Industry Insights

Deputy FAA Administrator Talks ATC Overhaul

July 11, 2025

With $12.5 billion in funding to begin overhauling the nation’s ATC system secured following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Deputy FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau discussed how the money will help improve our nation’s airspace.

Rocheleau stressed that U.S. airspace is the safest in the world, but said the funds will also help ensure the system is “resilient” and that “we have the redundancies in place.”

“The agency is running this incredibly large, complex, very safe system every single day,” Rocheleau said during an interview with ATCA’s President and CEO Stephen Creamer. “We need to go from copper lines to fiber optics. We need new radar. We need new radios. We need facilities.”

The Deputy Administrator also touted the agency’s workforce, calling them “incredible resilient.”

“We have an incredibly resilient, talented workforce that come to work every day, and they focus on the job at hand, moving people through the airspace safety, making sure that surface safety issues are addressed, making sure that we’re inspecting aircraft.”

Rocheleau acknowledged the ongoing air traffic controller shortage, highlighting the importance of maintaining adequate staffing in our nation’s ATC towers. The U.S. remains nearly 3,000 certified controllers short; however, President Trump and Secretary Duffy are taking steps to help bridge this gap through incentives and expanding the Enhanced Air Traffic – Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program.

“We’ve got seven enhanced CTI schools now, where you’ll go through that program at an enhanced CTI college and come out and go straight to a facility,” Rocheleau said. “Part of this is really just to put more people through, the best qualified people through that Academy have good graduation rates and get them out to the field to get them trained up.”