be a great source to tap into, I would think.
02:23And I think what you're going to find also is that 35% failure rate in the academy is going to go down
02:29significantly when it's more based on merit than biological information.
02:39So I'm glad to see you all moving in that direction.
02:42Can you talk a little bit about, a little more on what specifically can we do to help you with this process?
02:53I mean, we're talking about $39,000 per student of the, you know, you take $97 million,
03:01that ain't a lot of money for 2,500 students.
03:04That's $39,000 ahead.
03:07Is that going to be enough?
03:08And are there other things that we can do to help you in this process?
03:14Well, first and foremost, I appreciate the support.
03:17Clearly, working with Congress is going to be critical to our success going forward.
03:22I would also say that we have budgeted, we have programmed for up to 2,500 in our current budget request with the $97.3 million.
03:31I would also make a very important point here as it relates to the throughput.
03:35So as we have truncated the ability to get additional people into the academy itself,
03:41and we've added instructors to do that basic as we use the certified controllers to do the evaluation piece,
03:49we are confident that we're going to see a better graduation rate coming out of there.
03:54Part of that is the tutoring piece that I talked about earlier as well.
03:57So I'm confident in what we have put in place to be able to kind of meet our goals this year.
04:02It is aggressive.
04:03I will acknowledge that.
04:05Is that going to be official tutoring over the weekends and that sort of thing?
04:10We will have tutors available, but we'll also have the high-definition simulators for people to go and practice.
04:17I learned that in the military when we did a lot of that.
04:20Those simulators will be very valuable to those people who want to kind of put in the extra work.
04:24Let me switch over to some of the work that they're going to be dealing with.
04:30You know, particularly looking at your long career at FAA and in the Air Force,
04:35I'm sure you've seen, you know, eras where there's a lot of progress as well as a lot of stagnation within the aviation sector.
04:45And part of the future of aviation is drone and how that's going to fit into the commercial space.
04:52Now, I see the budget deals with some of that in a modest amount, and I'm appreciative of that.
05:00But let me ask you, can you share with this subcommittee a bit about your vision for how the drone commercial space is going to fit together?
05:11Because it's coming quickly.
05:15Give you a few seconds to answer the question.
05:17Thank you, sir.
05:17Oh, I'm sorry.
05:18It is coming quickly, and it was one of the reasons why I was so excited to come back to the FAA,
05:22bringing new innovative technologies into the airspace.
05:25That includes drones.
05:26That includes advanced air mobility, the EVTOLs or air taxis, and it includes commercial space as well.
