Ill. college to train future air traffic controllers

November 27, 2007 (ROMEOVILLE, IL) (WLS) -- A surge in retirements by air traffic controllers is forcing the Federal Aviation Administration to ramp up the training of replacements. The FAA is turning to colleges for help. ABC7's Paul Meincke reports that Lewis University in Romeoville is one of 23 colleges chosen for the task.

Aviation has been at the core of the curriculum at Lewis University since its founding 76 years ago. Now that curriculum is expanding to include training future air traffic controllers.

Lewis is now certified to become part of what the FAA calls its college training initiative. With thousands of the nation's air traffic controllers eligible to retire in the next decade, the FAA is turning, in part, to colleges for training the next generation of controllers. There are now 23 colleges nationwide in the CTI program. Lewis is the only one in Illinois.

"In the Chicago area, we've never had a university or a college to use, so Lewis is perfectly situated to use the entire Chicago marketplace to train new controllers," said Tony Molinaro, FAA.

Of the 1,800 new controllers that the FAA has hired in the past year, almost half of them have come through the college training initiative. Their failure rate, the FAA says, is lower than controller hires who come in from different occupations without college classroom training.

Lewis will start its program next fall.

"We're looking at potentially 50 incoming freshmen in the program. We could wind up handling 100 students," said Bill Brogan, Lewis University aviation-transportation studies.

Controllers continue to dispute the FAA's claim that there is a sufficient number of controller candidates in the pipeline to replace the anticipated wave of retirees, but they do applaud the college-based training.

"Another 50 a year to draw from; that's less people off the street," said Jeff Richards, air traffic controller/union spokesman.

The FAA has had a college training initiative for nearly 20 years, but its reach is now growing with the addition of nine colleges and universities, including Lewis.

Working controllers who are concerned about the surge in retirements say it would have been nice if the FAA had expanded the CTI program years ago, because, they say, it takes three to five years to get a controller fully up to speed. Still, they applaud bringing more schools, particularly Lewis, on board.

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