As Air Travel Faces Crisis, Secretary Duffy Deflects and Distorts

Following US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s recent and repeated failure to clarify pressing life-and-death issues related to aviation safety—while criticizing his predecessor in the Biden administration—the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“No one denies the need to modernize air traffic control and strengthen the FAA. But you can’t fix the system by rewriting history and dodging responsibility,” said William J. McGee, Senior Fellow for Aviation & Travel at American Economic Liberties Project. “Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly failed to support the FAA and ATC modernization when it mattered. Ahead of a busy upcoming summer travel season, finger-pointing at the Biden Administration won’t make flying safer — and it’s especially rich given Secretary Buttigieg was among the few DOT Secretaries in decades to take meaningful steps to modernize our decades-old ATC system.”

“In back-to-back hearings on the FAA Reauthorization Act this week, Congress was blocked from getting straight answers on the health of our air traffic control system—because Secretary Duffy wasn’t there,” McGee added. “Whether he declined to attend or was never invited, the result was the same: lawmakers were left questioning deputies who were unable to answer basic questions about staffing or budgets. One even claimed to be unaware of the 332 FAA employees recently fired—despite widespread reporting on the matter.”

In the wake of repeated ATC failures at Newark Liberty International Airport, Duffy proposed a “big beautiful” modernization of ATC within four years, while the Government Accountability Office recently estimated modernization will take 10-13 years. In response to criticism of the FAA, Duffy has repeatedly stated that all ATC failures are due to former Secretary Pete Buttigieg, despite Buttigieg improving the controller pipeline and FAA’s own website documenting his hiring of 1,500 controllers in 2023.

Duffy’s words and actions have not aligned. As a member of Congress in 2019, he and 179 other Republicans voted against FAA funding. And just this month he warned DOT employees of further DOGE firings amidst worker buyouts. Duffy also ignores how the first Trump administration failed to address FAA staffing shortages and equipment failures and was best known for two crippling government shutdowns that left unpaid controllers “demoralized.”

Economic Liberties and many others have long noted the need for overhauling ATC and strengthening the FAA. But gaslighting about the causes won’t provide a fix; the fact is that Republicans have not acted meaningfully to address these problems and playing the blame game ignores the historical record.

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