Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and FAA Give Update on Travel Ahead of Holiday Season Transcript

Good morning. Welcome to DOT. Thanks for joining us. Happy Thanksgiving week. I’m glad to be with you and particularly glad to be with you joining our newly confirmed FAA administrator, Mike Whitaker. I should mention: the US Senate confirmed him 98 to zero in a Washington that tends not to agree on anything at all, which I think is a great reflection on how suited Mike is to the job, the respect he has on both sides of the aisle and across the aviation sector. Welcome and glad to be on the proverbial flight deck with you here.

(00:38)
As Mike knew when he agreed to be nominated for this job, the FAA is at a pivotal time and the aviation sector is at a pivotal time, where the challenges that the sector faces are matched only by the opportunity that the sector faces. This holiday season is estimated to bring some of the busiest travel days in US history building on a summer that was already record-breaking, so we wanted to come together today, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, to share a bit of an update on what we are doing to make air travel easier and what we are doing to protect the rights of travelers.

(01:18)
First thing we want travelers to know is that there is some bad weather expected that could affect Thanksgiving travel. The FAA’s command center, as usual, is working closely with airlines to plan for and plan around any disruptive weather. National Weather Service meteorologists are housed at the FAA’s 22 centers handling high altitude traffic and they provide down to the minute weather predictions for exact arrival and departure routes in the busiest parts of the US airspace. We want everyone to be prepared for changes due to weather and travelers should be checking with their airline directly for the most up-to-date information about their flights, including any delays or cancellations.

(02:02)
I also want to mention at the outset, because things changed so quickly in aviation, it bears pointing out that, less than three years ago, when President Biden took office during the toughest days of the pandemic, the biggest concern around our nation’s airlines was whether they were going to survive at all and if they did, how many years or even decades it would take for them to recover. Of course, aviation is just one of the sectors in the economy that rebounded much more quickly than was thought possible during the Biden economic recovery. Demand came back faster than most forecasters, not only expected but conceived, and we all know that the airlines struggled to keep up, which led to a number of problems across the system in 2022. The level of disruptions that we saw, particularly on blue sky days, was unacceptable, which is why we acted at every level to improve conditions for passengers.

(02:56)
Now, while airline issues were the main cause of delays after, of course, weather itself, we also did see a number of disruptions related to air traffic control issues. This is less than 10% of delay minutes, but anytime it’s more than zero, we want to take action, so we have accelerated ATC hiring and modernization, hiring 1500 new controllers in the last fiscal year. And, most importantly, we pushed airlines to do better and held them accountable when they made mistakes and, with credit to the airlines that stepped up, that worked. Winter weather may challenge airlines in the next few weeks, but so far, 2023 has seen the lowest cancellation rate in the last five years at just 1.3%. It’s much lower than last year. It’s lower even than before the pandemic, which translates to millions more people getting to home or getting to work or getting to their loved ones as expected.

(03:52)
We also permanently raised the bar on how airlines handle customer service and we’re getting results. Our department pushed more airlines to guarantee free family seating than ever before, so that you don’t have to pay extra just to sit with your kids. And, last summer, after we pressed airlines to cover re-booking, meals, and hotel vouchers, when they caused a cancellation for delay, they changed their policies. Before that push, none of the 10 largest US airlines guaranteed these kinds of protections. Now, almost all of them guarantee hotels and ground transportation and all of them guarantee covering meals. That is real money back in the pockets of travelers in America and we are working on several new rules that would add further protections for air travelers.

(04:41)
To the traveling public, if you want to see exactly which airlines already guarantee free family seating or what each airline offers when you are caught in a cancellation or delay, then it’s the responsibility of the airline. You can go to flightrights.gov for up-to-date information and we found that transparency has been a very powerful tool because, when we put the airlines on notice that we were assembling this information online, within days of me writing them to preview that website, they changed their policies in significant ways.

(05:13)
We’re also taking a lot of action to enforce the rules that we do have. If your flight gets canceled or significantly delayed for any reason, I want the traveling public to know that you are entitled to a full cash refund if you choose to take that refund rather than re-book it. And if you have trouble getting an airline to honor that agreement, that’s where we can come in. Make sure to let us know. Just since President Biden took office, we have helped get airlines to issue over $2.5 billion in refunds, demonstrating that this administration and this department have your back. In other words, if an airline lets its passengers down, we are here to hold that airline accountable.

(05:55)
And while we can’t control the weather, we will also be using every tool at our disposal to keep cancellations and delays as low as possible in the first place, including working collaboratively with the airlines, wherever that is the appropriate approach. I’m going to let Mike speak more to that in a moment, but one action in particular that I wanted to highlight is that, when weather or traffic causes disruption, barring safety concerns, we are acting to make sure that normal commercial flights, that were already scheduled, take off first, while private flights that often get scheduled last minute have to wait. In other words, you won’t have to wait on somebody who just hopped on a private jet for a golf trip cutting in line ahead of your passenger aircraft, your flight to go see your family will be the priority.

