Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is under fire for bragging about his wife’s tacos while thousand of travelers were left stranded at one of the country’s busiest airports due to safety concerns.
“Nice to come home on a Friday night to home cooked steak tacos after a long week working at the DOT! #LatinaWife,” Duffy wrote in a post on X.
The post comes as travelers flying through Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, are facing a wave of cancellations and delays due to staffing shortages and equipment failures.
An air traffic controller also told NBC News correspondent Tom Costello that it is “not safe” for travelers at the airport.
“It is not safe. It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public,” the air traffic controller said.
Galen Munroe, a spokesman for the union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told the New York Times that controllers in a Philadelphia air traffic control center who are responsible for separating and sequencing aircraft in and out of Newark Airport “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control,” and were “unable to see, hear, or talk to them.”
Federal Aviation Administration has blamed a shortage of air traffic controllers at the airport for the choas.
Newark has lost 20% of its air controllers in recent weeks. The situation has grown so dire that United Airlines canceled 35 roundtrip flights daily, saying it was necessary “in order to protect our customers.”
“This particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it‘s now clear — and the FAA tells us — that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in a statement Friday.
Meanwhile, Duffy is begging for more air traffic controller and offering $5,000 bonuses for new hires.
But, hiring and training new air traffic controllers take time and Duffy is offering very little information about immediate relief for problems facing passengers travelling through Newark Liberty International Airport.
