Trump Admin Says Safety-Critical Roles Unaffected by FAA Firings

The Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration building in Washington on July 21, 2007. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

White House and the Department of Transportation (DOT) officials said that no air traffic controllers or other safety-critical personnel were affected by the recent firings of hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees by the Trump administration, after a workers’ union voiced concerns over aviation safety risks.

FAA workers in their one-year probationary period began receiving emails on Feb. 14 notifying them they were being fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a Feb. 15 statement. The dismissals are part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to downsize the federal workforce and reduce government spending.

Spero said the move threatens to undermine aviation safety by overburdening an already stretched workforce.

“This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing,” he said. “Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety.”

Spero added that the firings are “especially unconscionable” in light of the recent aircraft accidents, adding that the decision “did not focus on mission-critical needs and was harmful to employees.”

It’s unclear what jobs the dismissed workers held. The FAA did not immediately respond to an emailed request for more details on the firings.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Feb. 17 post on social media platform X that the terminations would not affect the FAA’s operational integrity.

“No air traffic controllers nor any professionals who perform safety critical functions were terminated,” she wrote.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to X to demand answers on the number of FAA staffers fired, their positions, and the reason for the dismissals. His post prompted a response from Sean Duffy, the current Transportation Secretary, who clarified that fewer than 400 people were let go from a total FAA headcount of around 45,000 staffers.

“Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go,” Duffy wrote, while accusing Buttigieg of failing to address the air traffic controller shortage when he helmed the agency during the Biden administration.

“Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system,” Duffy said. “In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.”

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, representing air traffic controllers, engineers, and aviation safety professionals, said in a statement that it is evaluating the potential effects of the terminations on aviation safety and the national airspace system.

Since assuming office, President Donald Trump has moved swiftly to reduce the size of the federal government, one of his key campaign promises. Workers across multiple government agencies have been fired, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veteran Affairs, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Officials with the Office of Personnel Management met with representatives of multiple federal agencies on Feb. 13 and advised them to lay off probationary employees.

As of March 2024, the most recent data available, approximately 217,000 of the federal government’s 2.3 million full-time employees had less than one year of service.