(06:44)
Now, this year, we are seeing more people flying than ever with fewer cancellations than we have seen in years and we’re investing to make sure it stays that way long-term, which includes work on our physical infrastructure and that’s the one other thing I wanted to mention. If you’ve been through an airport lately, you have probably noticed some construction underway. A lot of that is thanks to President Biden’s infrastructure plan, which includes billions to help airports add more check-in counters, build faster security checkpoints, improve baggage claim, make it easier to get to your gate and, in some cases, build entire new terminals.

(07:17)
Before I hand it over to Mike, one final reminder for travelers: If you are flying this week, remember how much we all count on the aviation workers who safely get us where we need to go. And, since the pandemic, harassment, even attacks on aviation workers hit new highs. Those incidents are down from those peaks, but I think we can all agree that more than zero is too many. It’s a behavior that puts everyone on board at risk and it can result in fines, in jail time or both. We take those incidents very seriously. We refer them to the Department of Justice. In addition to it simply being the right thing to do, know that there is a lot of enforcement behind our expectation that all passengers will treat all flight crew members with the respect that they deserve.

(08:04)
And, also, passengers will have a thought for aviation workers who sometimes do not get as much attention, the ones who are pushing the wheelchairs, the ones who are packing the meals, often low wage workers, many of whom are taking action around the country to try to improve their wages and working conditions and who are also an essential part of our aviation system. With that, I will turn it over to Mike to share more information about how we’re working to improve operations and keep air travel safe and efficient this holiday season administrator.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let me begin by saying, as we approach Thanksgiving, that I’m honored to have the opportunity to work with you to lead an agency whose mission is to keep our nation’s aerospace running safely and efficiently. As always, the skies will be extremely busy this Thanksgiving. We’re expecting almost 50,000 flights on Wednesday. 49,600 is our current estimate and that eclipses last year. We will be working around the clock to make sure passengers get to their destinations safely. We are going to be handling the East Coast volume by opening the holiday airspace release program and the holiday Gulf routes. This is the restricted airspace off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico that the military releases to the FAA for commercial planes. These initiatives lessen inland volume and reduce delays.

(09:33)
We’ve also cleared 169 new faster routes along the East Coast to shorten flight times and we coordinated with the commercial space industry to make sure no launches are scheduled, opening even more aerospace in the day surrounding Thanksgiving. As we prepare for the upcoming winter weather, we have awarded over $50 million to airports around the nation for de-icing equipment, to help passengers get to their destination safely. While we don’t control the weather, we’re doing everything in our power to keep flights safe and keep cancellations and delays low this Thanksgiving.

(10:12)
We want the airspace to operate as efficiently as possible, but our first mission is always safety. Last week, as you know, I received the Independent Safety Review team’s findings on aviation safety. This team of experts was convened in April as part of the call to action to examine ways to further enhance safety and reliability in the nation’s aerospace system. We welcome the Safety Review team’s recommendations and we’re taking action on them right now.

(10:41)
Friday, we announced several key initiatives to increase our rate of hiring and training of air traffic controllers. These include optimizing our controller academy in Oklahoma City, making sure that we fill every seat, and building satellite training facilities at our existing locations around the country for advanced controller training. We’re moving to a year-round hiring track for experienced controllers, allowing veterans and other professionals to direct hire into facilities when they become available for employment. We’re also creating a track for direct hiring for students from aeronautical colleges and universities who complete the requisite training and pass our skills exam. This will allow successful graduates to move quickly, directly into on the job training at facilities. And, finally, we’re deploying high resolution tower simulators in 95 facilities across the country starting with Austin in January.

(11:44)
These initiatives are in addition to a host of other initiatives the FAA has already taken this year to improve safety and I think all of these initiatives show that safety is a journey of continuous improvement and we will strive to continue to improve. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. And, as the Secretary mentioned, if you’re flying, please be nice to your flight crew. They’re there for your safety. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike. Again, bottom line is that, in just two or three years, we’ve gone from people wondering whether the US aviation sector, as we knew it, would survive, to an amount, right now, of record demand and record work going on to meet that demand. I need to stress that the progress I’ve discussed and the progress underway with regard to our aviation workforce, technology and infrastructure is not guaranteed. Every time extremist Republicans in Congress bring us to the brink of a government shutdown, it threatens to stop the momentum that we have built around training and around protecting customer rights. Every time they threaten to slash funding for DOT and short the FAA, and there’s a Republican proposal to do that on the cusp of reaching the house floor right now, it threatens to reverse all of this progress. We’re doing everything we can with everything that we have.

