The Federal Aviation Administration is launching an advertising campaign aimed at recruiting air traffic controllers from an unlikely talent pool: video game players.
The campaign, a joint effort with the Transportation Department, centers on the logic that gaming builds skills directly transferable to the job. One video opens with an Xbox logo before cutting to clips of games and esports tournaments, flashing the message “You’ve been training for this your whole life” before transitioning to footage of controllers at their workstations. It closes with the tagline: “It’s not a game. It’s a career.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the approach was deliberate. “To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt,” he said in a statement. “This campaign’s innovative communication style and focus on gaming taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller.”
The FAA is specifically targeting young adults who demonstrate high cognitive function, multitasking ability, spatial awareness, and problem-solving skills — attributes the agency says are common among serious gamers.
The campaign is part of a broader hiring push to address a persistent controller shortage. The agency currently has 4,000 trainees in the pipeline and hired 20% more controllers in the first nine months of last year compared to the same period in 2024.
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6 Responses
What???!!! Hopefully this administration won’t get to decide who are next generation of brain surgeons will be.
Would game players understand that in the real world you only get one life, and that there is no “do over” or “reset” or “cheat” button??
Those who can play computer games for 8 hrs. straight – know what hipper attention means! Like playing same level 30 times in a row until you pass it…
Now, about extra lives and shortcuts in the game, games are designed to be lost, other vice there would be no challenge!
Air traffic is designed to be safe, unless someone is multitasking, or sleeping at the controls, or overloaded and there is on one there to take them over. Attention gaps cost real lives. Do your research and you will see that most air traffic collisions are caused by attention gaps.
When you play 8 hours straight, you are all in! 100% And that’s what they need in good air traffic controllers – 100% hipper attention!
Why was my comment about allowing players to run the skies?
Not sure why the critical headline or comments. Guess what? Your neurosurgeon probably already plays video games, and studies have found that certain types of surgery are more easily performed by people who play video games.