Transportation Secretary Books Wife Away from Newark Airport

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, a former reality television star and congressman, assumed his current cabinet position on the very day that the army helicopter hit the passenger jet over the Potomac River in Washington, DC, killing all 67 people who were aboard the two aircraft.  Perhaps he should have taken that as an omen that air transport was about to become a critical issue in the United States.  That crash, plus a spate of subsequent incidents involving smaller aircraft, led Duffy to enter into an angry exchange with Elon Musk as the mad billionaire was swinging his battle ax through the federal government and eliminating many of its personnel - including some air traffic controllers and large numbers of people in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

 

Some of the air traffic controllers who had been forced out or chosen to suddenly retire were soon ushered back in to government service, but a tone had been established that air travel was not a major priority of the Trump administration and was becoming more unsafe.

There are three major airports serving the New York City area:  John F. Kennedy International (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) which is located in Newark, New Jersey.  Secretary Duffy, his wife, Rachel (also a former reality television star), and their nine children currently reside in New Jersey.

The Newark Airport has been in the national news recently on more than one occasion.  On April 28th that airport's communication system blacked out for ninety seconds causing the air traffic controllers to lose track of all air traffic during that time - a crisis situation for one of the three busiest airports in the New York City area.  That was followed by two more shorter blackouts during the same week.  The failures were later declared to be due to a failure in the copper wiring that transmits radar from New York to Philadelphia.  The Trump administration had recently fired hundreds of FAA workers including mechanics and aeronautical environmental protection specialists.    One day during that period the Newark Airport had just three air traffic controllers on duty instead of the fourteen agreed to by the union and the regulators.

Newark was a cascading mess, and flights in and out of the airport were reduced by the Department of Transportation under Duffy's guidance.  Things were slower but still Duffy and the administration yammered on that air travel in and out of Newark remained safe, and that any problems with air travel were Joe Biden's fault.  (The level of air traffic controllers increased during the Biden presidency over what they had been in the first Trump administration.)

This week, however, a news story broke saying that Duffy had rebooked his wife,  Rachel, out of Newark and onto a plane at another airport.  When confronted with that fact by members of Congress, Duffy countered that it was not a safety issue.  His wife is important and she needed to be somewhere, and traffic at Newark was slow in general and also suffering unexpected delays.

US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy did not want his beloved wife parked in an airport lounge for hours on end with common commuters and tourists.  She had to be somewhere!  Crap airline service is fine for you and me, but not for the Duffys!

Wise up, America.   Take the train or drive, and leave air travel to thrill-seekers and morons!