Transportation Secretary Calls for FAA Reforms, More Air Traffic Controllers After Deadly Plane Crash

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Days after the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in more than two decades, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Feb. 2 that many Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) systems are outdated and need to be updated amid a lingering shortage of air traffic controllers.

Speaking with Shannon Bream of โ€œFox News Sunday,โ€ Duffy said that while Americaโ€™s skies are still the worldโ€™s safest, the FAAโ€™s systems are in need of major improvements.

โ€œWe have the safest skies in the whole world. Traveling by air is the safest mode of transportation,โ€ Duffy said. โ€œItโ€™s not just air traffic controllers, but we do have technologies on airplanes to keep them separated. … This is the safest system.โ€

Duffy said that the FAA systems โ€œneed to be upgradedโ€ and commented on the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) outage that delayed hundreds of flights throughout the United States on Sunday morning. NOTAM, which Duffy called โ€œantiquated,โ€ is a pilot warning system that notifies of weather or airspace changes before landing.

Due to the FAA imposing a mandatory retirement age of 56 for air traffic controllers, as well as a mandatory maximum age of 31 for hiring new air traffic controllers, large turnover makes it difficult to prevent worker shortages. Duffy acknowledged that the FAAโ€™s training academy was hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic when class sizes shrank, delaying certification of new controllers as trainees could not receive in-person experience in control towers.

Duffy said his goal is to train a new generation of recruits in air traffic control.

โ€œYou canโ€™t focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion when you try to hire air traffic controllers, you focus on the best and brightest,โ€ the Transportation Secretary said.

โ€œSome people may like to have this conversation around equity, but if itโ€™s your pilots or if itโ€™s your air traffic controllers, you want the best. You want the brightest protecting yourself and your family. Thatโ€™s what weโ€™re going to do with the department.โ€

On Jan. 30, Duffy wrote a post on the social platform X vowing to reform the FAA, one day after an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight heading into Ronald Reagan National Airport. All 67 people aboard both aircraft died in the disaster, which happened on his first day on the job.

Byย Jacob Burg

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