(13:03)
But if some voices in Congress got their way, we would have to freeze hiring new staff. We would be set back in modernizing computer systems, including the badly outdated system that forced the FAA to ground planes when there was an outage back in January. It would disrupt the progress that we’ve made. I’m certain that it would lead to more disruptions in air travel. And, I have to say, it is striking when you see some of the same elected officials, who seem ready to make it a partisan issue, even if their flight is delayed in bad weather, turnaround and be prepared to go to the floor of the house and cut funding for air traffic control or, worse, threaten to shut down the government and force air traffic controllers to work without pay. It is my hope and expectation that reason will prevail on Capitol Hill.

(13:51)
And I really believe, in the midst of the work that the administration and the department have done to act decisively to improve air travel, that working with Congress, we can do even more. Having said that, for now, if you are traveling this holiday season, just know all of the work and all of the people who have made flying the safest mode of travel in America are here to support you and, whether you are an aviation worker or an airline passenger this week or both, know that this department has your back and, with that, we have time for some questions.

Great. If you have a question, raise your hand. Tom?

Hi, Tom Costello with NBC News. Mr. Administrator, congratulations. Can I ask you two questions? Number one, we’ve had two high profile incidents in the last few weeks involving mental health issues. A pilot who clearly suffered some sort of a mental health breakdown, threatening the safety of the passengers and crew on a Horizon air flight. Separately, first officer who apparently had some sort of an issue and drew a weapon on a pilot on a captain. Can you address what, if any, mental health initiatives that you believe are appropriate right now to try to address this?

(15:05)
And, secondly, can you talk about the need… You talked about air traffic controllers and you hired 1500, 1800 so far this year, that will barely, if at all, keep up with the rate of retirement and simply people leaving the job. What needs to happen to accelerate that even more? Do you need to open another air Traffic control academy somewhere else in the country to really address the shortage?

Go for it.

I’ll start with your first question around the mental health. I think we’ve stood up an ARC, an airline rulemaking committee, to look at this issue. We’re going to bring in experts in this field to really look at how we approach mental health, how we look at new medicines, and how we make sure we can get safe pilots in the cockpit. I think it’s fair to say that the approach we’ve had has been out of date, so I think it’s time for a refresh. Our focus is certainly going to be on safety in the cockpit, but I think we need to have a system that allows people to be more forthcoming and to have treatment for issues that shouldn’t keep you out of the cockpit. That is a priority that we’re moving on, quickly.

(16:19)
For hiring controllers. I think in addition to the steps that we’ve discussed, we’re also looking at ways to improve the success rate of controllers. There’s a fairly high failure rate in the academy and in facilities. Bringing in candidates to acclimate them to the air traffic world a little bit before they start right into training is one approach that we’re looking at and I think the tower simulators will help tremendously. They allow us to engage retired controllers and do training in very high resolution, very realistic circumstances. We think those two tools will help us have a higher success rate.

(17:00)
My initial focus has been on how to make these numbers go up quickly without lowering standards, so I’m really focused on the next three years out of the gate. I will also look at whether we need an additional facility to help augment that, but initially, we just want to try to get as many through as we can.

Go ahead.

Oriana Pawlyk, Politico. On consumer protections and unrealistic scheduling, DOT has been investigating Southwest for potentially engaging in unrealistic scheduling as well as three other domestic airlines. Could you give us an update as to where you are investigations and can you say which airlines may be engaging in some of this?

I can’t share anything from inside the investigation right now other than it’s progressing and, as you know, in the Southwest case, there was a huge volume of passengers impacted, which means there’s been a huge volume of work for the team to go through, but I can tell you that it’s underway and that we intend to send a continued signal that airlines need to only schedule the flights that they can serve. And I want to remind the industry that unrealistic scheduling is prohibited under the law.

Secretary, you mentioned the funding, and I guess a few proposals to cut funding. The airlines, during COVID, received billions of dollars and you acknowledged that they were still caught off guard by the resurgence in travel. Why do you think more money is going to solve the FAA’s problems?

I guess what I would say is, cutting funding in a way that would force the FAA to shut down air traffic control towers, is a bad idea and I don’t know what that has to do with the decision to prevent the airline sector from going out of business during COVID. I would add that the idea of a shutdown, that would shut down our academy, would set us back by longer than the shutdown lasts. Just want to be clear on this. It’s not just experience, it’s a recent experience. Think about the complexity of something like training to become an air traffic controller. If that is disrupted, for even a few days, that can set back somebody’s training by weeks. If the disruption lasts weeks, it can set us back by months. That is simply not a good idea. And, again, I don’t think that’s tethered in any way to the decision to successfully prevent the US aviation sector from going out of business.

