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WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration seeks to fill a national shortage of air traffic controllers, officials are targeting a new talent pool: gamers.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday is making a recruiting push aimed at avid players of video games, as the agency strives to fill thousands of vacancies that lawmakers have said leave the traveling public less safe. In a new YouTube ad, the agency is using flashy graphics and the promise of six-figure salaries to persuade video game enthusiasts to apply their trigger fingers in service of air safety.

In recent years, video gamers have emerged as a target demographic for recruiters at a number of federal agencies, including the military and the Department of 91Ö±²¥land Security. They are welcomed for their hand-eye coordination, quick decision-making in complex environments and ability to remain focused on screens for hours on end.

“To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. Focusing recruiting efforts on gamers, he added, “taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller.”

But while air traffic experts noted gamers have potentially valuable skills, some questioned whether the focused recruiting effort will sufficiently address the agency’s wider air traffic staffing problems.

“When you bring on someone who has gaming experience, particularly with air traffic control, they have an edge up,” said Michael O’Donnell, an aerospace consultant who previously worked as a senior FAA official focused on air traffic safety. “They’re coming in with a skill set. But it doesn’t replace aptitude, or discipline, or decision making under pressure.”

The government has struggled to recruit enough air traffic controllers. Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to “supercharge” hiring efforts, in Duffy’s words, the FAA has increased its ranks of fully certified controllers by 300 since September 2024, bringing the total number to more than 11,000. That is still thousands short of the 14,663 positions the agency said constituted full staffing in an August 2025 report.

Agency officials blame a combination of attrition, the length of time that it takes to train controllers, and historically high washout rate for the slow progress.

This article originally appeared in .

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