Is It Safe to Fly? NYT Reporter on What’s Behind the Aviation Chaos

HARI SREENIVASAN: Christiane, thanks. Kate Kelly of the New York Times, thanks so much for joining us. Over the past few weeks, there have been several high profile incidents. There was a big plane crash, there were air traffic outages. You’re a reporter that covers this, and you’ve been looking into this for weeks now. When it came to that tragedy at Washington National Airport, put that in perspective for us, the number of plane crashes that happen versus the ones that are happening this year.

KATE KELLY: Yeah. So that tragedy on January 29th near Reagan National Airport was by far the, the most deadly aviation accident in the United States in 24 years. The comparison would be a 2009 crash in the Buffalo area. But – so, so that is, I don’t wanna say heartening, it was terrible. But in the sense of these types of CAS catastrophes are infrequent, I guess that’s somewhat reassuring, but you don’t wanna see it happen at all.
I have written extensively about the crash at Reagan, and we could talk more about that, but I would say that was just a whole array of different factors, air traffic control being a piece, low staffing being an aspect. But in some ways it’s unique compared to what we’re seeing at Newark because it involved frequent helicopter trips up and down the Potomac River, which is very close to the commercial airspace. The design of the, the airspace in terms of how close a helicopter could legally come to a landing commercial aircraft in certain scenarios was really not safe. And the National Transportation Safety Board has called for urgent changes to the structure of those flight paths to avoid any possible future issues, which happily, the Federal Aviation Administration has quickly adopted. 

But also just general congestion in that airspace, what we call task saturation, meaning airspace workers like controllers, and even pilots having to navigate those skies are just overly busy. They have too much to watch out for and to do, even relative to a normal flight. 

SREENIVASAN: I think there’s a lot of concern for people about the structural, kind of the fundamentals underlying the infrastructure. Right? And I, and I wonder, the air traffic controllers, the technology, the staffing, that’s not something that happens overnight. 

KELLY: Yeah. And, and you’ve really nailed the, the core problem here. I mean, the problem obviously is that we have short staffing and technological issues, but the fix is a very long-term fix, and it’s a solve to a very long-term problem. So it’s a long story, but I guess I would say what we’re seeing – and a colleague and I just wrote about kind of the recent history of air traffic control investment by the United States government, or lack thereof – I can tell you it, it’s a multi administration, bipartisan underinvestment, or even failure. It, it’s not just one administration or one party that has dropped the ball here. It’s really, it’s a combination of congress not authorizing enough funding, the White House and DOT leadership over the years, perhaps not seeing the urgency and, and not sort of moving politically in an effective way, and frankly, maybe a collective lack of urgency.

As mentioned, you know, it’s been almost a quarter century since we had a deadly crash, like the one at Reagan Airport in January. And even though I think that was something of an outlier in terms of the underinvestment piece, I think it, there were many different causal factors there, of which underinvestment is just one. I think until the national attention is really focused on the aviation sector, sometimes there’s a lack of, kind of, political ability to unleash additional funding and a sense of urgency. So what needs to happen now is really a multi-billion dollar, maybe even tens of billions of dollars investment in air traffic control, which the new transportation secretary Sean Duffy has said he wants to do and he’s laid out a framework for that. But also some creative thinking and some aggressive movements to try to retain and recruit new air traffic controllers so that those ranks aren’t so depleted. Data that the Times reviewed just last week showed that the vast majority of American air traffic control facilities are understaffed today.

SREENIVASAN: So how, how many? What percentage?

KELLY: I believe it’s 99%. I think there were only two facilities across the national airspace that were fully staffed.

SREENIVASAN: So why is that?

KELLY: Also a long story. Some people would go back to the 1980s. In 1981, president Ronald Reagan essentially squashed the air traffic controllers union and barred all of its members from reemployment. So effectively that system had to start from scratch, recruiting new people. That ban was lifted in 1993, and some of those experienced controllers came back to the workforce, but more or less the United States had to sort of develop and grow a whole new generation of controllers.
Since then, there have been a number of different issues. Some of it is just cyclical. Right now, there’s a mandatory retirement age of 56 years old. Secretary Duffy, as an aside, wants to extend that to 61. But there are incentives to retire after a certain period of time with your pension.
Some of that was the pandemic during the pandemic training of new air traffic controllers stopped for a period of time because of the health policies and procedures that were in place prevented that in-person training from occurring. And also we’ve seen a huge uptick in air travel since the recovery from the pandemic, such that there’s much more demand for, for these services than there was before. So we’ve seen pretty major shortages in airspaces like Jacksonville, which is critical to flying in throughout the southeast. And also as a key hub for space travel. Which is also something that air traffic controllers keep an eye on. 

