The administration of the US President Donald Trump has begun laying off employees of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
CBS News writes about this.
The president of the aviation security union David Spero said that late on February 15, probationary employees received emails notifying them of their layoffs.
“This heavy-handed measure will increase the workload and impose new responsibilities on already exhausted staff,” he added.
According to the union, the laid-off employees include systems specialists, safety inspectors, maintenance mechanics, administrative staff, and others. According to Spero, the employees were fired without cause — not based on their unsatisfactory performance or behaviour.
The US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that “the FAA alone has a staggering number of people” — 45 000. Of those, he said, fewer than 400 have been laid off. All were on probation, meaning they had worked for the agency for less than a year. Duffy noted that no air traffic controllers or critical safety employees have been laid off so far.
The FAA layoffs come amid a shortage of controllers at the agency. In recent years, officials have stressed that the aviation system is overtaxed and understaffed. They cite uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirement as reasons for the shortage.
The FAA employees began to be laid off just a few weeks after the crash of a Bombardier CRJ700 passenger plane over Washington — on January 29, the plane was approaching the runway at Reagan National Airport and collided with a helicopter. The plane fell two meters into the Potomac River and broke into two parts. 67 people died. The American newspaper The New York Times wrote that at that time the airport was short of controllers.
- After Donald Trump became US president, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was launched in Washington under the leadership of billionaire Elon Musk. This structure should increase the efficiency of the American government in a year and a half. As part of the governmentʼs spending cuts, the US government, among other things, suspended aid programs to other countries and offered federal officials the opportunity to resign and receive compensation.
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