Duffy on cuts at FAA: 'We kept all the critical safety positions'

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Monday defended workforce cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), saying that people in “critical safety positions” were kept and that the only people dismissed were those who had been working there for less than a year.

“At FAA, we cut 352 people out of 50 … sorry, 46,000 people. That's 0.8 percent of the workforce. These were probationary workers. They were employed for less than a year at [the Department of Transportation (DOT)],” Duffy said in an interview with Fox News's Bill Hemmer on "America's Newsroom."

“So, these weren't the old school, really ingrained employees of the DOT. And not only that, we kept all the critical safety positions, and we actually hired more positions into critical safety, like air traffic controllers,” he added.

The administration has moved to dismiss tens of thousands of probationary workers across the federal government. Cuts at the FAA have sparked concerns that reductions could impact the safety of air travel, particularly after nerves were frayed by the deadly collision between two aircraft near Reagan Washington National Airport in January. That was the wost airplane crash in the United States in more than a decade.

Probationary workers were given notice of their firing in a late email, according to David Spero, the president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union.

The Associated Press reported that according to an air traffic controller, those impacted by the firings included people hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance.

“For people to say that because we cut 352 people out of … 46,000, that that's a risk to safety, give me a break,” Duffy said in his “America’s Newsroom” appearance.