We’ve seen shortages in the New York area. There’s a hub in Long Island where controllers watch over Kennedy Airport, LaGuardia, and up until relatively recently, Newark too. So that was an area of staffing shortfalls. That’s actually part of why the Newark air traffic controllers that are having so many issues right now, were relocated from Long Island to Philadelphia.

SREENIVASAN: So, and these are high stress jobs. There’s not a chance really for you to come over and look at your phone, watch a couple of videos, and come back to the job, and you’re on time that you’re on. And if you’re in front of those computers and the radar screens, you’re talking to pilots the whole time. I mean this is a very actively engaged and stressful environment.

KELLY: It’s very stressful. And under the union contract that these air traffic controllers work under, they’re not allowed to sit on position for more than two hours before they get a break of some kind, but often they only have 30 minutes to use the bathroom, eat some food, recharge a phone, stretch their legs. It, it’s not an incredibly long recovery time. And shifts, I think, typically are structured for eight hours with those breaks included. Sometimes can go longer. At a place like Newark where they’re having staffing shortages, people are being asked to work overtime, they’re bringing people in for as many shifts, I think, as they’re willing and able to do, because they are so short staffed. So I think it’s very hard work and very taxing on the mind.
You know, colleagues of mine wrote a series in 2023 about the toll this was taking on people’s mental and physical health, and some people were drinking 10 cups of coffee or even falling asleep on the job, or worse, you know, turning to drugs, having issues at home. So it’s really, it’s quite a stressful profession. And I think rest time is very important.

SREENIVASAN: You’ve been talking to air traffic controllers for weeks and months now, and they have been listing out some of these complaints to you, what are the kind of key concerns that they have been telling you? What do they want?

KELLY: Let’s be, let’s be realistic. I mean, everybody has their own agenda, right? I mean, I think air traffic controllers would love to see even better pay. They would love to see a relaxation of their schedules. You know, there are those critics who would say it’s a very tight knit, almost impenetrable culture. And, you know, there are some tough personalities involved. It’s occasional that you see physical violence in these air traffic control hubs. In, in Reagan airport a couple of months ago, there was a fist fight in which one controller punched another and was arrested for assault and battery. So I think they can be rough and tumble places to work, but I would say this is a highly specialized skillset that takes years to develop. And we all collectively depend on these people to keep us safe. And so while I don’t think anybody should ever abuse the system, It does seem like the government, the FAA should take care of these workers, make sure that they’re healthy, make sure that they are motivated to come to work and do their best, and that they’re set up for success as opposed to set up for failure and exhaustion.

SREENIVASAN: You know, one of the things that we have heard in the wake of this tragedy at the DC airport, were families saying, Hey, is there a conflict of interest here? That the FAA not just sort of runs the operation, but they’re the regulatory body, that there’s not, sort of, an independent third party, a watchdog that can try to get this. Or – do we ha do we have enough kind of supervision? Is the – does the structure of that slow these things down?

KELLY: Yeah, I, I think I’m hearing the same thing, which is to say there, there are increasing calls for, first of all, an inspector general look at what’s gone on, particularly with the DCA crash. But you know, even more broadly, at what’s happening with the FAA right now. I have also heard calls for, you know, maybe separating out the regulatory arm of the FAA to create more independence. Or thirdly, you know, creating an independent panel that might be able to take a look at FAA with experienced, you know, aviation or safety, air safety officials who really understand the issues. So I think there’s a clamor to make some changes like that, which are interesting proposals. 

I have to say, I do think the FAA has been aware of some of these problems for, for a long period of time. I mean, to take one small example, you know, as, as long ago as 2020 and maybe even earlier, but I know 2020, quality control people in the Washington National Reagan airport said, there are too many helicopters coming up and down our airspace, and something needs to be done about that. And no major steps were taken. 

So I think the FAA is aware of all these issues, and certainly they want safe skies. Certainly they don’t want any casualties. I think there are plenty of hardworking, knowledgeable people there who, you know – and, and they’re all committed to that. But is it a lack of funding? Is it a problematic structure as you suggest, maybe with the regulatory fix? Is it the sort of constantly changing leadership? I mean, we tend to see changing leadership with a new administration, but if you count acting administrators, we’ve seen five FAA permanent or acting administrators in five years.

SREENIVASAN: A lot of people were concerned that there might be impacts to staffing with the efforts that the DOGE and the, kind of, the new administration came in, they wanted to cut costs. Is, has any of that happened or is it likely to make things worse?

