Transportation Sec Has Staggering Excuse for Not Knowing Key Detail
Donald Trump’s cabinet officials do not keep a trace of American air traffic controllers in the middle of a historic shortage.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy was shockingly shocking when it was questioned the number of air traffic controllers remaining in the United States while testifying to the Chamber’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday, refusing to provide concrete details on US air infrastructure.
“Can you tell this committee how many air traffic controllers have left the FAA since January 20, 2025?” request The Democratic representative of Georgia Hank Johnson Jr.
“I don’t …” started Duffy, before Johnson prohibited: “Please don’t tell me that you don’t know.”
“I don’t know that,” said Duffy.
“This is important work,” said Johnson. “Do you try to tell us that you don’t know how many air traffic controllers are in the building?”
“They are not in a building, they are in the towers,” replied Duffy.
“Well, I’m just talking figuratively,” said Johnson.
Johnson: How many air traffic controllers have left FAA since January 20? And don’t tell me you don’t know
Duffy: I don’t know that
Johnson: Do you try to tell us that you don’t know how many air traffic controllers are in the building?
Duffy: They are in towers pic.twitter.com/xcrhyq0z14– Aaron Rapar (@atrupar) July 16, 2025
Industry professionals are not so ignorant: there are currently 10,800 certified controllers working in America, according to the National association of air traffic controllers. The president of the union Nick Daniels has said that 41% of these air traffic controllers work six days a week, 10 hours a day to respond to the required requests for complete staff, which is estimated at more than 14,600 workers.
The shortage of air traffic controllers is nothing new: it was an unmized problem Decades of manufacturing. A large major part of the country’s controllers has retired in the past 10 years – a coincidence made possible due to the fact that the majority has been on board simultaneously replacing the 11,350 controllers drawn by President Ronald Reagan in 1982.
In 2015, the National Air Traffic Cuellers Association declared to the congress that the situation had reached a level of “crisis” and that at the time, the Federal Aviation Administration had missed hiring objectives five consecutive years.
The Biden administration attempted to bring together the pace of hiring in 2024, integrating 2,000 skilled candidates. But they barely replaced the outgoing workforce: 1,100 controllers left their job last year.
For years, the federal government has not properly encouraged high stressA high education and relatively antisocial as desirable job – and similar to other industries, the growing lance between aging workforce and dropout young people contributes to a brain leak that will exhaust experience at all levels. (To remedy this, Duffy also said that the FAA would change the retirement limits, advising the union that air traffic controllers will be authorized to work After the age of 56.)
The massive shortage forced the controllers to do a double function, loaded (in some airports) By juggling the two flight trajectories of commercial aircraft and helicopters – the works generally carried out by two separate controllers.
But the industry has faced new difficulties since Trump took office. There have been critical failures at airports across the country, including an outdoor collision at Reagan National Airport in Washington, which resulted in the death of 67 people in January, as well as strokes at Newark International Airport. These crises sparked a new wave of retirement due to an increased constraint on the controllers already surjured.
In February, the administration exercised 400 FAA roles, including positions that supported airline security. Puff confirmed The cuts this time, although he tried to minimize them by highlighting the global staff of the agency, who, according to Duffy, employs some 45,000 workers.
Duffy promised to “overeat” the hiring of the air traffic controller, in the hope of shaving four months of reduction in the generally difficult integration process. But even at an accelerated pace, this probably would not make a bump In American air traffic staff as soon as it takes approximately four years to become a certified air traffic controller. Instead, Daniels de Natca has estimated That it could take up to nine years to reach the full staff.
