Air traffic control towers will 'never' reach full staffing levels under current system, FAA chief says

"The honest answer, sir, is, if we continue with business as usual, never," Bryan Bedford said when Rep. Hank Johnson Jr., D-Ga., asked when air traffic control towers would be fully staffed.

"We'll never catch up. The system is designed to be chronically understaffed," the FAA chief added.

He said the FAA must expand its training pipelines and invest more in developing new controllers to help alleviate the shortages.

Rep. Laura Gillen, D-N.Y., said she saw floppy disks still in use during a recent visit to the FAA's terminal radar approach control facility on Long Island, which manages traffic into New York's major airports.

Bedford told lawmakers the FAA has committed by year-end more than $6 billion of the $12.5 billion it received under the "big, beautiful bill," including investments in telecommunications infrastructure and new radar surveillance systems that will be deployed over the next two and a half years.