<p>Globally, Air Traffic Control (ATC) faces the dual challenge of meeting rising service demands while enhancing safety performance. While air traffic has steadily grown, safety performance has plateaued over the past 10 to 15 years. Hence, we need new and different ways of looking at ATC to improve safety performance. While air traffic controllers (controllers) operate in a complex socio-technical system, the actual work of controllers can be described as primarily cognitive involving the processing of large amounts of information to make decisions that establish and maintain control over system operations to achieve goals. Thus, the decision-making process is integral to the work of controllers. This paper proposes a new model of expert human performance and decision-making. This model is grounded in action theory and was developed through a series of targeted literature reviews using an iterative abductive search strategy that combined structured data-based searches with backward and forward citation chaining. The model explains the underlying mechanisms that support ‘black box’ models of intuitive decision-making (such as the recognition-primed decision-making model), emphasizes the role of emotion and describes how intuitive and analytical processes work together to regulate decision-making. The model provides a detailed account of ATC decision making that can guide and unify future research and gives new insight into how to enhance training, system design and safety management in ATC.</p>