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Austin City Council Demands FAA Address Airport Staffing Shortages

The Austin City Council passed a resolution urging the FAA to address air traffic controller shortages and expand protected airspace at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, citing safety concerns.

Published July 24, 2025 at 7:27pm


The Austin City Council is urging the federal government to take immediate action to ensure the airspace around the capital city is safe.

The council unanimously passed a resolution during its regular meeting Thursday demanding the Federal Aviation Administration remedy a shortage of air traffic controllers at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and expand the footprint of protected airspace around the airport.

The move is "first and foremost about safety," said Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes, who sponsored the measure, and comes as Austin-Bergstrom’s control tower employs fewer than half of the controllers the FAA says it needs. Congressman Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat, previously told the American-Statesman that the FAA target for the Austin airport is 60 controllers but the facility only employed 29 as of early June.

"It’s incumbent on all of us to ensure the safety of our passengers and the safety of our airport workers," Fuentes said.

Specifically, the resolution adopted Thursday asks the FAA to prioritize Austin’s airport for controller transfers and to incentivize transfers to the tower. It also urges the agency to "upgrade the airspace levels surrounding AUS to increase the protected airspace and reduce controller workload."

The City Council has no control over air traffic issues, as jurisdiction for the nation’s airspace falls solely to the federal government.

City leaders also hope to start talks with the FAA and Austin Community College to establish an Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative program to grow the talent pool locally, according to the resolution, which directs the city manager to explore a future partnership. Such a program would allow students to be hired and placed in an air traffic control tower immediately after graduating from the training program, and it would also be the first of its kind in Texas.

"Rather than pointing a finger, this is about lending a hand and saying we want to be part of the solution," Fuentes said of the potential partnership.

Concerns about safety at ABIA have risen in recent years with a spate of near-collisions at the airport. The most recent occurred on Oct. 16 last year when a small Cessna unexpectedly crossed into the path of a Boeing 737, coming within 400 feet of an American Airlines flight from Chicago carrying 128 people.

"Despite dangerously low levels of staffing and an apparent pattern of near-catastrophe, the FAA has failed to increase the number of air traffic controllers at AUS," the resolution reads.

The controller shortage has also triggered disruptions to airport operations, including flight delays and cancelations. In a March incident, the FAA issued a ground stop at ABIA, halting incoming flights from Dallas and Houston and causing widespread flight delays. The agency directly attributed the stop to tower staffing.

Doggett and Austin leaders have for months hounded the FAA to take action to increase staffing in Austin, but with little effectiveness.

"They’re moving too slowly for me," Doggett said in a June interview. "I think they didn’t recognize the incredible level of growth that we had here, and they continue to prioritize the older busy airports but not recognize us with the latest equipment and the number of air traffic controllers we needed to keep an adequate margin."