# Moe Chizari at the FAA: forecasting attrition, retirements and hiring needs

FAA, 2018 to 2019. Last changed 22 October 2026. Other roles: https://chizari.me/work/

From 2018 to 2019 I was a Senior Associate in Grant Thornton LLP's public sector practice in Washington, DC, and the FAA was one of my clients. Agency facts, figures and dates come from the public documents listed at the end. No figure on this page comes from the FAA records I worked with.

## What I did

I built an attrition and retirement forecasting model on FAA separation records for two workforces: air traffic control staff, and Airway Transportation Systems Specialists (ATSS), the technicians who install, maintain, repair and certify the equipment of the National Airspace System [1].

The model combined three methods: ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, logistic regression and Cox survival models. For each employee it gave the chance of leaving in each of the next three years. From those chances it gave hiring needs by location, and the training budget that follows from them.

My tools in this role were R, Python, SQL, Excel/VBA and Tableau.

## What the public record shows

Section 221 of Public Law 108-176 requires the FAA to report a controller workforce plan, and the FAA updates it each year [2]. The 2019 plan, the fourteenth, projected retirements from who becomes eligible and how eligible controllers have behaved: in recent years, 16 percent retired in their first year of eligibility, and controllers are usually required to retire at 56 [2].

Technician staffing drew outside reviews. In 2013 the National Research Council, under a mandate in the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act, found that the FAA's district staffing model "is not an adequate framework for future work." It named upcoming retirements from an aging workforce as one of nine staffing factors, and advised handling attrition models as separate human resources algorithms [3]. In June 2018 the Department of Transportation Inspector General found that the FAA had no effective method for setting technician staffing levels, and that, as of March 2018, it was testing a separate attrition model [4]. In May 2023 the Inspector General found that the FAA projected technician training and hiring needs only one year ahead, while it had 10-year plans for controllers and aviation safety inspectors [5]. The FAA's first comprehensive ATSS workforce plan covers 2026 to 2030 [1].

The two workforces in the FAA's own plans, seven years apart:

| | Air traffic control | ATSS |
|---|---|---|
| Plan years | 2019 to 2028 [2] | 2026 to 2030 [1] |
| Sites | 313 facilities, as of 1 October 2018 [2] | 393 System Support Centers [1] |
| Time to certify a new hire | 1.5 to 3 years [2] | about 2 years on average [1] |
| Projected losses | 9,519 over 10 years, 2,635 of them retirements [2] | about 2,000 over 5 years [1] |
| Planned hires | 907 in FY2019; 8,893 through FY2028 [2] | about 2,400 through FY2030 [1] |

Controller staffing stayed under strain. In June 2023 the Inspector General found 20 of 26 critical facilities staffed below the FAA's 85-percent threshold [6]. In December 2025 GAO reported 13,164 controllers at the end of FY2025, about 6 percent fewer than in 2015, and a hiring and training process that can take 2 to 6 years [7].

## The workforce in OPM's public data

OPM's Federal Workforce Data counts the FAA's employees in occupational series 2101, the series named in the demo above, at each fiscal year end. The shaded band marks my years, 2018 to 2019. These are public counts for the whole occupation, not figures from my work. [9]

Chart, headcount: FAA employees in series 2101 in OPM's September snapshots, 2014 to 2025, and in August 2026, the newest file: 5,877 in September 2014, 5,933 at the high in September 2020, 5,774 in August 2026. [9]

