“Problem children” air traffic controllers who call in sick during the government shutdown could be fired, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Thursday.
“I think what’s happening here, 90 percent of the controllers, they show up, they come to work, but 10 percent of them are lashing out,” Duffy told Fox Business on Thursday.
“It’s a small fraction of people who don’t come to work that can create this massive disruption and that’s what you’re seeing rippling through our skies today,” he added.
Air traffic controllers are considered essential government workers and are expected to continue to work without pay during federal government shutdowns.
"There are processes and procedures in place to deal with the inappropriate use of sick leave,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement to The Independent.
Elsewhere in his interview on Thursday, Duffy said controllers who call in sick won’t get back pay for days of work they missed once the government reopens.
The union has called on legislators to end the shutdown, warning that the gridlock will cause thousands of aviation professionals like aircraft certification engineers to be furloughed while the shutdown puts additional pressure on the air traffic controllers who remain on the job.
“A government shutdown adds unnecessary distraction to their work, adding strain on a workforce that is already stretched thin working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, operating the most complex airspace in the world,” the union writes on its website.
Since the shutdown began just over a week ago, airports across the country have struggled with thousands of flight delays and staffing shortages.
On Thursday, a facility routing air traffic through the Fort Worth, Texas, region reported an hour-long staffing shortage, while six Federal Aviation Administration facilities had shortages the day before, including the towers at Denver International and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
There has been a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers for decades, and the Department of Transportation is looking to hire nearly 9,000 more by 2028.
A string of catastrophic aviation disasters in recent months has brought increased attention to the nation’s air traffic control system.
A January collision between a regional jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter near Washington’s busy Reagan National Airport killed 67 people.
A September lawsuit from the family of one of the victims called the crash a “wholly avoidable” tragedy, alleging the FAA was part of the series of “collective failures” that led to the disaster.
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