Amid Federal Aviation Administration staffing shortages due to the ongoing government shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has claimed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered to supply him with air traffic controllers — despite them lacking certification.
“The secretary of war texted me yesterday and said, ‘I might have some air traffic controllers. If you could use them, I’m gonna offer them to you,’” Duffy told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday on “State of the Union.”
Noting that he’s not sure if he can use them “because they’re not certified in the airspaces that we need them,” Duffy said he might use them anyway.
“But if I can, I’m going to use them.”
“Everyone in this administration — at the direction of President Trump – has said ‘minimize the pain on Americans.’ So this is not political, this is strictly safety,” he continued.
The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Duffy went on to take a shot at the Left wing, telling Tapper he’s making the best of “a mess that Democrats have put in my lap” and is working to “keep the American people safe and keep airplanes flying.”
Earlier this month, the FAA ordered for flights to be scaled back in response to shortages of air traffic controllers — who haven’t received their paychecks for weeks — as the government shutdown continues to loom.
Elsewhere in the interview, Tapper asked Duffy if he had any “numerical idea of how many Americans will not be able to be with their families” for Thanksgiving due to the increasing shortages, to which, Duffy said he anticipates the number being “substantial.”
“I’m trying to get more air traffic controllers into the towers and be certified, but I’m about 1,000 to 2,000 controllers short,” he continued.
Duffy then declared that the widespread airport shortages will continue even once the shutdown ends because air traffic controllers are retiring more rapidly than in the past.
“So I paid experienced controllers to stay on the job and not retire. I used to have about 4 controllers retire a day before the shutdown. I’m now up to 15 to 20 a day [that] are retiring,” he explained.
Duffy added, “So it’s going to be harder for me to come back after the shutdown and have more controllers controlling the airspace. So this is going to live on in air travel well beyond the time frame that this government opens back up.”
