Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Takes Reporters' Questions About Newark Airport Crisis

Forbes Breaking News

Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy speaks to reporters outside the White House.

Transcript

00:00Hey, everybody. Sean Duffy here. Obviously, there's a lot of coverage right now about what's

00:11happening in Newark in the airspace. Wanted to just talk about a couple of things as background.

00:18So the air traffic control system that we use today is anywhere from 25 to 50 years old.

00:24We have copper wires, not fiber. We use radar that is, you know, 1983 vintage at the earliest.

00:33A lot of it's 1970s, some of it even earlier than that. Radars, I'm sorry, radios also

00:40incredibly antiquated. And so this is not a new problem. We've known this problem has existed.

00:47There's been multiple GAO reports over the last four years saying you have real problems with air

00:53traffic control and you should do something with it before it actually fails. So think about this.

01:00The last administration spent $1.2 trillion, the largest infrastructure package ever known to man.

01:07They spent Joe Biden signed right here at this White House. And how much was spent to rebuild air

01:14traffic control? $5 billion. And of the $5 billion that was spent or was given, only $1 billion was actually

01:22spent. So they have made no investments in the system that we now see having issues in Newark.

01:31On top of that, they were focused on things like racist roads. They literally spent time concerned about

01:37the word cockpit and changing cockpit to flight deck. It's not funny. That's actually what they spend time

01:44on. Or airmen to Aeronaut. And so now this administration has come in and it was shortly after

01:50the D.C. air crash that I started to look at the air traffic control system. And very quickly,

01:59I saw one piece of the pie where there was issues and then scratched further and there's another piece of

02:04the pie. And as we looked at it, we see that the whole system needs to be redone. We need to build a

02:11brand new air traffic control system. And it was about six weeks ago I presented that plan to the

02:16president. The president has signed off on this plan. I've been working with OMB and others inside the

02:22White House. We're going to roll out this infrastructure proposal on this Thursday. We have 47 groups that are

02:31going to come. We have unions. We have the industry. We have trade groups. We have the families

02:36from the air crash on the 29th of January are going to come. We have legislators. This is bipartisan.

02:45You have Democrats and Republicans. All of you fly. All of our families fly. And they want to make sure

02:51when they do fly, they can fly safely. And so specifically in regard to Newark, we've slowed down the traffic.

03:00Safety is our mission. We love efficiency, but safety is critical for us. And so if we feel like

03:09there's issues in the airspace, we'll slow it down. And when you lose your scope or you lose

03:14communication with airplanes, automatically you're going to slow it down. If you're driving down the

03:20freeway at 70 miles an hour and someone throws a bucket of white paint on your windshield, what do you

03:25do? You slow down. We slow it down. And again, we want to make sure this is a safe airspace for all

03:33travelers. With that, it's caused delays, right? It's caused cancellations. We're looking at bringing

03:39in all of the airlines that serve Newark and having all of them with all of us have a conversation

03:45about how do we manage the flights out of Newark. Because they don't want to see families go to the

03:51airport and wait four hours just to have their flights canceled. That's unfair to them. So we want

03:57to have the right number of flights landing and taking off at Newark that we can manage. And then

04:03the passengers know what what what or if their flight is going to fly. So we're in the process of that

04:10right now. In addition, we've already started the new build out of the communication system at Newark.

04:18So many of you might know that Newark is controlled out of the Philly TRACON. It moved from New York to

04:24Philly last summer. And we still pull some information from the New York TRACON down to Philly.

04:34I would argue they probably should have built the whole new facility in Philadelphia before they

04:39moved it. That's not what happened. So we are going to build it now. The first estimates that I got

04:45a few days ago was it was going to take eight to six months. I feel pretty good right now. I don't

04:50want to over promise and under deliver, but I feel pretty good that we can get that built by this summer.

04:56And again, one of the complications you guys may know this as well. We have construction on one of our

05:01runways also in Newark. So we are on it. We are going to fix it. We're going to build a brand new

05:08system for all of you and your families and the American people that the president has said yes to.

05:13And so one last point. It hasn't been done because it's hard, right? We have to keep planes in the air,

05:20landing, taking off. These facilities have to operate as we're building new radar, fiber, radios,

05:31sensors. So that choreography is going to be challenging for us. But just because it's

05:37challenging doesn't mean that we don't do it. Prior administrations said it's too complicated.

05:42We're not going to do it. That is not this administration. It's going to be it's going

05:45to be a lift. We are going to bring in the best companies in America to help us with this project.

05:51And they're excited to be part of this great American buildup. But this is the greatest build,

05:57the greatest project that the FAA has undertaken in its existence. What we're going to do in the next

06:04three or four years. And so with that, happy to take a question.

06:06The question was, would I recommend that? So I think Newark is safe. Listen, I fly to that airport

06:23all the time. My family flies out. But just in regard to traffic, some people, because they're

06:29concerned about delays may make choices to go to Philly or LaGuardia or JFK. That's true. But we

06:35want to we want to get we want to get an agreement with the airlines so we have the right flow into

06:39Newark so people can make decisions. And if they book a flight, they know it's going to fly and not be

06:43delayed.

