Department of Transport (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday plans to “supercharge” Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic controllers after numerous deadly planes crashed over the past two months.
According to Duffy, who shared the announcement in an X post, the FAA “streamlines” the eight-stage hiring process into a five-stage process.
The protocol changes will cut the old process for more than four months, he said.
Additionally, agents will “upgrade their starting salaries by nearly 30%” for those who are training as an applicable incentive.
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President Donald Trump will listen as Transport Secretary Sean Duffy speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House. (Alex Brandon/AP photo)
“We hope that the best and brightest things will quickly enter the academy,” Duffy wrote in the post. “This administration is working to resolve the lack of air traffic control that has been around for too long.”
The FAA has imposed a forced retirement age of 55 on air traffic controllers, contributing to high sales, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy has announced plans to “supercharge” the FAA with a streamlined employment process for air traffic controllers. (Getty Images)
Duffy said the FAA’s training academy has also slowed down due to Covid-19, and the class size has slowed down as the process is delayed.
Over 50,000 people work for the FAA, but President Donald Trump has announced the recent cuts that cut 300 non-critical workers from the military.
Duffy’s new policy has come after numerous aviation disasters in the United States over the past few months, including an airborne collision with an Army Black Hawk helicopter with a commercial airliner in Washington, D.C., claiming the lives of all 67 people aboard the two aircraft.
A few days after the crash in DC, the country’s most fatal aviation accident in over 20 years, Medevack’s plane plunged into Philadelphia Street, killing all six and one on the ground.
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Emergency response unit Army Black Hawk helicopter and crash search for crashing and American Airlines planes on the Potomac River January 29th (Tasos katopodis/getty Images)
A further disaster continued, killing 10 people in the crash in Alaska and one in the crash in Arizona.
Nearby Canada, 21 people were injured when a delta plane erupted in flames after being covered in the collision that landed at Toronto’s Pearson Airport on February 17th.
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Still, dot keeps pressing the message “Flying is the safest way to continue traveling.”
Duffy said he is “committed to restoring the FAA’s mission to safety,” and hopes that “great candidates” will join the agency.
Anders Hagstrom and Danielle Wallace of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
Alexandra Koch is a news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox News, Alexandra covered news, crime, religion and military in the Southeast.
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