Every day, 3 million US passengers who travel on 45,000 flights rely on the help of more than 13,000 air traffic controllers to get them to their destinations quickly and safely. As one can imagine, working as an air traffic controller is mentally and physically demanding, with varying amounts of air traffic, rapidly changing weather conditions, aircraft maintenance issues and a variety of other factors which can negatively affect the flow of traffic. As with many other high-pressure jobs, fatigue management and countermeasures are critical to ensure the safety of the air traffic control system.
In December, 2023 the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) commissioned an independent panel of fatigue experts and scientists to evaluate the risks associated with air traffic controller fatigue. One member of the 3-member panel was NASA Human Systems Integration Division's Dr. Erin Flynn-Evans, director of the
Fatigue Countermeasures Laboratory at
NASA Ames Research Center. Over a ten week span, the panel was able to complete a thorough review of ATC operations, including interviews with internal and external stakeholders, visits to various ATC facilities, and the analysis of controller workload patterns during the month of January, 2024.
Ultimately, the panel was able to identify multiple near and long-term opportunities to help the FAA mitigate the risks related to controller fatigue. Several of these countermeasures were implemented immediately by the FAA, while other long term recommendations will continue to be pursued. The key findings and summarizations of the panel were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in October, 2024 in the article titled
"Fatigue in Air Traffic Operations - Opportunities to Enhance Safety".