06:43It is.

06:51So again, so the new runway is going to come online or the runway under construction is going

07:02to come online in the middle of June. We again, the whole project across the country is going to take

07:10three to four years. But we are going to focus on Newark first. I mentioned that in the infrastructure

07:17package they sent the FAA $5 billion for this build. They spent less than $1 billion. We're

07:22going to pull some of that money and start dealing with Newark right now in the communication system.

07:27And that is already underway. No, I'm saying in the summer, we hope that to be done.

07:32Two questions, if I could. Can you clarify? We heard from the FAA it was 90 seconds that there

07:38was this outage that the radar scope wasn't working. And then last thing you said 30 seconds. Can you

07:42clarify? Was it 90? Was it 30? So the FAA is in my office. Talk to them all the time. They said 30

07:49seconds. I'm not sure how I think the Wall Street Journal and others have reported 90 seconds if

07:55they're counting scope and communication and counting that together. But the information I

07:59have from the FAA is 30 seconds. And then, if I could, if I could, so the controllers that have

08:03called out due to trauma, is there an effort to bring them back? Is there a conversation with them?

08:08What do you think should be done to backfill over the controllers in the trade conference that

08:12there was a traumatic incident because this went out? Yeah, so the so the controllers

08:17said they're traumatized and they're not on duty right now. I want to make sure that my controllers

08:23are of good mind and good spirit when they come in. It's an intense job. But just to that point,

08:29last week we announced, again, we're 3,000 controllers short in America, 3,000 short. And again,

08:36we've been 3,000 short for a very long time. And so what I've done is I'm taking the top qualified,

08:42the best qualified applicants who take the entrance exam. I'm putting them in the academy first.

08:47It was taking a year and a half to get a slot in the academy until you got your seat in the academy.

08:54If you're 25 years old, you're going to find a new job. So we were losing potential candidates to go to

08:59the academy. And also when we take the best qualified, we're hopefully going to lower our

09:05washout rate. Right now the washout rate is 35 percent. If we can get it down to 25 percent,

09:10we'll be way better off. We're rejiggering the staffing in Oklahoma City. So we think we can

09:17supercharge our air traffic controllers through the academy. That takes time. It's two to three years

09:24to certify a controller after they come out of the academy. What we've also done is controllers can

09:30retire after 25 years of service. And again, these are the best equipped controllers that we have. And

09:37so I've offered them a 20 percent upfront bonus of their salary to get them to stay on the job, not

09:45retire. And so hopefully we're going to have a lot of those controllers stay on the job. And as we bring

09:50more controllers on, we're going to deal with this 3,000 controller shortage. But again,

09:55you need to see problems and try to address the problems surrounding this sector that wasn't done

10:01over the past four years. Secretary, you mentioned air traffic controllers. You said it takes a while to

10:07train them specifically over the years. Right. Specifically on the training aspect of this,

10:13what is the short term it takes to do that? So you're talking about Newark, the affiliate

10:19trade con. The question is, can I do something more quickly to train controllers? And the answer is no.

10:35This all takes time. You can't snap your fingers and have really complicated air spaces, you know,

10:42where I can stand up controllers to understand it. And so all of this is going to take time,

10:46which is why I wish someone would have seen this in the years before I came into this job.

10:52But again, I want to pass this off to the next secretary where we have all of the controllers

10:57that we need. And we have an infrastructure that is truly state of the art and works for the American

11:02people. You've got to think about this. Technology changes so quickly. We're dealing with 1980s,

11:091990s equipment. So think you used to use a cell phone or a flip phone, right? If I send an update to

11:14a flip phone, what do you get with the update to your flip phone? Nothing. If I have an iPhone,

11:20I can update that system over and over again. We're going to build this. And as new technology

11:24comes out, we'll have this infrastructure that we can build on top of. What's going to happen is,

11:29the airspace is going to be safer. But with the technology we're going to deploy,

11:34it's going to breed more efficiency. There's more airplanes in the air today than ever.

11:38So we need efficiency in the airspace. And this brand new system will actually offer that as well.

11:42I'll do one more question. Can you clarify, is it true that over a thousand would-be air traffic

11:46controllers were wiped out of consideration overnight because of diversity and inclusion

11:51hiring targets suddenly being implemented? Is that true?

11:54So to that question, I've actually asked the IG to investigate it. I've asked an outside law firm to

12:02investigate. And there's a lawsuit pending on that right now. And because of that, I'm not going to

12:08comment on the specifics of that lawsuit. Can you promise by the 4th of July that everything in Newark

12:17will be smoother by the 4th of July? So in Newark, again, the proposal was eight months.

12:26Then they gave me six months at the FAA. How fast can we do this? I believe we can do it by the summer.

12:31So is it the 4th of July? Again, we are trying to move at lightning speed, but also with always the

12:38backdrop that it has to be safe, right? Again, we put people's lives in our hands. And so I'm not going

12:44to put speed over safety. It's going to be as fast as we can and as safe as we can. And with that,

12:51thank you all very much.

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