(19:23)
Other things that require more funding include the technology that the FAA uses. I would point, again, to the NOTAM system, the one that went out in January. Cutting the funding to modernize the NOTAM system is a bad idea. I’m just amazed that some of the same people who would be quick, on Capitol Hill, to politicize air traffic control issues, will then go to the floor and vote for measures that would mean shorting the technology that is making it possible for air traffic controllers to do their job effectively.

(19:53)
Every piece of funding that goes into the budget request is considered and, of course, rightfully subject to being questioned and we’re ready to defend it and discuss it anytime. But what is also interesting is that the House Republicans who have voted, now twice this year, to cut funding for air traffic control have never given any specific reasons to why they think air traffic control should have less money. They’ve just voted that way.

Last question.

Secretary, Administrator, thank you. Ben Mutzabaugh from The Points Guy. Just speaking to consumers, I know this has been a big focus of yours, and last year we had well-documented issues with the way the system and the airlines performed, last spring, last holiday season, what is tangibly different in your mind this year? I heard you talk about private flights maybe being deprioritized. I don’t know how different that is to how this worked last year. Obviously, from the DOT standpoint, it seems pretty clear the implication that, airlines, if they don’t meet them, there’ll be some consequences from the regulatory side. But what do we tell consumers? What is tangibly different this year than last year and is it really as simple as it depends on how cooperative mother nature is on whether it matters or not?

Mother nature, of course, is the X factor in all of this, but the biggest thing I would say is tangibly different is the results. We’re seeing, in terms of cancellations, a clear improvement in the numbers that I think is related to the pressure that we have put on airlines and, to their credit, some of the steps that they have taken, both in terms of the realism of their schedules and in terms of having the staffing and the preparation to meet the demand that’s come in. And, remember, this is happening in the context of off-the-charts demand. It’s not as if it just happens to be a soft year and that’s why it’s been easier to make those schedules.

(21:48)
Now, I don’t want to paper over other issues that are there, including delays which we would like to see come further down, but something that’s tangibly different really is in terms of the results. The other thing that’s tangibly different is what happens if you wind up in one of those cancellations or delays and, just a year and a half ago, you would not have been able to have the DOT enforce a right on your part to get, for example, the meals or ground transportation covered. Now you can. And it’s all… I think I had a screenshot of it up here. It’s been extraordinary to me to see the power of this tool and how differently airlines behave when they know that passengers know what to expect.

(22:32)
It took a matter of days, from me writing to the airline CEO saying, hey, we’re going to put up this website, to them changing their policies. It’s not just atmospheric, it’s specific policies on the airlines part have changed and specific policies on the federal side are changing. More work to do, but I think there’s a real tangible difference. Again, weather is what it is, but also, when weather strikes, it’s a sign of the health of the system how quickly it recovers. And that’s true for one airline at a time and it’s true for the system as a whole, something we’ll be watching very closely both going into any disruptions that could happen this week and, of course, with the next big holiday rush coming around the winter holiday.

Can I ask one real quick?

We can do one.

Okay. Real quick.

Just one for each of you. Real quick.

Sounds like two.

Administrator, the report lays out a lot of financial challenges to the FAA, not being able to get spare parts for certain systems, outdated terminal radars that will cost billions to replace. How do you anticipate finding the money to deal with all these systems that need to be replaced or upgraded?

I think that was a key question that the report raised and I think the good thing is it takes a very clear eyed view of the system, of the fact that we have a lot of redundant systems that could come out and some consolidation that could happen, but there’s never been will to do that and the system is very, very old, so it needs a lot to maintain it. How we get there I think is going to be the question that we have to get to.

Mr. Secretary, last month. Cruise Automation, GM’s self-driving car unit, suspended all of its cars across the country. Unions have said that DOT does not have authority to ensure that self-driving cars are safe on the roads. What lessons do you take from the Cruise situation and do you think MTSA or DOT should have a role before they resume testing vehicles anywhere in the United States?

Right now, the division of labor is outdated. The division of labor, in terms of regulating vehicle and driver safety, is that the federal government, for the most part, regulates the vehicle and state governments and DMV, for the most part, regulate the driver. Obviously, that framework just did not contemplate something like automated vehicles. But we found that there are a lot of things that are reflected in our regulatory framework that touch on this kind of automation. Whether it’s references to a driver’s side or specifications about where a mirror ought to go and a vehicle that might not even have a driver or whether it’s things that we think we can specify and have a duty to regulate with regard to the safety of ADAS systems, for example.

(25:10)
This is clearly an evolving picture. We’ll be working with Congress to make sure that our frameworks contemplate this for the future, but we’re going to do everything we can with the authorities we do have, which are not trivial and not unrelated to make sure that, whether it’s a deployment like the Cruise deployment or any other development, to the extent that we have a role, that we’re meeting our obligation to have it unfold safely.

We have to run. Thank you so much.

Can I ask one quick question?

We’ll follow up.

Thanks, everyone.

Thank you.