Sec. Sean Duffy Denies Watson Coleman’s Claims That He Diverted His Wife's Flight From Newark Airport

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During Tuesday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about Newark Airport.

Transcript

00:00The front of the line. We hear you. It's watching Coleman. Welcome.

00:09Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. I was at the other hearing. Mr. Duffy, good morning to you.

00:16I come from New Jersey, so you know I'm going to ask you about the Newark Airport.

00:21Because it's very frightening what we've been experiencing. And I even know that you diverted

00:26your wife from Newark Airport to LaGuardia out of a sense of security. So in general and in specific,

00:36that's not true? No. Maybe we know we're so used to false information coming out and about this

00:43administration. It's partially true. But I'll explain that. I want to know specifically what

00:51are you proposing to do to eliminate those problems that have impacted safety, security,

01:00and landing in Newark? What are you proposing as it relates to ensuring that the appropriate staffing

01:08exists in addition to the issues with infrastructure? And how do you see the time frame

01:16taking place? Thank you for the question. So I did, with all the delays at Newark, my wife had to do

01:22an event. And she was in the city of New York. And so I did. I moved her from Newark to LaGuardia,

01:28not for safety, but because I needed her flight to fly. She had to get there. Now, someone had clipped

01:32some audio of that and made it seem like I was talking about safety. I fly out of Newark all the

01:36time. My family does. I accept that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I was breaking the rounds,

01:41and so. And it was not an act. I know where that came from. But so here's what I'm doing. So first,

01:45the Newark, Teterboro, and Morristown used to be controlled by N90, which was in New York, right?

01:54That had LaGuardia and JFK controlling all that airspace. It was the N90 TRACON. Last summer,

02:02the last administration moved the Newark airspace from N90 down to the Philadelphia TRACON.

02:09And I think two issues happened. They didn't test and make sure the lines were hardened,

02:15the communication was hardened when they did that. And the second is they didn't move the STARS

02:20system, which helps interpret the radar from N90 down to Philadelphia as well. So those are the

02:27two problems. There were outages in October and November as well in Newark. So here's what we've

02:33done. We had fiber laid at the airports. You can't just deploy it. We want to test it right now. So

02:42at the airports, that's being tested today. We're working with Verizon, who have been great partners

02:47with us, to get us all fiber going from the airports down to the Philly TRACON, from Newark to

02:53Philly. I don't want to over-promise and under-deliver for you. That was going to be done actually next year,

02:59I believe. Then it was going to be done in the fall. Then the summer. I hope to have even better

03:03news for you. But we're working at lightning speed and pace to get this resolved in Newark. Again,

03:11today we're having, the FAA is having a conversation about how all the airlines can come together to

03:16reduce the flights at Newark. So if you book your flight, you know it's going to fly.

03:21And I do think it's important that we slow the flights because we don't want to have more flights

03:29than can be controlled in the airspace and then make this less safe. So I want this to be safe and

03:36do it at a speed that we can control. Thank you. So that speaks to infrastructure issues.

03:41Yes. Technology issues. What about staffing issues? What about tower control staffers and

03:49the people that need to have eyes and ears and responsibility for the safety and security at

03:55the airport? So I think the last administration moved it because they were having staffing issues

04:01at N90 and they thought they could better staff it at Philadelphia. That was one of the rationales.

04:07Just to be clear, so if you have a 20-year controller, well-experienced work in the Denver airspace or the

04:13Chicago airspace, and I go, hey, let's move them over to the Philly TRACON and let them control

04:18Newark. You can't do that. So I'm asking you, what are you going to do about it? Well, so I'm trying

04:23to, so just, you know, let me make this point. You can't, it takes a year, even for an experienced

04:27controller, to get trained up in the Newark airspace. You just can't move them around because

04:33they have experience as controllers. So what I've done is I've offered, I mentioned this earlier, but I've

04:38offered to pay a bonus to air traffic controllers to not retire after 25 years, but to stay on the

04:45job. We're going to pay them 20% upfront cash, and every year they stay, we're going to pay them.

04:49And we're supercharging, you know, young people coming into the academy. But you can't fix this

04:54overnight. I can't fix this in a couple months. This is going to take us, you know, a year, two years,

04:59three years. Thank you. So, so on one hand, I see that there is a, there are cuts there proposed to

05:05the FAA budget. On the other hand, I see, or the IIJA budget is being cut, or the access to that money

05:13is being cut. It's one trying to offset the other. When we look at what seems to be a need for an

05:20increase, something that Secretary Buttigieg responded to, we're now trying to figure out is,

05:28are we robbing Peter to pay Paul, or are we going to add to Peter and Paul?

05:33Oh, I think the budget is, we're adding to Peter and Paul. The only IIJA money that was reduced was

05:40the Nevi money. That was the, the $7 billion for chargers. Then you didn't get chargers for the

05:45money that was spent. So that's, that was in the budget to be taken away. But no, we're adding to

05:50the IIJA by, by $1.5 billion. And your, I forgot your, your question was something specific.

05:56We'll get, but we've added money to it. And, um, uh, yes. And again, we, we haven't let any

06:03controllers go. We've, we've protected safety critical missions in the department as which

06:10are air traffic controllers. So we're trying to hire more air traffic. We actually have hired

06:14more air traffic controllers. We're not letting them go. We're trying to bring more on online.

06:18That's such an important airport for us, for our economy, for our traveling public safety

06:23and security first and foremost. And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the additional

06:28time and for acknowledging me when I came in.

06:31It's even more important because I fly out of there too all the time. So I want to make

06:34sure it works. Sheriff.

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