Transportation Secretary and reality TV participant Sean Duffy says he's ready to "shut the whole airspace down" if the remaining unpaid air traffic controllers get too tired to keep the skies safe. That's not leadership; it is extortion by incompetence. Forty years after Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers' strike, Duffy seems determined to one-up him by breaking the entire aviation system, this time through sheer neglect.
As the stalemate drags into the second month, it's adding more potential risk to the aviation system and putting a further strain on air traffic control staffing shortages, Duffy said in an interview Monday with CNBC.
"If we thought that it was unsafe, we'll shut the whole airspace down," Duffy said.
Air traffic controllers are working without pay and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration moved to slow air traffic last week across many airports.
Raw Story
With 80 percent of New York–area controllers already missing, planes are backing up, paychecks are gone, and morale has hit rock bottom. The FAA says "stress and fatigue" are putting lives at risk, which might explain Duffy's new philosophy of management: if you can't fix it, threaten to crash it. Reagan fired the controllers in 1981. Duffy is starving them until they quit. Fly the deadly skies!
Previously:
• MTV's Real World's Sean Duffy to run NASA for now
• Road Rules All-star Sean Duffy to announce US plan for a nuclear reactor on the moon
