Cole Fitzpatrick sat behind a massive desk with screens spread out along the wall before him. A high-definition view of BWI Airport in Baltimore beamed across the monitors.
A joystick was in one hand, a keyboard in the other. A radio headset hugged his ears. Beneath his foot was a pedal used for communicating with pilots entering his airspace.
Suddenly, a voice crackled on the radio: “Southwest 659, requesting clearance to land on runway 15-L.”
The voice on the other end of the radio wasn’t a real pilot; it was Fitzpatrick’s boss, Michael Knodler, director of the UMass Transportation Center. Fitzpatrick is a research assistant and engineering professor at UMass Amherst, and was demonstrating a state-of-the-art air traffic control simulator housed in a quiet facility near the Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee.
Airports around the country are facing a critical shortage of air traffic controllers. According to a recent federal watchdog analysis, the number of air traffic controllers in the US has declined by 6% in the past decade, even as the number of flights using the system has increased.
Fitzpatrick and Knodler’s team are working to ease the crisis by inspiring the next generation of air traffic controllers.
“We really have to target young people,” Fitzpatrick said, explaining that the Federal Aviation Administration strictly regulates who can become an air traffic controller. Applicants must be under the age of 31, and an application requires years of training in advance.
To expose kids to the field early, Fitzpatrick said, UMass invites high school classes to its Chicopee facility to try out the simulator. He said some find the process similar to using an Xbox or PlayStation.
“They’re young. They’ve played video games,” he said. “They love it.”
According to Knodler, it’s a win-win scenario, because the FAA likes to see gamers apply for the job.
Recruits have to take a psychological test to make sure they can handle the fast-paced environment of an air traffic control tower.
“A lot of the time, they’re thinking about folks that are avid gamers, that can handle a lot of information coming to them in real time,” he explained. “Or, potentially, somebody that can handle a drive-thru at a really busy restaurant.”
But inspiring students is only one piece of the puzzle. Actually becoming an air traffic controller is a complex and difficult process.
And here in Chicopee, there’s not yet a formal program for training these essential workers.
“In a lot of professions, people might have a really clear understanding of what the pathway of getting into that position is like,” Knodler said. “Air traffic control is maybe one that’s not as well understood.”
Beyond Oklahoma City
For most people, becoming an air traffic controller means going to Oklahoma City, the site of the FAA’s official training academy. For decades, the academy was the only certified program in the country, creating a logistical and financial hurdle for potential recruits.
“The students have to go to Oklahoma City, and they’ve never been to Oklahoma City,” said Michael McCormick, former vice president of the FAA Air Traffic Organization. “They have to find housing. They get paid at a low level, and they essentially have to live on ramen noodles for three to four months as they go through this highly-stressed training process.”
Because of that, the attrition rate at the FAA’s academy in Oklahoma is abysmal, McCormick said. According to a federal watchdog, 30% of trainees fail to make it through.
In 2024, federal officials launched a new initiative intended to address the problem. It allowed graduates from certain universities to skip the FAA Academy entirely, and go straight to the next step: on-the-ground training at a real airport.
McCormick helped launch one of those programs at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where students can learn to become an air traffic controller without stepping foot in Oklahoma.
“Since this program was approved by the FAA, we’ve completed one year, and we have sent nine of our graduates to air traffic control facilities across the United States,” he said.
But nine students is just a drop in the bucket, considering federal officials have warned that 8,000 new air traffic controllers need to be hired in the next two years. As of January, there were only 10 programs in the country that let students bypass Oklahoma.
New degree programs
None of those programs is in Massachusetts — at least not yet.
UMass’s Mike Knodler said he wants to change that, but so far, it’s been complicated. For starters, there’s a federal requirement that the university must offer a second degree related to air travel — not merely one for air traffic controllers — such as aviation maintenance or operations.
“To be honest, we’re not entirely sure of the genesis of that,” Knodler said. “We think it’s because air traffic control in general has such a high attrition rate. People get into it and realize it’s not for them. Or it’s not what they thought or it might be too demanding. And so the idea is that somebody could back out of air traffic control but still have a pathway to remain in the aviation field.”
UMass first acquired its massive air traffic control simulator a decade ago, long before Knodler took over the university’s transportation center. At the time, air traffic staffing levels weren’t a major concern. But one of his colleagues, who is now retired, noticed the beginning of a concerning pattern, as the FAA was failing was failing to meet its hiring targets in 2013.
“This all foreshadowed the shortfall of air traffic controllers,” he said.
The Transportation Center wrote up a grant, Knodler said, figuring that a simulator could be useful if staffing levels eventually became so critical the FAA needed to expand its training program beyond Oklahoma City. The facility’s proximity to the Westover Air Reserve Base also meant it could be used for military training exercises. The purchase was fully funded by a grant from the Emil Buehler Perpetual Trust, a non-profit that supports aviation research.
Today, the military does use the simulator for training (Knodler said he could not elaborate on those exercises). The university also uses the machine for its own research. But it tends to sit empty when a class isn’t there for a field trip.
Knodler and his team are now on the precipice of fulfilling the original goal of the simulator, as it could play a crucial role in solving what’s become a full-blown crisis.
He expects it will take at least a year before UMass can meet all of the FAA’s requirements and establish its own program. But once that happens, the school’s simulator won’t just be used to inspire the next generation of air traffic controllers; it will be used to train them.
