Fairbanks airport's control tower is closing overnight because of FAA staffing

The Federal Aviation Administration has been closing the control tower at Fairbanks International Airport every night since mid-October, leaving pilots to announce their own takeoffs and landings by radio from 10 pm to 6 am.

The airport stays open. But for those eight hours, no controller is on duty in the Fairbanks tower or its approach control. Pilots announce their own movements on the tower's radio frequency. Pilots flying by sight are told to stay especially alert for large jets and for vehicles and workers on the runways and taxiways, according to the FAA's notice to pilots.

Fairbanks has historically had a tower running around the clock, and the overnight closures are "a significant change," the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association wrote. The group said the FAA's reason is a staffing shortage.

The closures also change how planes flying under instrument rules, including in poor visibility, get in and out. With no approach controllers in Fairbanks overnight, those flights get clearances from a flight service station on the ground or from the FAA's Anchorage Center once airborne. AOPA said that makes Fairbanks a "one-in, one-out operation" for instrument traffic during those hours, meaning one instrument flight at a time.

Fairbanks also serves as an alternate for planes that can't land in Anchorage, AOPA noted.

Other help is off at night too. The airport's automated weather broadcast is unavailable, so pilots get conditions from flight service or the Alaska Aviation Weather Office. Pilots can't turn up the lights by radio themselves. The approach lights are preset based on the weather forecast, and pilots can ask airport operations to adjust the runway lighting. AOPA said the airport is adding operations staff to help.

The FAA's controller workforce plan set a target of 22 controllers for the Fairbanks tower. As of September 2025, it had 18 fully certified controllers and three in training.

It's not clear how long the closures will last. The FAA's original notice said they would continue until further notice and was marked canceled Oct. 26, but newer notices to pilots still listed the overnight closures as of Wednesday. Those notices list the tower closures through the morning of Nov. 1, an end date the FAA marks as estimated, and the weather broadcast outage nightly through Nov. 27.