San Diego's airport dealing with shortage of air traffic controllers
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San Diego International Airport is fending with a 17.9% vacancy rate among air traffic controllers, per the most recent FAA data.
Why it matters: January's mid-air collision in Washington, D.C. between a passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter is bringing fresh attention to staffing shortages, which are a longstanding problem.
- Wednesday's crash of a fighter jet into San Diego Bay has done nothing to discourage that attention, as investigations into the cause of the crash continue.
By the numbers: San Diego's airport tower is five short of its FAA target of 28 air-traffic controllers.
- Southern California TRACON, which controls air traffic coming into and out of a 9,000 mile area, is 22 controllers short of its 232 FAA target, good for a 9.5% vacancy rate.
Context: San Diego International is the country's busiest single-runway airport.
- And it just experienced its busiest year ever, with 25.24 million passengers traveling through the airport in 2024.
The big picture: In the wake of January's disaster, President Trump called for sweeping air traffic control overhauls, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy welcomed Elon Musk's DOGE team to take a look under the hood.
- But Trump's actual plan remains unclear, DOGE doesn't appear to have aviation expertise, and any major changes to the highly complex air traffic control system will take years to implement safely.
- The FAA has ramped up recruitment efforts, but the path to becoming a fully certified controller is long and arduous.
Flashback: Regional leaders in the early 2000s attempted to address San Diego International's growth constraint, with a ballot measure to relocate the airport to a two-runway, 3,000-acre facility on a portion of Miramar's 23,000 acre base.
After three years and $17 million spent on the effort, 61.4% of voters rejected the proposal in 2006.