Retired librarian Carolyn Foote was craving an easy, three-hour flight home to Austin on Sunday after a weekend library conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Instead, she found herself stuck in a cramped terminal at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, surrounded by crowds of tired high school students fresh from college tours. Seating was scarce, lines for bathrooms seemed endless and her departure time kept getting pushed back.
“They said it was an air traffic controller situation in Austin,” she recalled. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had throttled the number of planes that could land at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (ABIA) because of short-staffing in Austin’s air traffic control tower. Eventually, Foote boarded – only to be stuck baking in a stuffy cabin for another 30 minutes as the so-called “ground delay” dragged on.
FAA/Screenshot by Nathan Bernier. The FAA notice of a ground delay at ABIA on Sunday. As you can see, the official reason given for the delay was “staffing.” The average delay was 93 minutes. Almost 200 ABIA flights were delayed Sunday, according to FlightAware.
“It was just a very rough travel day and very frustrating,” she said.
Foote’s weekend struggle may be a sneak peek at what holiday travelers could face in Austin. Just two days before, her departure from ABIA was another ordeal: monstrous security lines that took her an hour and 40 minutes to get through, even though she’d signed up for the biometric identification Clear, which is supposed to speed up the process.
“Two people in front of me missed their flight,” she recounted.
That Friday, Dec. 6, was one of at least two days last week when the line to get through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint spilled outside onto the sidewalk in front of the Barbara Jordan Terminal. ABIA’s former CEO Jacqueline Yaft warned the TSA two years ago that such mega-lines aren’t just annoying, they pose security risks, too.
Michael Minasi/KUT News. The TSA is sending about two dozen extra officers to Austin to help prevent lines from getting so long they extend outside.
But while the grueling waits and uncertain travel times can test anyone’s patience, an even graver concern is overhead. Short-staffed air traffic controllers are juggling a growing crush of planes.
The FAA says ABIA currently has 33 fully certified controllers, which is down from 35 controllers last year. The airport should have a total of 60 fully trained controllers under the FAA reauthorization that passed Congress in May.
But staffing at ABIA’s air traffic control might be even worse than that.
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, told KUT News that two of the 33 fully trained controllers are medically unable to perform their duties. Another two have already left or are on their way out.
That would put the total number of controllers at 29, less than half the recommendation of 60 developed jointly by the FAA and air traffic controllers union.
“The FAA numbers are not accurate,” Doggett insisted, “Whatever it is, we were in a worse position even by the FAA’s faulty analysis than we were over a year ago.”
“We’re among the top four or five airports in the entire country in terms of air traffic control shortages. This just should not be happening,” Doggett said. “I talked with the FAA administrator (Monday) and to the assistant that he has who’s providing those numbers. We differ on the numbers, but we more importantly differ on whether the FAA is providing margin of safety that we need in Austin.”
Michael Minasi/KUT News. The most recent near-miss in Austin involved an American Airlines 737 (not this plane) coming within 350 feet of crashing into a small Cessna.
Austin’s had at least half a dozen close calls in the past couple of years. The most recent – on Friday, Oct. 18 – involved a small Cessna plane coming terrifyingly close, within 350 feet, of crashing into an American Airlines jet packed with passengers on a foggy morning.
In June, FAA officials in Austin asked the agency to consider upgrading ABIA’s airspace from Class C to Class B, Doggett said. The elevated category would give air traffic controllers more authority and tools to manage the flow of planes. The FAA would not confirm whether the request had been made.
In Dallas and Houston, which both have Class B airspace, pilots are subject to stricter requirements intended to avoid the risk of collisions. All pilots in Class B airspace must also maintain radio communication with air traffic control.
FAA. An aeronautical map showing Austin’s Class C airspace. The local FAA team has requested the federal government upgrade the airspace to Class B like Houston and Dallas, according to U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett. An FAA spokesperson did not respond to a question seeking to confirm if the request had been made.
Nationally, the FAA says it’s on a hiring spree: more than 3,300 controllers added in the past two years with another 2,000 expected in 2025. A new law to reauthorize FAA funding orders the agency to go full throttle, cranking out controllers as fast as possible.
“One of the problems leading to the rising number of near misses is a shortage of controllers,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said at the airport in October during a news conference to celebrate congressional passage of the FAA reauthorization. “The more controllers you have there, the more you’re able to monitor traffic. That also helps with delays.”
The FAA told KUT News more trainees will arrive in Austin by the spring. No specific numbers were provided. Right now, ABIA’s tower has six certified controllers in training, down from eight last year.
“We’ve been able to really open up the pipeline for new controllers,” FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker told Congress in June. “Takes a long time to make new controllers, so there’s a bit of a lag, but we’re making really good progress.”
ABIA was the first airport in the country to get a high-tech tower simulator, intended to improve the training process.
FAA. ABIA’s air traffic control tower was the first in the nation to get the FAA’s newest simulator for controller training.
Airlines are pushing for relief, too.
“From a holistic view, Southwest’s top governmental priority is an FAA focused on (air traffic control) staffing and (air traffic control) modernization,” said Chris Perry, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines – which serves almost half of Austin’s departing passengers.
The TSA, meanwhile, will send about two dozen extra officers through December to help speed up the security lines, similar to what they did during Formula 1 weekend.
“It’s not so much that we’re not prepared or that anything specific is happening. It’s just that we have record number of travelers,” TSA spokesperson Patty Mancha said. “Of the top travel days in the airline industry, the top 10 have been in 2024.”
Austin’s airport had six of its busiest days ever this year. These are the highest single-day totals for departing passengers at ABIA.
- Monday, Oct. 21, 2024: 44,043
- Monday, Oct. 23, 2023: 43,243
- Monday, Oct. 24, 2022: 42,241
- Thursday, April 11, 2024: 39,967
- Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024: 39,380
- Monday, Oct. 14, 2024: 38,970
- Monday, Oct. 16, 2023: 38,475
- Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023: 38,252
- Monday, March 11, 2024: 37,993
- Friday, March 8, 2024: 37,909
The holiday crowds at ABIA likely won’t come close to breaking October’s jaw-dropping records. But Friday, Dec. 20, is still expected to be the busiest day in the weeks ahead with more than 35,000 departing passengers.
ABIA has 20 TSA screening lines, the most ever, even though Checkpoint 3 has been closed most of the year to add some 75,000 square feet of space to the west part of the terminal. It’s just one of about 60 projects that make up a multibillion-dollar airport expansion.
In 2026, an additional 12,000 square feet of concourse space – created by covering the atrium over baggage claim – should help keep massive lines indoors.
City of Austin/Department of Aviation. A rendering showing what ABIA could look like after the atrium is covered with a floor to create an extra 12,000 square feet of space on the departures level.
For now, ABIA still recommends arriving two and a half hours early for domestic flights and three hours for international trips.
“I’m a lifelong Austinite and I remember when in Austin, you could just go to the airport. It was a small airport like Raleigh’s,” Foote said. “Obviously, we’ve outgrown the airport.”
This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.
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