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Watchdog Warns DOGE Cuts to FAA Make Next Airline Disaster 'More Likely'
"Maybe in the DOGE boys' video game simulations, it doesn't matter if they lay off hundreds of staff from the FAA. In the real world, however, it will make flying less safe," said Public Citizen's Robert Weissman.
Feb 17, 2025
As the Trump administration began firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees amid a surge in plane crashes, a leading U.S. consumer advocacy group warned Monday that the slash-and-burn approach of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is making the "next air travel disaster more likely."
While Musk recently said that DOGE will "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system," critics have countered that the Trump administration's termination of FAA personnel, including critical air traffic control maintenance staff, poses major risks.
"Maybe in the DOGE boys' video game simulations, it doesn't matter if they lay off hundreds of staff from the FAA. In the real world, however, it will make flying less safe," Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said in a statement. "Just like having fewer people safeguarding the nation's nuclear arsenal will make the risk of a nuclear accident much greater."
Elon’s DOGE rampage will be a wake up call for what a decimated government really means. Cuts to FAA? Higher risk of plane crashes. Cuts to Forest Service? Higher fire risk. Cuts to the CDC? Higher pandemic risk. Cuts to the EPA? Higher toxic exposures risk — and on and on.
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— Public Citizen (@publiccitizen.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Weissman continued:
The Musk rampage through government is making it virtually certain that we will suffer through otherwise avoidable health, safety, and economic catastrophes. Cutting the Forest Service increases fire risk, cutting the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and blocking information-sharing risks worsening infectious disease outbreaks, cutting the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] guarantees Big Bank and predatory loan ripoffs, cutting [Food and Drug Administration] staff increases the risk for dangerous devices, drugs, and food additives, cutting the [Environmental Protection Agency] will increase the risk of mass toxic exposures, and on and on.
"If permitted to proceed, the mindless Musk-Trump governmental annihilation is going to touch every American community, imposing tragedy upon tragedy," Weissman added.
In a Monday social media post, U.S. Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.) said that "mass firings of FAA workers—at a time when they already have serious staffing problems—would be dangerous at any time," but "Musk and Trump doing this weeks after the deadliest crash in years is stupid beyond belief."
Public Citizen's warning came on the same day that a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed and overturned on landing. The FAA said all 80 people aboard the flight were rescued. At least a dozen people were injured in the crash, three of them critically, according to the Toronto Star.
While the FAA firings were not a factor in Monday's accident, the Toronto crash was the latest in a recent surge in air disasters. Last month, 67 people were killed when an American Airlines jet and an army helicopter collided at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. According to initial reports, only one air traffic controller was working both civilian and military flights when the crash occurred.
On January 31, seven people died when a medical transport jet crashed near Philadelphia, 10 people were killed in a February 6 Bering Air commuter flight crash in Alaska, and one person died when a private plane belonging to Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil crashed during landing in Arizona last Monday after its landing gear failed to properly deploy.
We condemn the decision to fire these safety inspectors. Everywhere I go I am asked, “is it safe to fly?” My response is yes because thousands of frontline workers ask that all day long. If federal workers can’t do their jobs, we can’t do ours. 1/2 www.passnational.org/index.php/ne...
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— Sara Nelson (@flyingwithsara.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 1:59 PM
David Spero, national president of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the union representing more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department personnel who install, inspect, and maintain air traffic control systems, said in a statement Saturday that the Trump administration's terminations "will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin."
"This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing," Spero added. "Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency's mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month."
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After CDC Change It Lobbied For, Delta Slashes Paid Sick Leave for Workers With Covid
"You almost can't make up a more heinous story than this," said one epidemiologist.
Dec 30, 2021
Just a day after the CDC delivered updated Covid-19 isolation guidelines that the company's CEO lobbied for, Delta Air Lines moved to take advantage of the new recommendations by slashing paid sick leave for infected workers, prompting immediate backlash from union leaders and public health experts who warned of such an outcome.
"Dear CEOs--your 'business needs' are not worth the life of a single worker."
Citing internal communications, the New York Timesreported late Wednesday that the airline's new policy "provides five days of paid leave for workers who test positive for the coronavirus to isolate" and "encourages, but does not require, a Covid test to go back to work, going a step further than the CDC guidance, which does not include a recommendation for additional testing."
"Delta's new protocols make no mention of whether returning employees should have improving symptoms, as suggested by the CDC," the Times added.
Prior to the release of the updated CDC guidance--which cuts the recommended isolation period for those with asymptomatic coronavirus infections to just five days--Delta offered 10 days of paid sick leave for workers battling Covid-19. Under current company policy, only fully vaccinated employees are entitled to coronavirus-related paid time off.
According to a company memo seen by the Times, "Delta will extend its five days of Covid-specific paid time off... by two additional days if an employee tests positive at the end of the initial isolation period."
Imposed after a spate of flight cancellations caused in part by sick crews, Delta's policy change vindicated earlier warnings that corporate America would readily exploit the CDC's less strict guidelines to force employees back to work before it's safe, potentially putting their health and that of others at risk.
"Shocking!" Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, tweeted sarcastically late Wednesday. "Delta has its protocol out. Doesn't even meet CDC's abysmal guidance. And immediately cuts sick leave pay."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, echoed Nelson, writing that "workers' safety should not be sacrificed to profits."
"It is workers who are key to passengers being safe in the sky like it is workers who are key to our healthcare and education systems," Weingarten added. "Respect them, don't squeeze them."
