Former reality TV star and Secretary of Plane Crashes Sean Duffy went on Fox Business to discuss the shortage of air traffic controllers. He blamed the shortage on retirements:
We have too many controllers that retire after 25 years of service. And so we have to look and go Is this a national security issue? Is this a safety issue and should these air traffic controllers be retiring after 25 years of service? Should we have another calculation that happens because of the of the national security component of our airspace? that’s something that we’re looking at with the administration because, again, the only way you actually can build these numbers,. If you add 2,000 people into the system and you don’t have 2,000 people who leave the system. That’s the only way the numbers work. So it’s gonna be a broader conversation. But we’re gonna focus on it and again air travel is the safest mode of transportation in the country. You can’t travel anywhere safer than on an airplane. A lot of news coverage about crashes now, but again, we’re working our hearts out to make sure everything is safe. More effort, more air traffic controllers, and we have a better air traffic control system, new investments. And again, it’s gonna take us time to undo what wasn’t done over the last four years to work
What Duffy should have known by now is that, due to the high demands of the job, air traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56 years of age.
But with any work force, public or private, an effective leader would know that there will be a certain number of retirements in any given year and so hire new people to be trained and able to replace them accordingly. However, Duffy, not being an effective leader, instead fired hundreds of air traffic controllers who could have stepped in for the retiring people.
Instead of trying to blame and punish the workers for following the rules and doing their jobs correctly, Duffy should man up, own up and take the blame for what is his fault. Don’t worry. They’ll mail your last check to you, unless DOGE gets it first.
H/T Aaron Rupar