Category: Flying
Exclusive interview: DOT Secretary Duffy explains how he’s making flying great again in time for Thanksgiving
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy ruffled feathers among the professionally offended last week by noting that “traveling has become more uncivilized.”
Duffy cited Federal Aviation Administration data indicating a 400% increase of in-flight outbursts, including physical violence since 2019; 13,800 reported unruly passenger incidents since 2021; and a doubling last year of unruly passenger events compared with 2019.
‘Did people start kind of acting more like animals because they were treated more like animals?’
As part of the Department of Transportation’s broader effort to usher in a “Golden Age of Travel for the American people” — which dovetails with an initiative to beautify and restore key transportation infrastructure — Duffy kicked off a campaign on Wednesday aimed at jump-starting “a nationwide conversation around how we can restore courtesy and class to air travel.”
In an interview with Blaze News editor Christopher Bedford on Monday, Duffy said he’s not necessarily calling for a return to three-piece suits and top hats — just a return to basic decency.
“I think it’s a confluence of things that have come together that have caused people, as they get on airplanes, to be less civil to each other,” Duffy said.
Duffy identified long lines at airports and airlines’ efforts to cram passengers into increasingly smaller spaces as two contributing factors.
According to the advocacy group FlyersRights.org, airline seats have shrunk in recent decades while passengers have largely grown in size, such that as of 2022, “less than 50% of the public can reasonably fit in current seats.”
“The airline is trying to put, you know, a lot of people on an airplane, sell as many tickets as possible, and by doing that, they’re able to reduce the cost of travel and make it affordable for more people,” Duffy said. “But then you feel like you’re cargo.”
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Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images
“Did people start kind of acting more like animals because they were treated more like animals? Or did airline crews have to crack down and treat people like that because of the actions they were seeing?” Bedford asked. “There was an obvious breakdown during COVID.”
Duffy suggested that the transformation of flight attendants into mask-enforcers during the pandemic helped cultivate a more confrontational environment, which — when coupled with disrespect from the airlines and from passengers alike, signaled by the latter with an apparent increase in slovenly dress — helped grease the slide into relative barbarism.
Among the alleged incidents referred by the FAA to the FBI last year were sexual assaults, attacks on fellow passengers and/or flight staff, instances of inappropriate touching of minor fliers, and incidents where passengers attempted to breach the cockpit.
‘I think we can be better.’
While physical violence and inappropriate touching are obvious examples of the behavior the Trump administration seeks to curb in air travel, Duffy noted that incivility finds various forms — such as passengers taking their shoes off and placing them on the seats in front of them, playing movies on high volume without headphones, and touching other fliers’ TV screens with their bare toes.
“I want to have a conversation with America that says, ‘Listen, let’s call our better angels. Let’s all be better when we travel together,'” Duffy told Blaze News.
The DOT secretary emphasized that it’s necessary not only to curb nasty behavior but to embrace good behavior: “Let’s dress more respectfully. Let’s be nicer to one another. Let’s say please and thank you.”
Duffy suggested, for instance, that if capable men see a woman struggling to put her bag into the overhead bin, they should man up and step in to help.
“I think we can be better — better humans, better Americans, better travelers,” the secretary said.
A change in general behavior could make traveling a whole lot less vexatious, not only daily where the TSA’s current volume is roughly 2.48 million souls, but this week — a week where the Transportation Security Administration expects to screen more than 17.8 million people from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2, with over 3 million souls on Sunday alone.
“We are projecting that the Sunday after Thanksgiving will be one of the busiest travel days in TSA history,” Adam Stahl, a senior official at the TSA, said in statement.
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Democrats’ shutdown is about to make catching a flight a lot harder
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned on Tuesday that if Democrats keep the government shut down, there could be serious repercussions for air travel as air traffic controllers — those directing over 44,000 flights and more than 3 million airline passengers daily — are being spread thin and overworked without pay.
“You will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays,” said Duffy. “You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace because we just cannot manage it.”