KELLY: So my reporting suggests that DOGE has not cut into this area. Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, had said in the initial weeks of DOGE, were not cutting any air traffic controllers. We’re not cutting any safety workers. It was a little confusing at first because some of those mass emails that went out to federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management were received by air traffic controllers. And I think some of them did move to take the, the deferred retirement package, but they were blocked from doing so. 

What I don’t know, and is an interesting question to ponder is have there been cuts to other parts of the FAA complex, if you will, that have affected these workers? So in other words, departments that are adjacent to theirs. I think it may take a little longer to see the impact of any of those types of cuts, but so far I think this core function is untouched.

SREENIVASAN: I also wonder, you know, part of our conversation talked about technology and I mean, I’m not that old, but I have heard the government try to make attempts at overhauling our, kind of, technology in the skies, whether it’s adding GPS to planes, changing things on the ground, et cetera, for at least a couple of decades now. And I’m wondering, where are we in that transition?

KELLY: You know, we’re not very far along Hari, unfortunately. I, I, you know, there was – there’s been some attention to this recently because I think Secretary Duffy has taken the opportunity of, you know, the focus on aviation after this tragic crash in January and the problems at Newark to kind of seize some political momentum and solve some problems. So he has proposed getting rid of paper strips that are used to provide flight information and kind of like put up on the wall in air traffic control centers and replace them with digital strips. He and Nick Calio, who runs an aviation – an airline trade association, holding up floppy discs and paper strips at a press conference to kind of show how aged this system was or is. 

I, I think, to be honest, you know, some of these systems might be functioning fine even if the technology is old, but some of them are clearly not. And what’s a little unnerving is I don’t have a clear sense, and I don’t know that controllers do of what the problems are. Why are we at this tipping point where we’re seeing all kinds of issues nationwide? I mean, we’ve talked a lot about Newark, but in Longmont, Colorado last week there was a 90 second outage of equipment. And this is in the Denver area. So we’re seeing little pockets of dysfunction throughout the country. And clearly the FAA needs to troubleshoot what the source of these problems is or are and try to remedy them. 

SREENIVASAN: So what is it that slows things down? We’re talking about, you know, administration after administration that seems to – in a bipartisan way – want to keep us safe in the skies, but we actually don’t seem to be able to do the thing that there are plenty of these reports that are written, Hey, here’s exactly what the problem is, here’s what the solution is, here’s how much it’s gonna cost. So that, that’s not the secret.

KELLY: Yeah. So I’m not an expert on government procurement, but I do think the process – I, I do think the regulatory and, and sort of policy systems for bidding on new work, taking bids, kind of troubleshooting those bids, hiring a contractor, giving them a multi-year rollout period, it’s all very, very slow. I also think probably not enough money has been thrown at the problem. Not to say I’m embracing, you know, big time government spending, but this is a system that the government runs and arguably should run. And it costs billions and billions of dollars in order to be state of the art. 

You know, last time the FAA had its budget reauthorized was 2023 under the Biden administration. And some of the arguments going on at the time, which I covered, had to do with things like adding new slots to Washington Reagan airport, adding additional flights to that already, very congested airport. These things take up valuable sort of attention and airtime. And the more like boring process oriented stuff of like actually providing this sort of cable network that underpins aviation safety does not get as much airtime because it’s complicated. And the public may not have like, seized on it and, and pushed for change, even though it would help.

SREENIVASAN: What we’ve been talking about for the past 15 minutes are really deep problems that aren’t gonna be fixed overnight. So, am I as a passenger safe when I travel in the United States? Should I, what, just plan for more delays or outages as we head into this season?

KELLY: So first of all, I think we have to assume and hope that the FAA will keep safety top most as they look at air traffic control staffing and equipment in these various locations. And make sure that if there are not enough controllers, they have a staffing trigger and they ground flights. Better to be late than to risk safety, obviously, or to miss a flight than to risk safety. So yes, I think, I think we should all be prepared for some delays and some issues along the way. 

I wouldn’t wanna say to your audience, don’t fly. I have no information that it’s not safe to fly, generally speaking. But I do think we have some chronic issues, some of which seem to be coming to a head right now. So I think I would give those air travel days a very wide berth, plan on being flexible. And, you know, maybe consider the train or, or the car if, if it’s pragmatic and if not, you’re gonna be fine. That would, that would be my thought.

SREENIVASAN: All right. Kate Kelly, the New York Times, thanks so much.

KELLY: Thank you.