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If you are worried about flying, well, more than usual, because of the hundreds of jobs that were eliminated at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), we have some good and bad news for you. Many aviation safety experts and some former FAA employees say everything should be okay for now, but there are a few warning signs, that if they pop up, could change all of that.
While that may be somewhat reassuring, one thing that is not is the fact that one recently fired anonymous FAA employee told New Scientist that they personally are planning to not fly as often because of safety concerns related to the job eliminations at the FAA by the Trump administration.
The fired FAA employee estimated that at least 75 people in his office who worked on compiling data for aviation safety were fired. Among the duties he and his team were responsible for were updating digital and printed maps showing the latest air routes and allowed speeds for aircraft, and revising charts to reflect the latest visual landmarks on the ground that are used by air traffic controllers and pilots.
Aviation consultant Ben Berman, a former federal aviation accident investigator and United Airlines pilot, echoed those concerns to New Scientist, saying, “The job cuts and other actions at the FAA are concerning to me because commercial aviation is a finely veined network – bluntly laying off people with specialized expertise will be very damaging. It only takes nipping off a few key nodes of the network to disrupt it.”
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has claimed that less than 400 of the 45,000 jobs at the FAA were eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts, and none were related to safety. The people that were let go were not in “critical safety positions” at the FAA, he said.
However, Dave Spero, the president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said at a Tuesday hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation that DOGE fired essential employees. Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told the same committee that the aviation safety professionals who were fired were “all essentials,” The Hill reports.
“When I would worry is when we start seeing things that are closed down because of essentially a lack of maintenance,” said Philip Mann, who worked for 17 years as an FAA technician who maintained radar, landing and navigation aid systems. “If I started seeing flights cancelled because of, for example, Chicago O’Hare [airport] having one of its runways shut down because they don’t have anybody to maintain the approach system, then I’m going to be concerned.”