Tell Members of Congress They Need to Protect Retirement Benefits for Air Traffic Controllers

Apr 21, 2025

Earlier this month, the House passed its budget framework (budget resolution), establishing top-line limits for spending, taxes, deficits, and the public debt. The budget resolution is not law, but it provides a blueprint with instructions on how Congress should address key subjects. With both the House and Senate now generally aligned on a broad budget outline, the next step for the Republican majorities will be to draft legislative text to enact specific program cuts and other changes needed to fulfill the requirements of the budget resolution.

This forthcoming legislation is widely expected to include cuts to programs across the federal government. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB) and the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), including the supplemental annuity that applies to public safety professions including air traffic controllers, could all be targeted for cuts.

Lawmakers need to hear from NATCA members and our families and friends now about the urgent need to protect FERS by preserving current benefit levels, including the supplemental annuity, and opposing any increase in employee contributions to FERS or FEHB.

Using this tool, please share these key facts with your Members of Congress.

• FERS is a vital part of the compensation structure that enables the federal government to retain current controllers, recruit new controllers, and honor the public servants who take on high stakes work like air traffic control.
• Air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement officers, federal firefighters, and other public safety professionals rely on a three-legged stool of retirement benefits. This includes our enhanced annuity calculation in FERS, the supplemental annuity program that provides us with an equivalent benefit in retirement until we are social security eligible at age 62, and the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).
• Air traffic controllers and other safety professionals pay into FERS at a higher rate than other federal employees to earn these benefits. After we have paid these higher FERS rates for our entire careers, preserving these earned benefits is a simple matter of fairness.
• Cuts to air traffic controllers FERS benefits including our supplemental annuity would likely cause many controllers to retire earlier than they would otherwise have planned-compounding an already serious nationwide staffing shortage of certified air traffic controllers.
• Cuts to the Federal Employees Retirement System would likely worsen the staff shortages in air traffic control by accelerating retirements of current controllers and making it more difficult to recruit new controllers.

Your elected officials need to hear from you now. This tool will allow you to send a quick email or phone call to your elected officials. Follow the link below to tell your representatives and senators that NATCA strongly supports preserving FERS. Do NOT participate in this campaign on a government device, while at the federal workplace, or while on duty time.Click here to participate.

Thank You,

NATCA National Legislative Committee