Trump Transportation Secretary Warns Air Traffic Control Disruptions ‘Will Live On’ Long After Shutdown
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday that an end to the government shutdown won’t mean an automatic end to flight disruptions as he struggles to place enough qualified air traffic controllers in airports across the country.
On CNN’s State of the Union, Jake Tapper asked, “Do you have any sort of numerical idea of how many Americans will not be able to be with their families for the holiday because of this?”
“I think the number is going to be substantial,” Duffy said. “Again, you look at the trend line, Jake, and it’s only gotten worse as we’ve gone through the shutdown — we’re day 40 now.”
The Trump administration has been cutting air traffic in response to the shutdown, leading to thousands of flights being canceled before Thanksgiving. In many instances, Duffy said air traffic controllers can’t afford to continue working without receiving a paycheck.
Duffy said the largest outage of air traffic controllers occurred on Halloween with 61 vacancies.
“Yesterday it was 81,” Duffy continued. “And the controllers that I’ve talked to said, a lot of them, we can miss one paycheck. They told me that virtually none of them can miss two paychecks. And so, they’re going to be confronted with the idea of…going to get a side job, a second job to make ends meet. To put food on the table, put gas in the car, to pay their rent.”
Duffy said that when the shutdown began, he was already short of qualified air traffic controllers.
“I’m trying to get more air traffic controllers into the into the towers and be certified. But I’m about 1,000 to 2,000 controllers short,” Duffy said. “And so, I paid experience controllers to stay on the job and not retire. I used to have about four controllers retire a day before the shutdown. I’m now up to 15 to 20 a day are retiring. So, it’s going to be harder for me to come back after the shutdown and have more controllers controlling the airspace. So, this is going to live on in air travel well beyond the timeframe that this government opens back up.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
