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FAA Adds Training In Traffic Control

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By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovics@tampatrib.com

Published: October 14, 2008

TAMPA - The Federal Aviation Administration is expanding a collegiate training program to meet its needs to train and hire an estimated 17,000 new air traffic controllers in the next 10 years.

The FAA approved Jacksonville University and Broward Community College in Fort Lauderdale for its Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative. They join three Florida schools already authorized to offer air traffic controller training programs.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida Community College in Jacksonville and Miami-Dade College provide CTI programs that can lead to FAA acceptance into further training.

Graduates of the CTI programs are eligible to bypass the FAA's first five weeks of qualifications training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City, the initial step in becoming an air traffic controller.

Once past the FAA Academy, trainees start in the low $30,000 range and can reach certification after about four years. That experience can help them earn more than $60,000 annually at FAA towers, such as at Tampa International Airport.

Veteran controllers at TIA earn on average about $100,000 annually.

The FAA has hired 5,000 new controllers in the past three years and plans to hire 2,000 more in 2009. The Tampa airport tower staff generally ranges from 57 to 67 controllers. Its hiring pipeline is filled by trainee graduates and transfers from other airports.

New controllers are needed to fill vacancies created by a surge of retirements in the current work force of 15,100 controllers.

Many of the impending retirements are among those hired en masse in 1982, when President Reagan fired striking controllers. The FAA imposes a mandatory retirement age of 56 for air traffic controllers.

ON THE WEB

Career information is at www.faa.gov, which has links to jobs and CTI programs.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817.

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