{"id":261068,"date":"2026-06-09T21:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/261068\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T21:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:23:08","slug":"first-class-of-air-traffic-controllers-trained-on-simulators-in-queens-graduates-from-vaughn-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/261068\/","title":{"rendered":"First class of air traffic controllers trained on simulators in Queens graduates from Vaughn College"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine of the nation’s newest air traffic controllers just completed their training in Queens as part of a new program to fight the air traffic controller shortage<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yanni Agrotis from Melville spent months training on simulators at Vaughn College in Queens. He says he’s now ready for the real thing, and the Federal Aviation Administration agrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m ready to handle something very important”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"mcnicholas-6p-pkg-vaugh-wcbsdjt6-hi-res-still-1.jpg<\/p>\n

An air traffic control simulator at Vaughn College.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CBS News New York<\/p>\n

“It feels like there’s duty to be done, and it feels like I’m putting my badge on my shoulder like I’m ready to handle something very important,” Agrotis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New FAA controllers like Agrotis used to have to travel to Oklahoma City to train. But a new FAA program allows aviation-focused colleges like Vaughn to train controllers on campus. We first told you about the plan<\/a> about a year ago.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Vaughn College President Sharon DaVivo says it’s a big draw for controllers who want to train close to home, and more.<\/p>\n

“So it’s expanding the number of seats the federal government has to train air traffic controllers,” DaVivo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nine trainees joined the program, and all nine completed it. Now, they’ll head to air traffic control towers across the country to launch their careers with the FAA.<\/p>\n

“All of this helps to grow the air traffic controllers”<\/p>\n

The staff at Vaughn says, when combined with other schools in the program, the FAA is gaining about 100 new controllers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But that’s 100 more they didn’t have last year, right? So all of this helps to grow the air traffic controllers,” DaVivo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She’s hoping to expand Vaughn’s program to 15 trainees this fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for Agrotis and the other eight graduates?<\/p>\n

“The instructors were very welcoming. They were tough, but they did it in a nice way. So they prepared us for being in a stressful situation,” Agrotis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They hope to start working at towers within a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine of the nation’s newest air traffic controllers just completed their training in Queens as part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3649,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-261068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-air-traffic-controllers","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}