Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that escalating restrictions will continue through the end of the week to 10% of flights even though Congress may soon end its shutdown of the government. He also said staffing issues at air traffic control facilities are disappearing. He told a news conference at O’Hare that the flight cuts will be maintained until his department sees data that safety is improving. Duffy has never specified the data his department is using to make airspace decisions, and Bloomberg reported that some airline executives have pushed back on the flight reductions, arguing that their data isn’t showing safety problems. Others admitted they were staying silent on their skepticism about the need for restrictions to avoid riling the administration. Regardless, it will take several days after that before airlines will be back up to normal levels of service. But he said all bets are off if the House doesn’t vote to end the shutdown. “If the government doesn’t open, it is going to radically slow down,” Duffy said.
Even though the shutdown is still in effect, Duffy said air traffic controllers are returning to their facilities after an uptick in sick calls, especially in the last couple of weeks. “However, today has been a much better day. A lot more air traffic controllers are coming in. On Saturday, we had 81 staffing triggers. Today, we have four. So I think our air traffic controllers are seeing an end to the shutdown and feel more hopeful.” He also said that the majority of controllers will receive their back pay within 48 hours of the shutdown ending.
Looks like the customary fear and retribution approach of the regime.
And/or a further push to make it appear that ATC privatization would make everthing better. I predict furure “restrictions” will take place over the next 3 years.
Precendent for privatization is set, along with arbitrary and capricious limitations placed on a already broken system. With the imbeciles in Washington playing their powercards, I would not be surprised to see a severe drop in new ATC applications.
These last few weeks have been tremendously damaging to the U.U.S. We should drop the United from our nations name.
“Precendent for privatization is set”
I am curious as to the genesis of this thought. I realize that the republican party has long sought privatization as the holy grail for what ails the Federal Government, yet they also have not really shown real positive returns.
They have encouraged private prisons and prison populations increase and we the tax payer still pay for it.
They pushed for private contractors to take over military tasks like food service and residences and we discover fraud and grift and with soldier billets, poor upkeep and construction.
I do agree, a private ATC will result in worse, not better service and recruitment will drop for there is no safeguard on job longevity. Most likely, airline prices would increase, Part 91 costs would increase, this would have a negative impact on having new pilots come into the field…and so on.
Watch for which senators push for privatization, those will be the ones with their hand already out under the table and/or ties to potential companies.
People say that the federal government sucks and fed employees (which include ATC) are lazy, yet, up until recently, the US had one of the best Air Traffic Control Systems in th4e world. Maybe it is not federal employees that are the issue, but a destructive party calling the current shots.
What I find sadly fascinating, some pilots on web sites like this posting their past unhappiness with an FAA chairman because they didn’t have x experience or y experience in aviation, though at least they had worked in it. Today we got a Fox News personality with ZERO aviation experience and only acting Chairman, and not much of a peep.
It’s not about positive returns for the citizenship, it’s about positive financial returns for the wealthy business owners of said privatized organizations. Privatization has never been about efficiency, even though those pushing privatization (of anything) always claim that’s what it is about.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever worked for a company where there were many layers of red-tape that slowed productivity and efficiency. I know I’ve certainly worked at such places, so it’s not just “government” that can be inefficient.
Your wisdom is infinite. The collectivization in Russia is proof that government is incapable of greed.