Air Traffic Control by the numbers
TLDR: realistic best case scenario for Air Traffic Controller prospects getting hired in 2025-2026.
37 year career = $1,430 weekly pension (Less than 1% of air Traffic Controllers will get this.)
Median wage and 26 year career = $750 weekly pension
“Thank you for 26 years of your life! Now enjoy your $750 a week! Enjoy retirement!”
(Purchasing power is annotated above not nominal wages… nominal wages may be $1,000,000 a year and a home may be $4,000,000-5,000,000 for median home… doesn’t matter about nominal wages… just purchasing power.)
(Long version)
I made a comment about this but since I ran the numbers I figured id share so the future prospects of FAA Air Traffic Controller understand what they can expect.
Realistically in Air Traffic Control you will fall in the median pay. The front of your career you will make less than median and by the end of your career, if everything goes well, you will make above the median. Yet over your entire career you will average out to the median. (Important to note, some may start at an ARTCC and make more than median every year as a CPC and others may never even make median ATC… even by the end of their career.)
The legal limit for Air Traffic Control is $228,000(as of 2026). That is literally the maximum salary you are allowed to have. But that will adjust over time…. More likely for the worse. For instance, the federal salary cap in 2004 was $158,100 and if you use the BLS inflation calculator
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=158%2C100&year1=200401&year2=202604
You will see that 158,100 adjusted for inflation to today would be worth $284,289. But the federal salary cap is now 228,000 not 284,289 (25% ish loss in buying power). That means you can assume over the next 22 years, (close to a career in ATC) you can expect to lose another 25% in buying power. So your buying power after a literal best case scenario would be equal to $171,000 (228,000/.75=171,000) buying power in today’s dollars. Obviously the nominal number will be higher but nominal wages are irrelevant, only purchasing power matters.
But remember that is a best case scenario, the median ATC wage today is $130,000. So if you retire making the “median wage” the purchasing power of those dollars will have diminished by 25% so you will retire with a $97,500 (again 97,500 in today’s purchasing power… your nominal wages may very well be $200,000 by the year 2048) in purchasing power and with how our retirement system works you would make (assuming you get hired at 30) 40% of your salary at retirement (assuming you went all the way to age 56 from the age of 30), 97,500*.40=39,000 which dividing the 39,000 over 52 weeks.
39,000/52=750
So you will have a pension as a median controller of $750 a week.
In today’s purchasing power.
Alternatively if you get hired at 20 (instead of 30) and really tried to squeeze out every inch of value from the system and worked on an extension to the age of 57, thus your percentage would be 1.4%*37=0.518… so 51.8% of you high 3 would be your pension/retirement. (Note: if you only work to 56 and not 57, which requires you to request an extension past the “mandatory retirement age” which could be denied” you would only make 1.4%*20=0.28+.16=0.44. So an age 56 retirement would be 44% not 51.8 (which happens at age 57.
I digress, in a best case scenario of 51.8% and assuming a median wage, which is 130,000$. 130,000 is todays median wage, every 22 years we can assume roughly (let’s low ball it so we get a best case scenario) 1% a year lost to inflation. You have a 37 year career so 130,000*.63=81,900. You take your buying power and multiply by your retirement percentage 81,900*.518=42,424.2
So you weekly check (52 weeks in a year)
42,424/52=815.846 weekly
… thank you for your 37 years of service as an Air Traffic Controller… take your weekly 815$ and enjoy the rest of your life!
Also, in an absolute best can scenario you take the 228,000*.63=143,640
143,640*.518=74,405.52
74,405/52=1,430.865
So in an absolute best case scenario. We are talking about spending your whole career in a high level facility (and high locality, just because you have a high level facility doesn’t guarantee being the the federal salary cap.) and getting approved for an extension. We are talking about the equivalent level of luck of how a wide body airline captains can making $1,000,000 in a year if they no life the airlines and max out every possible thing and have a little bit of luck in the process type of luck.
So Lucky as an airline pilot you take home $1,000,000 a year.
Lucky for Air Traffic Control would be equal to making
$1,430 a week in retirement.
Again, this is in purchasing power, your nominal wages will probably double. So the median ATC wage will probably be 130,000*2=260,000 and the federal salary cap will also double 228,000*2=456,000. But 456,000 will only have the purchasing power of $74,405 in today’s dollars.
If you don’t understand those numbers… you are the perfect candidate for the FAA. Don’t worry, you will understand once you are half way through your career and to committed to the career to quit and do something else.
I genuinely believe you will be much better off in a different career but now you know the history of our pay as it spirals down and what you have to look forward to. You can now make an informed decision.