Completed BBCSS Project

FAA Aviation Safety Inspector Staffing Standards

Publications: Staffing Standards for Aviation Safety Inspectors (2007)

The NRC, through the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE), under a congressional mandate, formed a committee to study the methods and models used by the Flight Standards Service of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop staffing standards for Aviation Safety Inspectors (ASIs), job series 1825. The committee examined and assessed the methods and models now in use or in development at FAA, as well as alternative methods and models, including performance-based standards. The committee examined the FAA's current and historical experience with ASI staffing standards, determined key characteristics of the Flight Standards organization that may influence the appropriateness of various methods, and evaluated methods used by other similar organizations to develop staffing standards. The committee devoted special attention to the cognitive and analytic demands of the evolving ASI job, and to the urgent need to reallocate resources that may occur in Flight Standards. The committee's report provided the FAA with recommendations on the best way to proceed with development of future staffing standards for ASIs and included estimates of the time and resource requirements of the recommended methods, given the organizational requirements and values of the FAA.