NAV CANADA Air Traffic Controller: Requirements, Tests and Reapply Rules

NAV CANADA says it trains its air traffic controllers and pays them while they learn, and that experience in the aviation industry is not required. What it asks for is a pass through a staged selection process, and the detail worth noting is the waiting period after an unsuccessful stage, which runs to three years after an unsuccessful assessment centre. This guide sets out the requirements and the stages as NAV CANADA’s own pages give them, with the things the pages leave unsaid marked as such.

ProSyllabus is an independent study site. It is not part of the FAA, the US Department of Transportation, Pearson VUE, NAV CANADA, NATS or EUROCONTROL, and their advice appears only where it is attributed to them by name; our own comments are marked as ours. Every rule, date and figure below is taken from the pages listed under Sources, each read on 24 October 2026. Where we noticed two pages of the same body giving different figures, the guide shows both.

NAV CANADA, Air Traffic Control Selection and Training, and Workday postings, read 24 Oct 2026.

NAV CANADA’s careers page headed “What We Require” gives these as the basic requirements, and the Toronto Workday posting repeats most of them (the 18-month start rule is on the careers page). Applicants who do not meet them are screened out immediately, according to the selection page: “If any requirements are not met, the application will be screened out immediately.”

The qualities NAV CANADA lists under “What We Value” are: “Resilience and ability to perform under pressure,” “Highly motivated,” “Excellent problem-solving and decision-making skills,” “Good memory, effective verbal communication and keen listening skills” and “Strong commitment to teamwork.” The posting adds: “Clear verbal communication skills,” “Demonstrate good memorization skills,” and “Possess a high level of resilience and an ability to perform under pressure.”

The selection page says plainly that “successfully passing one stage does not guarantee that a candidate will receive an invitation for additional testing,” and that each stage’s description includes how long the results remain valid and when applicants may reapply. NAV CANADA’s FAQ for job seekers adds that “your scores will be compared to those of other applicants and we will select candidates to move forward based on operational requirements.” The pages read publish no pass mark; they say passing a step does not guarantee an invitation and that scores are compared with other applicants’.

The practical lesson in that chart is ours, not NAV CANADA’s: the stages get more expensive to fail as they get later, so the 30-minute online assessment is the one to treat with respect even though it is the shortest and can be done from your kitchen table. An unsuccessful attempt starts the one-year wait, and the page recommends a desktop or laptop and prompt completion after the invitation arrives.

NAV CANADA names the abilities the in-person test evaluates, memory, working speed, spatial visualization, thinking and reasoning, attention, information processing and simple math, and gives procedural information about the online assessment (timing, invitation, device, reapply period) but not its question content. The pages read give no number of questions, no sections, no scoring and no pass mark. This guide does not describe sections or question types of either test, because those pages do not.

NAV CANADA provides a link to a training platform to candidates before the in-person test. For the assessment centre, the selection page says to be prepared to discuss your academic and work experience and your interest in a career in air traffic control.

NAV CANADA does not publish its test questions, so nobody outside it can tell you what is on them. What you can do is practise the abilities and qualities it names, in conditions like the ones it describes. The table and the worked examples below are ours, written for this guide; they are not NAV CANADA material and do not claim to resemble its tests or its training platform.

Question. Two aircraft fly directly towards each other on the same track, 40 nautical miles apart, one at 420 knots and the other at 180 knots (a knot is one nautical mile per hour). How many minutes until they meet?
Working. Flying towards each other, the gap closes at 420 + 180 = 600 knots, which is 600 ÷ 60 = 10 nautical miles a minute. 40 ÷ 10 = 4 minutes. The common slips are to use one speed only (40 ÷ 7 is nearly 6 minutes) or the difference of the speeds (240 knots, 10 minutes).

Question. Headings are compass degrees from 001 to 360; a right turn adds degrees and a left turn takes them away. An aircraft on heading 050 turns left 90 degrees, then right 140 degrees. What is its heading now?
Working. 050 − 90 = −40, which wraps round the compass to 320. Then 320 + 140 = 460, which wraps to 460 − 360 = 100. Checking the net turn is quicker: right 140 and left 90 is a net 50 degrees right, and 050 + 50 = 100.

Question. From this departure list, how many flights depart after 1500 AND cruise at FL320 or higher? QRT211 1420 FL350; WEX408 1610 FL320; BNA733 1535 FL290; QRT590 1905 FL380; WEX152 0955 FL400.
Working. Apply both conditions to each row: QRT211 and WEX152 fail the time, BNA733 fails the level, and WEX408 and QRT590 pass both, so the answer is 2. WEX408 is the trap: FL320 counts because the condition says “or higher”.

Situation. In a group exercise the assessor hands out an update that changes one of the task’s rules. Two teammates were reading something else and missed it. What do you do?
Model reasoning. Tell the two teammates in one sentence what changed and what it means for the plan, and check they have it. Assuming they will notice later, re-reading the whole update aloud, or quietly adjusting their work for them are all weaker: the first risks the team working to an old rule, the second wastes time, and the third leaves them working without the information. It shows two qualities NAV CANADA lists: clear verbal communication and a commitment to teamwork.

NAV CANADA’s careers page lists the qualities it looks for under “What We Value”, and the ATC postings list similar ones among the application requirements. Its 2023 blog, written with its ATS Recruitment and Selection Manager, advises showcasing problem-solving and teamwork in the interview “by providing examples of situations where you demonstrated quick thinking and adaptability”, and names school projects, team sports and even multiplayer video games as places to build these skills. The right-hand column is our suggestion of what a prepared example could cover.

NAV CANADA’s Workday job board listed six “Air Traffic Control (ATC) Careers” postings on 24 October 2026, one per flight information region: Toronto (JR-7704), Vancouver (JR-7703), Gander (JR-7722), Winnipeg (JR-7682), Edmonton (JR-7702) and Moncton (JR-7721). Every one showed a posting end date of 31 October 2026 and an English language requirement. The Montreal flight information region, the bilingual one, did not appear in that list. The Toronto posting also says that for that competition “we will be holding assessments for candidates in Toronto in the fall.”

We read the job board again on 26 October 2026: the same six regional postings were still listed, each with an end date field of 1 November 2026, which matches the posting end date of 31 October 2026 printed in the posting text on 24 October.

Two rules in the Toronto posting are worth noting. First, applicants “are permitted to have only one candidate account and must use a single email address for all applications”; creating multiple accounts is described as fraudulent behaviour that is actively monitored. Second, a candidate applying to more than one air traffic services position will be required to choose which competition to pursue. If you meant to keep several regions open, the posting says you cannot.