Olathe Reporter: Davids visits FAA air traffic control center in Olathe amid industry job shortages
3rd District Representative Sharice Davids visited the air traffic control center in Olathe Wednesday to highlight federal cuts to aviation and an increased focus on flight safety throughout 2025.
The visit comes three months after a flight from Wichita collided with an Army helicopter in Washington D.C. It was the first major commercial flight crash in 16 years, and 67 people died as a result.
“I think everyone in Kansas was impacted by the tragedy that happened when the flight from Wichita crashed … One of the things we should take away from this is we always have the opportunity to take the work on and improve safety,” Davids said.
Davids said she felt the visit to the Federal Aviation Administration building was important since she sits on the Congressional aviation subcommittee, but also to see some of the effects of staffing shortages in aviation.
The FAA currently employs about 11,000 air traffic controllers, and while that position has not been specifically cut by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), that number is still well below recommended levels. Around 400 employees were terminated in the first round of FAA cuts by DOGE, and transportation secretary Sean Duffy insisted the safety impact was minimal.
Davids said she believes DOGE has taken a reckless, callous approach to some of the cuts, and when positions are terminated in such a way, it can spread throughout the industry, regardless of if certain positions are cut or not.
Patrick James, Kansas City Air Traffic Controller Association president, who helped guide Davids around the building, said the air traffic controller shortage has been ongoing since the 80s, when President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. The numbers never caught back up, and the U.S. has more planes than ever with less controllers.
On top of that massive cut, the air traffic controller academy has an attrition rate of around 60 percent, and James says those who do make it through still leave the career in the first few years at a high rate. The Olathe FAA building is now short 50 controllers, and that shortage takes a toll.
“It ends up being six day work weeks, in some cases 10-hour days, and in some cases I can’t get enough people to actually come in to staff particular areas,” James said. “In that case we have to slow down traffic because we’ll never compromise safety … Inevitably what would happen is ground delay programs or ground stops, which slow down the flow and cause a ripple effect across the entire national airspace system.”
James said the current threat of cuts to retirement benefits by Congress are only exacerbating these issues. He said the only way to solve them is more funding for aviation safety, whether that be pay, benefits or improved technology.