‘Asking them to go without a full month’s pay or more is simply not sustainable.’
Duffy’s warning evidently fell on deaf ears. Democrats have, after all, made explicit their intention to use Americans’ pain and inconvenience as political “leverage.” A senior Democrat aide even indicated last month that the party will not concede short of “planes falling out of the sky.”
Citing air traffic control personnel issues and the need to keep American skies safe, Duffy announced on Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration will be reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 “high-volume” markets starting on Friday.
Despite his recent initiatives to recruit, train, and retain air traffic controllers, Duffy indicated that the fruits of such efforts take years to fully manifest and that at present, the FAA is still 2,000 controllers short. The government shutdown greatly compounds the impact of this underlying staffing problem as the existing workforce is spread thin, overworked, and paid nothing.
While air traffic controllers received a partial payment in early October, Duffy indicated that they haven’t been paid since, prompting some controllers to take second jobs.
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Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“Our air traffic controllers, and a lot of those who work at DOT but throughout government, they haven’t received paychecks,” said Duffy. “Many of these employees, they’re the head of household. They have their spouse at home. They have a child or two or three, and when they lose income, they are confronted with real-world difficulties in how they pay their bills.”
Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement on Friday, “For this nation’s air traffic controllers, missing just one paycheck can be a significant hardship, as it is for all working Americans. Asking them to go without a full month’s pay or more is simply not sustainable.”
‘We are not going to do anything that will compromise the safety of air transport in the United States.’
“During the shutdown, these professionals are required to oversee the movement of the nation’s passengers and cargo while many are working ten-hour days and six-day workweeks due to the ongoing staffing shortage, all without pay,” continued Daniels. “This situation creates substantial distractions for individuals who are already engaged in extremely stressful work. The financial and mental strain increases risks within the National Airspace System, making it less safe with each passing day of the shutdown.”
Bryan Bedford, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, noted that a recent deep dive into National Airspace System data revealed both “issues of fatigue” among controllers and pressures building in a way that if left unchecked could impact air safety.
“The data is telling us we need to do more, and we are going to do more,” said Bedford.
“We’re going to look for a ratable reduction across these 40 markets over the next 48 hours,” said the FAA administrator.
“We’re not going to wait for a safety problem to truly manifest itself when the early indicators are telling us we can take action today to prevent things from deteriorating.”
While the FAA has not released the final list of airports that will have their capacity cut, a source provided a proposed list to CBS News naming the following airports:
- Anchorage International (ANC)
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL)
- Boston Logan International (BOS)
- Baltimore/Washington International (BWI)
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT)
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG)
- Dallas Love (DAL)
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
- Denver International (DEN)
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW)
- Newark Liberty International (EWR)
- Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International (FLL)
- Honolulu International (HNL)
- Houston Hobby (HOU)
- Washington Dulles International (IAD)
- George Bush Houston Intercontinental (IAH)
- Indianapolis International (IND)
- New York John F. Kennedy International (JFK)
- Las Vegas Harry Reid International (LAS)
- Los Angeles International (LAX)
- New York LaGuardia (LGA)
- Orlando International (MCO)
- Chicago Midway (MDW)
- Memphis International (MEM)
- Miami International (MIA)
- Minneapolis/St. Paul International (MSP)
- Oakland International (OAK)
- Ontario International (ONT)
- Chicago O’Hare International (ORD)
- Portland International (PDX)
- Philadelphia International (PHL)
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX)
- San Diego International (SAN)
- Louisville International (SDF)
- Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA)
- San Francisco International (SFO)
- Salt Lake City International (SLC)
- Teterboro (TEB)
- Tampa International (TPA)
“If the pressures continue to build even after we take these measures, we’ll come back and take additional measures,” continued the FAA administrator. “We’re trying to be prescriptive, surgical, put the relief where the relief will do the most good, but again, we are not going to do anything that will compromise the safety of air transport in the United States.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday, “We want to reopen the government so we can resume travel in the safest and most efficient way possible, especially as we head into the busiest travel season.”
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