Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Explains Why He Canceled Wife's Newark Flight
Under the current administration, what constitutes a bad airport has taken on a whole new meaning. Although Newark Liberty Airport was never anyone's favorite, its series of outages and worker shortages are concerning. But don't worry. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy insists that Newark is perfectly safe. And his decision to change his wife's flight to avoid Newark? Well, Duffy says that was all taken out of context.
After an equipment outage on Sunday resulted in a 45-minute ground stop, Duffy went on Meet the Press to do damage control. When asked if it was safe to fly in and out of Newark, Duffy said, 'I fly out of Newark all the time, my family flies out of Newark.' But as Gizmodo previously reported, when appearing on a conservative radio show the next day, Duffy said, 'My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia.'
At a House Appropriations Committee meeting yesterday regarding the Department of Transportation's fiscal budget for 2026, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) referenced Duffy's comments. She suggested that Duffy 'diverted [his] wife from Newark airport to LaGuardia out of a sense of security.'
'That's not true. It's partially true,' Duffy, who was testifying at the time, said. Per Politico, Duffy added that his wife was flying to an event. Since Newark has been experiencing severe delays, Duffy moved her flight to LaGuardia 'not for safety but because I needed her flight to fly. She had to get there.'
True, Newark has had a lot of delays lately. It's not hard to trace the source either. For example, Sunday's outage resulted in over 250 delays and at least 80 cancellations. Sunday wasn't the only recent outage, though. On April 28, radar screens and radios went dead for 30 seconds, which caused some flight traffic controllers to take trauma leave. Then on May 9, screens went dark again for about 90 seconds. Along with outages, Newark has been dealing with significant staff shortages.
Throughout it all, Duffy has pushed blame onto the Biden administration. During yesterday's hearing, Duffy said, 'We didn't have 3,000 controller shortages in the last 100 days. There was four years that came before where nothing was done,' despite warnings from watchdog groups. But per NBC, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association says the number of controllers nationwide rose and remained steady under the Biden administration. Additionally, the former Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, requested additional funding for air traffic controllers last year but was stymied by House Republicans.
The Trump administration's onslaught against the DOT, however, is well documented. In February, hundreds of FAA employees were fired amidst Trump's mass layoffs. Although Duffy claimed that no one with a 'critical safety' position was fired, Dave Spero, president of the union representing FAA employees, said, 'All of these people are part of the safety net. The more of them that are not there, the more difficult it becomes to do the actual safety oversight.'
Still, Duffy insists that everything is fine. And if it isn't fine, well, it isn't his fault.
At yesterday's hearing, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) pressed Duffy further about flight safety, asking, 'How many departures can you handle without eroding the ability to carry out a safe and effective mission?'
'We are working through some ideas right now on how we can streamline the department,' Duffy said. 'Listen, we can do more with less, Mr. Chairman, and if we do more with less, that means that we'll have the additional money, I think, through this committee to put back into the infrastructure that so many of us dearly want in our communities.'
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