The ATO was created as the operations arm of the FAA by executive order of President Bill Clinton in December 2000 to apply businesslike practices to the delivery of air traffic services. A few months later Congress passed enabling legislation which laid the foundation for the creation of a performance-based organization to manage the national airspace system (NAS).

A governmental performance-based organization is designed to deliver the best possible services at the lowest cost. Results driven, it has flexibility to promote innovation and increase efficiency with accountability and incentives for high performance, including salary increase.

Air transportation is a multi-billion dollar industry. With more than 7,000 takeoffs and landings per hour, 660 million passengers and 37 billion dollars of cargo revenue a year, the men and women of the ATO safety guide about 50,000 aircraft through the NAS every day.

Delivery of best possible services and incentives for high performance means that the ATO is one of the leading employee-centric organizations in the federal government. It also means that without people like you, we cannot perform.

The FAA began designing the ATO in 2001 but was delayed by the impact of 9/11. Implementation began in 2003 with the formation of the ATO officially announced November of that year.

ATO Timeline (PNG, 290KB)

Organizational Chart (PDF, 120 KB)