The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, is the exclusive representative of over 15,200 air traffic controllers within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Defense (DOD) and private sector. NATCA also represents FAA’s Alaska flight service specialists and approximately 1,200 engineers, 600 traffic management coordinators, 500 aircraft certification professionals, operational support staff, personnel from FAA’s logistics, budget, finance and computer specialist divisions, as well as nurses, and occupational health and medical program specialists. NATCA spans every state, territory and possession of the US.
NATCA’s logo is traced to 1984. A member of the American Air Traffic Controller Council (AATCC), Howie Barte, sketched a logo for his region’s
newsletter. The logo showed a circular radarscope of dotted, crosshatched lines, and a tower anchoring the organization’s acronym. Barte’s logo later featured concentric circles with a radar sweep and a tower cab resting atop the “T” in a series of block letters spelling “AATCC.”
In December 1985, MEBA officially took over organizing air traffic controllers. Organizers changed the name of the proposed union to NATCA, which
Washington ARTCC controllers created in 1983 in an attempt to organize a singlefacility union. Organizers agreed to adopt the AATCC logo as the new NATCA logo. MEBA artists used red letters and blue lines to create what you see today. June 19, 2012, marked NATCA’s 25th anniversary. In honor of this anniversary, the logo features a swooping, silver “25” on the bottom of it and the union’s years of existence etched across the top.