Chart, hires and departures: Hires (accessions, transfers in included) and departures (separations of every kind) by fiscal year, counted by the date each action took effect. In fiscal year 2025, 481 joined and 400 left, 1 of them under the Deferred Resignation Program. [10]

| Snapshot | Employees |
|---|---|
| September 2014 | 5,877 |
| September 2015 | 5,881 |
| September 2016 | 5,895 |
| September 2017 | 5,872 |
| September 2018 | 5,840 |
| September 2019 | 5,727 |
| September 2020 | 5,933 |
| September 2021 | 5,695 |
| September 2022 | 5,462 |
| September 2023 | 5,502 |
| September 2024 | 5,570 |
| September 2025 | 5,686 |
| August 2026 | 5,774 |

| Fiscal year | Hires | Departures |
|---|---|---|
| FY2015 | 280 | 261 |
| FY2016 | 302 | 288 |
| FY2017 | 315 | 303 |
| FY2018 | 209 | 339 |
| FY2019 | 303 | 373 |
| FY2020 | 510 | 298 |
| FY2021 | 96 | 309 |
| FY2022 | 226 | 415 |
| FY2023 | 401 | 317 |
| FY2024 | 374 | 298 |
| FY2025 | 481 | 400 |

## Timeline

- **2013:** The National Research Council reviews ATSS staffing. [3]
- **27 June 2018:** The DOT Inspector General reports on technician staffing. The FAA is testing a separate attrition model. [4]
- **2018 to 2019:** At Grant Thornton, I build the attrition and retirement forecasting model on FAA separation records.
- **2019:** The FAA's fourteenth controller workforce plan covers 2019 to 2028. [2]
- **2 May 2023:** The Inspector General recommends that the FAA establish a maintenance technician workforce plan. [5]
- **21 June 2023:** The Inspector General reports on controller staffing at critical facilities. [6]
- **17 December 2025:** GAO reports on controller hiring. [7]
- **2026:** The FAA's first comprehensive ATSS workforce plan, for 2026 to 2030. [1]

## Sources

1. [FAA, The Airway Transportation Systems Specialist Workforce Plan 2026 to 2030](https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/Airway-Transportation-Systems-Specialist-Workforce-Plan-2026-2030.pdf)
2. [FAA, Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan 2019 to 2028](https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2021-11/2018-ABA-200-CWP_2019_Report_508.pdf)
3. [National Research Council (2013), Assessment of Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation: Summary](https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/18357/chapter/2)
4. [DOT OIG AV2018057, Underlying Data Quality Issues Hinder the Staffing and Placement of FAA's Maintenance Technicians (27 June 2018)](https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/FAA%20Maintenance%20Tech%20Staffing%20and%20Placement-Final%20Report-6-27-2018.pdf)
5. [DOT OIG AV2023027, Opportunities Exist for FAA To Strengthen Its Workforce Planning and Training Processes for Maintenance Technicians (2 May 2023)](https://www.oversight.gov/reports/audit/opportunities-exist-faa-strengthen-its-workforce-planning-and-training-processes)
6. [DOT OIG AV2023035, FAA Faces Controller Staffing Challenges as Air Traffic Operations Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels at Critical Facilities (21 June 2023)](https://www.oversight.gov/reports/audit/faa-faces-controller-staffing-challenges-air-traffic-operations-return-pre-pandemic)
7. [GAO-26-107320, Air Traffic Control Workforce: FAA Should Establish Goals and Better Assess Its Hiring Processes (17 December 2025)](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107320)
8. [OPM, FedScope datasets: Employment Cube (September 2024), and Separations Data and Accessions Data (April 2024 to March 2025)](https://www.opm.gov/data/datasets/)
9. [OPM, Federal Workforce Data: employment snapshots, September 2014 to September 2025 and August 2026](https://data.opm.gov/) (read 22 October 2026)
10. [OPM, Federal Workforce Data: accessions and separations files, October 2014 to August 2026](https://data.opm.gov/) (read 22 October 2026)

Interactive demo on this page: Try it: the FAA's technician workforce on public data. In September 2024, OPM's public FedScope files counted 5,570 FAA employees in occupational series 2101, the series the FAA hires its Airway Transportation Systems Specialists in; see their ages, who left and who joined from April 2024 to March 2025, and where your own hiring and separation settings would take them. [8]

Agency names are where the work was done. They are not endorsements.