Another Retirement Wave Warning Issued

Many air traffic controllers hired in the early 1980s as replacements for those fired in the 1981 strike are getting close to retirement under the special rules applying in that occupation, the General Accounting Office has said. GAO’s report (GAO-02-591) says that the Federal Aviation Administration lacks a strategy to address the impending wave of retirement by controllers, who in general cannot remain on the job past age 56 and who can retire at any age with 25 years of service or at age 55 with 20. GAO projected that some 600 to 800 controllers will leave, primarily through retirement, each year for the next 10 years and that the agency will need an additional 2000 controllers by 2010 because of increased workload. GAO said that half of controllers plan to retire when they first are eligible. FAA currently employs about 15,000 controller specialists and another 5000 managerial or supervisory controllers.