FAA Says Video Gamers Make Good Air Traffic Controllers
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says its campaign to recruit video gamers as air traffic controllers has helped it meet 94% of its hiring goal for 2026, according to the agency and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The push, which launched in April, has brought in more than 2,000 new hires so far this year, with another 2,000-plus candidates still in the pipeline.
The recruitment drive targets a demographic the FAA believes is naturally suited to the job i.e. gamers who spend hours tracking multiple moving objects, processing crowded screens and making split-second decisions.
This strategy arrives as the agency works to close a nationwide shortage of roughly 3,500 controllers, a gap that has drawn scrutiny after past staffing shortfalls contributed to flight delays and safety concerns at major US airports.
Why the FAA Is Recruiting Gamers
The agency’s reasoning centers on skills gamers already have. Frequent players routinely track several moving objects at once, communicate quickly under pressure and make fast decisions with limited information. According to the FAA, these abilities translate directly to reading radar and directing aircraft.
“To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt,” Duffy said in the campaign’s April launch announcement, adding that the approach “taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller.”
The Transportation Department says about 65% of Americans, more than 200 million people, play video games regularly, and only around 25% of current controllers hold a traditional college degree, according to the agency. That makes gaming communities a natural recruiting pool for a job that has no degree requirement.
The Results So Far
Duffy called the campaign a “game changer” for the FAA in a recent update, and the agency has since reported hiring records, including the most candidates brought on in a single year to date. The FAA’s 2026 Controller Workforce Plan sets a full staffing target of 12,563 certified professional controllers, and officials say the gamer-focused push, combined with a broader hiring overhaul, is helping close that gap faster than in prior years.
Not every applicant makes it through. Candidates must be US citizens under the age of 31, pass a background check, a medical exam, a drug test, a psychological evaluation and a roughly three-and-a-half-hour cognitive skills assessment before training at the FAA’s Air Traffic Controller Academy in Oklahoma City. Historically, fewer than 10% of applicants have met the FAA’s qualification requirements, according to CBS News.
FAA Expands Gamer Recruitment
Controllers who complete FAA Academy training and on-the-job certification can earn an average salary of about $155,000, and the role offers a six-figure salary path within a few years without requiring a four-year degree, according to the Transportation Department.
This isn’t the agency’s first time courting gamers. The FAA ran a similar “Level Up” recruiting campaign in 2021 aimed at 18- to 30-year-olds, using the same argument that gaming skills like spatial awareness and concentration carry over to the control tower.
The 2026 version expands on that approach with a bigger marketing push and, according to the agency, a “supercharged” hiring process designed to move qualified candidates through faster.
