U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said less than 400 probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration have been recently terminated.
In a scathing response to his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, Duffy said on X that zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go during last weekend’s round of layoffs. A Department of Transportation spokesperson also confirmed the agency is continuing to onboard air traffic controllers and other safety positions, including technicians.
“Mayor Pete chose to use this amazing department—that is so critical to America’s success—as a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense,” he said in the post. “Not to mention that over 90% of the workforce under his leadership were working from home – including him. The building was empty!”
Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system. In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.
Here’s the… https://t.co/LCL1dswC2T
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 18, 2025
The post was in response to a previous X post by Buttigieg demanding answers detailing how many personnel – and in what positions – were fired.
Duffy justified the decision to lay off less than 1% of the FAA’s 45,000-member workforce saying these probationary employees were hired less than a year ago.
On Monday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX employees visited the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center in New Baltimore, Virginia, to make improvements to the federal air traffic control system.
On Feb. 5, Musk said in a post on X that President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will aim to make “rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.”
