Partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Over decades of partnership with the FAA, AIR has advanced the safety and efficiency of the nation's airspace through rigorous, behaviorally grounded research and applied solutions.

Our work spans the full aviation workforce lifecycle-from improving how air traffic controllers are selected, trained, and evaluated to strengthening safety data systems and understanding the human factors that shape performance.

We have supported major transformations such as NextGen, helped define evolving aviation roles, and enabled data-driven decision making in complex, safety-critical environments-demonstrating AIR's ability to translate evidence into real-world impact at scale.

TheDevelopment of Performance Standardsproject helped instructors evaluate air traffic control trainees during on-the-job training, improving the consistency and quality of performance assessment.

Through a Strategic Training Needs Analysis, our experts assessed how NextGen would reshape controller training, identifying new requirements and estimating the resources needed to design, implement, and sustain updated training systems.

AIR's Pre-employment Selection of Air Traffic Controllersproject conducted validation studies to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of controller selection, including analysis of the AT-SAT test battery for tower operations.

As part of the Job Analyses for Safety-Critical Aviation Roles, our experts performed comprehensive job and workforce analyses to define current and future roles for controllers and technical staff, informing workforce planning and system modernization.

AIR supported the Aviation Safety Action Program over many years through the Improving Safety Dataproject by helping air carriers analyze large volumes of safety reports to identify risks and improve safety outcomes.

The FAA Human Factors Studyexamined how aviation professionals interact with complex information systems and tools, generating insights to improve performance, decisionmaking, and operational safety.