A recent spate of airline crashes and airport near-misses, combined with mass firings of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers by the Trump administration, has raised concerns about air travel safety.
Air traffic controllers are not among the federal employees fired by Trump or the Elon Musk-led “government accountability” group dubbed DOGE. However, the FAA has labored under chronic shortages of controllers for years, which this week prompted Musk to issue an out-of-character call to hire, not fire, more workers.
“There is a shortage of top-notch air traffic controllers,” wrote Musk in a Feb. 27 posted on X. “If you have retired, but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so.”
On Jan. 29, a midair collision between an American Airlines plane and U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C. killed 67 people. A medical jet crashed on a street in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing seven and injuring 27. Then, on Feb. 24, a Delta Air Lines regional jet flipped over on the tarmac at Toronto Pearson Airport, causing several injuries but no fatalities.
And on Feb. 25, a Southwest Airlines plane attempting to land at Chicago’s Midway International Airport narrowly missed colliding with a corporate jet that crossed the runway as the passenger jet was descending.
Historically, however, the number of incidents isn’t out of the ordinary. National Transportation Safety Board data shows that such occurrences have taken place at rate of 2.33 per month, and an average of 2.14 in January and February, over the past decade.
In the most recent round of DOGE-directed personnel cuts, 390 FAA employees were fired from the 45,000 staff who work for the agency. “No air traffic controllers nor any professionals who perform critical safety functions were terminated,” according to a social media post by Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing 10,800 certified controllers across the nation, says that 41 percent of its members are currently working six days a week in order to make up for a shortfall of more than 3,500 controllers needed to meet current demand.
The Trump administration is dangling pay increases in order to lure new controllers to the FAA, but training takes years so even an immediate hiring surge won’t have any immediate impact, experts say. Also unclear is whether the morale impact that the DOGE firings have had on the federal workforce will have a dampening effect on controller recruitment and hiring.
This post first appeared at Prevue’s sister site, Recommend.com.
