FAA union president says DOGE fired essential employees without assessment
Dave Spero, the president of a union representing employees of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said at a Tuesday hearing that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired essential employees without accounting for the impact their departure would have on the agency's functions.
Spero, who heads the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, made the remarks in response to a question from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who asked about connections between the firings and air safety at a hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation.
Spero said that only three out of the 332 FAA employees who were terminated in the recent mass firings have been brought back, and no other hires have been made to fill the positions vacated after the firings.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously said people in “critical safety positions” were kept at the FAA and that the only people dismissed were those who had been working there for less than a year.
Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told the subcommittee that no air traffic controllers were fired during the recent cuts, but he added that aviation safety professionals who were let go were "all essentials."
Daniels said that they were evaluating impacts to safety and making training advancements, but he cautioned these efforts could be disrupted due to a potential government shutdown later this month.
"We continue to evaluate the impacts to safety and we will make sure we raise them to this committee as appropriate," Daniels said.
When asked by Cohen if tech billionaire Elon Musk "or someone like him" should have control over the FFA's functions and if privatization would resolve the agency's challenges, Spero said the three key things the agency needs are predictable funding, long-term planning and faster deployment.
"Privatization is not the solution to those problems," he said, adding that finding ways to expedite the system and not having government shutdowns will help the agency perform well.
The hearing comes just over a month after the crash of a military helicopter and American Airlines passenger plane that claimed more than 60 lives near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
President Trump and his administration responded to the collision by calling for an overhaul of air traffic control and the FAA.
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