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Today in aviation

Air traffic control

FAA and controllers agree a pay raise tied to new scheduling rules

Air traffic controllers get the raise Congress funded in April, but only after agreeing to badge in and out and let the FAA build shifts around forecast traffic.

17 October 2026

The Department of Transportation and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association announced an agreement on 16 October 2026 to pay controllers the 2.8 percent raise that Congress had set aside in April but the FAA had withheld for nearly six months.

The spending law signed on 30 April 2026 funded a 3.8 percent raise for controllers. Until this deal, they had received only the one percent increase that applies government wide, with the remaining 2.8 percent conditioned on the FAA administrator deciding, at his sole discretion, that the agency had achieved improvements in scheduling, staffing or other operational efficiencies. Administrator Bryan Bedford held the money back through the summer, saying that working with the union to get more utilization from the workforce would help release it. Two Democratic senators called the delay "petty, disrespectful and counterproductive" in a letter sent 4 September.

The agreement trades the money for changes to how controllers work. It requires controllers to badge in and out of their facilities, ties shift schedules to forecast traffic volume rather than fixed rosters, and directs reassignments toward the most understaffed sites. NATCA President Nick Daniels called the raise recognition of controllers' role in keeping the skies safe.

In plain terms

Air traffic control staffing shortages are a direct cause of ground stops and flow restrictions, the kind of delay that can leave an aircraft you released sitting on the ramp rather than flying its schedule.

On the line

The raise takes effect 18 October 2026, retroactive to the start of the year. The scheduling change is the part that reaches daily operations: expect shift patterns at busier facilities to move toward forecast peak traffic rather than a fixed roster, the same kind of flow prediction the FAA's SMART traffic planner is meant to support.

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