From the article:

For more than a decade there has been a shortage of air traffic controllers in the U.S., which has resulted in flight delays and increased risks for air travelers. And the Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to video game enthusiasts to help fill those gaps.

The DOT first launched a program in 2025 to recruit gamers. Now Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is extolling the success of that program on social media.

Reaching out to gamers, he wrote on X, has resulted in the DOT meeting 94% of its hiring goal for new controllers, a record-setting pace. More than 2,000 people have been hired, he said, with candidates “reaching the Academy quicker than any class before them.”

To be clear, that doesn’t mean those gamers are already guiding actual aircraft through takeoff and landing. Even with the streamlined hiring process the DOT has enacted, it takes two years for a trainee to complete the air traffic controller training program. And roughly one in three trainees drops out before completing the program.

Still, gamers remain an area of interest for the DOT as it looks to fill empty seats. In a past interview, Duffy said “they problem solve. They’re spatially aware. They do multiple things at the same time.”

[...]

While Duffy celebrated reaching 94% of the hiring goal, it’s worth noting that the FAA, in May, cut its staffing target for air traffic controllers from 14,633 to 12,563. It said, at the time, that modernized staffing models were behind the change. But the agency actually increased the amount of time employees spent managing air traffic, to avoid the overtime bills the FAA ran up in 2024, which totaled approximately $200 million.