Hundreds of US air traffic workers fired

Workers employed in the last two years, who were in a trial period, were reportedly fired via mail Friday evening, said a statement by David Spero, president of the union of aviation security workers.

Among the employees laid off were radar operators in the Federal Aviation Administration, employees working on landing operations and their orientation, said an air traffic controller for the Associated Press news agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A Transport Department official said late Monday for the Associated Press chief news agency that no air traffic controller was affected by cuts and that the agency has “maintained personnel performing critical security functions”. In response to another question from the agency, the official said he would have to confirm whether radar employees, landing and navigation of jets fired were considered part of critical security functions.

The National Air Traffic Control Association said through a brief statement Monday that it was “ananising the effect of federal employees' layoffs on aviation security, national airspace system and members of our organisation”.

Other employees of the Federal Aviation Administration who were laid off were working on an urgent secret early warning radar system in the state of Hawaii. The United States Air Force announced in 2023 the start of work on this warning system, which would deal with the discovery of self - directed missiles entering the United States airspace. The programme, which is partly financed by the Department of Defence, is one of several national protection programmes managed by the Federal Aviation Administration, which includes the production and dislocation of longer-range radar actions around the country's borders.

Because of the nature of their work, the staff of this office usually offer a broad transfer of knowledge before retirement to avoid losing institutional knowledge, said Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, one of the employees of this programme, who was fired.

The staff of the Hawaii radar programme and the office of the Federal Aviation Administration's National Protection Programme do work that “is linked to protecting national security”, said Mr. Spitzer-Stadlander. I think they didn't even know what the National Protection Program does. They may have thought that this is not a big deal, he just works for the Federal Aviation Administration. ”

This is about protecting national security. My last actions scare me. For that he should be afraid even the American public”, Spitzer-Standlander said.

Job breaks occur at a time when the Federal Aviation Administration is facing a lack of air traffic controllers. Federal officials have voiced concern over the overload of air traffic and insufficient personnel for years, especially after a number of incidents involving aircraft flying very close to each other at airports in the United States. Among the reasons they have cited for lack of personnel are poor salaries, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirement.

In the deadly crash of January 29th between a US Army helicopter “Black HawkHuck” and the company's passenger plane “American Airlines”, which is still under investigation, a controller was monitoring commercial airline and helicopter traffic at Washington's busy airport. This is normally done by two people. / VOA