Crisis in the Skies?? FAA Shortages, Firings, and a Reckless Rush to Overhaul

FAA still short about 3,000 air traffic controllers, new federal numbers show | CNN Business
May 2024:
Despite a surge in hiring last year, air traffic control stations nationwide are still about 3,000 controllers short, according to new Federal Aviation Administration numbers.

“We are particularly concerned as our carriers have been working diligently to meet record summer travel in the coming weeks, and carriers have had to cut back their schedules in congested areas to accommodate the ATC shortage at the expense of travelers who are seeing fewer flight options in those markets"


Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash | AP News
Feb 17, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Other FAA employees who were fired were working on an urgent and classified early warning radar system the Air Force had announced in 2023 for Hawaii to detect incoming cruise missiles, through a program that was in part funded by the Department of Defense. It’s one of several programs that the FAA’s National Defense Program manages that involve radars providing longer-range detection around the country’s borders.


A SpaceX team is being brought in to overhaul FAA’s air traffic control system | The Verge
Feb 17, 2025:
A team from Elon Musk’s SpaceX is visiting the Air Traffic Control Command Center in Virginia Monday to help overhaul the system in the wake of last month’s deadly air disaster in Washington, DC, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced.

PASS on Firing of Probationary Employees at FAA
Washington, D.C.—David Spero, National President of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), AFL-CIO, issued the following statement today on the termination of probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA):
We are troubled and disappointed by the administration’s decision to fire FAA probationary employees PASS represents without cause nor based on performance or conduct. Several hundred employees have been impacted with messages being sent from an ‘exec order’ Microsoft email address, not an official .gov email address. Messages began arriving after 7 pm ET on February 14 and continued late into the night. It is possible that others will be notified over the weekend or literally barred from entering FAA buildings on Tuesday, February 18.

These employees were devoted to their jobs and the safety critical mission of the FAA. This draconian action will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin. This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing. Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.

 

Recent plane crashes have been politicized (from DEI to this and that). No single incident should be assumed to be caused by workforce reductions at the FAA or the ongoing overhaul of its operations. Focusing on that bickering only obscures the glaring risk at hand.

Beyond safety - an issue that must be addressed transparently for the benefit of all - the proposal to overhaul the Air Traffic Control Command system by a company with limited experience in air traffic control, along with known issues in software implementation and rocket launches, raises serious concerns about conflicts of interest. If the Secretary of Transportation did not misspeak, this clearly points to corruption.

The FAA plays a critical role in regulating SpaceX, as it:

• Issues permits and licenses that enable SpaceX to operate,
• Investigates incidents like the recent SpaceX Starship explosion,
• Enforces compliance by proposing civil penalties when SpaceX violates licensing requirements,
• and required (63) corrective actions to SpaceX for it's issue before it can launch again.

There should be no room for the perception of favoritism. Private sector contracts must be awarded through a transparent, competitive process to ensure the safety of critical infrastructure. Yet, here we are: the SoT has invited SpaceX to overhaul a vital infrastructure system without any formal contract or bidding process. Rather than seeking the most qualified contractor, this is a blatant handout to a company (and a person) with little to no expertise in air traffic control, a spotty safety record, and unstable rapid software deployments.