Facing criticism from worker advocates and outside public health experts, CDC officials have insisted that the new guidance is based on a growing body of evidence showing that people with Covid-19 are most infectious one to two days before the onset of symptoms and two to three days after.
But the Biden administration has yet to release a brief detailing the underlying science, fueling suspicions that the updated guidelines are motivated primarily by economic concerns rather than public health.
Some administration officials, including CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, have openly said the recommendations were updated with the economic implications in mind.
"We're looking forward, as I think everyone feels is appropriate, that, ultimately, when we're going to have to quote 'live' with something that will not be eradicated and very likely would not be eliminated, but can actually be at such a lower level of control--namely a control that does not disrupt society, does not disrupt the economy," Fauci said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
Federal officials' ongoing efforts to defend the CDC's policy update have thus far failed to satisfy outside experts, particularly as the Omicron variant spreads and the U.S. reports record Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, the U.S. tallied 488,000 new coronavirus cases, shattering the previous daily infection record.
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, argued in a series of tweets Wednesday that the CDC bears at least some responsibility for Delta's potentially harmful policy shift.
"Let this sink in--Delta Air Lines first lobbied the CDC to change Covid-19 isolation rules--got its way a few days later," Feigl-Ding wrote. "Then Delta proceeds to further dilute the new lax CDC rules. And then Delta slashes sick leave for workers."
"You almost can't make up a more heinous story than this," he added. "Delta will only offer five days of paid sick leave for Covid-19--if you are still sick and need to isolate longer, tough shit, says Delta--no paid sick leave."
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'Poison Pill' in Stimulus Package Could Cost Millions of Airline Jobs, Labor Leaders Say
In a letter to the Treasury Secretary Wednesday, Flight Attendant Union International President Sara Nelson and other labor leaders demanded the federal government ensure workers in the airline industry be protected.
Apr 01, 2020
Labor leaders Wednesday sent an open letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin demanding the White House refuse to exercise a warrant on payroll grants to the airline industry--a "poison pill" in the stimulus bill passed last week that Association of Flight Attendants-CWA international president Sara Nelson said could lead to millions of workers becoming unemployed.
"We need to get this right," Nelson told Common Dreams.
The letter (pdf), signed by Nelson, Association of Professional Flight Attendants national president Julie Hedrick, and Union of Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants 556 president Lyn Montgomery, claims that Mnuchin's power under a late-stage provision added to the CARES Act allows the secretary "the authority to take ownership stakes in the airlines in exchange for any funds that keep workers on payroll."
That reworking of funding to create a payroll "loan" as opposed to a grant, the letter says, is a provision that could lead to the government with a 40% stake in the airlines--effectively eliminating any chance of the airlines taking the available funding in the bill out of fear of public ownership.
"If the airlines were required to pay back the grants in full with an equity position of $25 billion, that would give the government the equivalent of a 40% stake in airlines in exchange for keeping workers on the payroll for six months," the letter reads. "This effectively renders the payroll grants a poison pill that will cost us our jobs and push us onto taxpayer-funded unemployment insurance--the opposite of what this bipartisan agreement intended."
Nelson, in a statement, expounded on what she said was an unfair standard for her industry.
"Grants are grants," said Nelson. "There is no value attached because there is not an expected return on a grant. Much like an education grant, the value is in the student who contributes their learning to society."
"The value here is a functioning airline industry, no layoffs, and 2 million people who can still pay taxes because they are employed," Nelson continued. "We are not aware of a single grant in U.S. history having a warrant attached. This is what you call a con. Not a grant. The old switcheroo. Here's a five dollar bill for free, pay no attention while I pick your pocket."
In an interview with Common Dreams, Nelson said that the 11th hour changing of the terms in the bill for $2.5 billion in funding for airline workers--flightcrews and airport workers--would present the industry with more than enough reason to reject the funding and turn to other protections.
"By putting onerous conditions on these payroll grants, the government is going to make them opt for bankruptcy," said Nelson.
Meanwhile, hours for airline workers are being cut across the industry--with workers at non-unionized Delta feeling some of the worse effects. Labor activist and former Delta employee Kip Hedges told Common Dreams Wednesday that the company's full-time ramp workers and ticket agents were experiencing a 25% weekly reduction in hours, from 40 to 30, and that "ready reserve" workers were seeing hours cut by 50%.
"Delta's action stands in stark contradiction to the intent of the bailout package," said Hedges.
According to CNBC, the cuts in hours are part of a pattern:
While hourly rates aren't declining, the amount of work available, is declining. In addition to asking employees to take unpaid leave, airlines are parking thousands of planes, deferring aircraft orders and drawing down on credit lines to shore up cash. Executives are reviewing the details in the aid package and the strings attached to accepting it.
As Nelson said to Common Dreams, the lack of hours available to industry employees due to dropping demand is causing a crunch for workers who would have expected to make up any shortfalls in over-time work--part of what she described as a longstanding problem in the American workforce.
\u201c#covid19 shines a bright light on the crime that workers have been forced to work more to make more since 1980 & even more in last 20 yrs. American workers count on overtime or 2nd/3rd job to survive. This #wagecrisis is colliding w/ this health crisis. Increase worker wages! #1u\u201d— Sara Nelson (@Sara Nelson) 1585587598
"When work goes away, there's not as much pay to go around," said Nelson, adding that unionized airlines have minimum pay and hours built into their contracts.
But Delta, which has successfully fought against a union for years, is in a different situation.
"Delta, without a contract, is taking measures right now to cut hours where a contract would preclude that," said Nelson.
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