The Federal Aviation Administration plans to hire 12,000 air traffic controllers over 10 years amid a wave of expected retirements in the industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The FAA, the nation's civil aviation regulator, is likely to announce later on Tuesday that it will hire more than 1,000 controllers per year starting in 2006, a program that will continue for nine years after that, the newspaper said.
Hiring and training the workers probably will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Journal, even as the agency grapples with higher costs, lower revenue and a tightening federal budget.
It could prompt the FAA to cut service at smaller airports, put off planned technology upgrades and raise the passenger ticket tax or replace that tax with airline user fees, the newspaper said.
The expected retirements are prompted by President Ronald Reagan's decision in 1981 to fire striking air traffic controllers and hire replacements who will start to be eligible for retirement in 2006, the Journal said.
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