‘We’re your neighbors, friends and family’: Oklahoma City FAA workers axed in federal layoffs feel betrayed, concerned by rhetoric

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Former FAA employees in Oklahoma City, now among those laid off as part of the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) job cuts, say they feel betrayed and abandoned, and that they are not faceless bureaucrats, but everyday people—your friends, your neighbors—who are now without a paycheck.

The federal government laid off more than 300 employees from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over the weekend as part of its ongoing efforts to increase efficiency under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.

Many of those affected work in Oklahoma City at the FAA’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, a hub for the agency’s training operations.

The layoffs come amid rhetoric about streamlining federal government functions.

But one employee who lost their job, speaking to News 4 anonymously, says the focus from Washington and supporters of the initiative has failed to account for the real-life consequences for the people affected.

“We’re all just too, I think, in shock and just taking it in,” the former Oklahoma City-based FAA employee told News 4.

It was 10:35 p.m. on Friday when the employee got a message.

“I got an email sent to my personal email letting me know that my employment was terminated,” the former employee said.

They were one of hundreds of FAA workers—still under their probationary employment period—who the federal government decided last week, were no longer needed.

“Effective immediately,” the former employee said.

This came just as the employee was preparing to return to in-person work following an executive order from President Trump.

“I was actually just shopping for clothes to go back into the office,” they said. “I had childcare set up for that reason. And then it was actually, ‘you don’t need to go in the office, because you no longer have a job.’”

Beyond the shock of being fired over email late on a Friday, something the termination email said in particular stood out to the former employee.

“It was due to performance, which was the most shocking part about it,” the former employee said.

The employee, who worked as a contractor with the FAA for nearly a decade before joining the agency as an employee last fall, told News 4 they hadn’t been with the FAA long enough to have any performance evaluation done.

The former employee said, as far as they and their manager knew, they were doing an excellent job.

“I had gotten nothing but positive feedback,” they said. "The practice of using the probationary period as a tool for quick termination, and without proper evaluation or due process, it really undermines both like the principles of good governance and basic workplace fairness."

David Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, spoke with NBC News on Monday, calling the firings a “hastily made decision” that would put more work on an already stretched workforce.

“You have to do it in a thoughtful way, you can’t introduce risk into the national airspace system,” Spero told NBC news. “There’s no way you can ever just take a shot at and go.”

The federal layoffs were ordered by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is helmed by billionaire Elon Musk.

“We do need to delete entire agencies,” Musk said of the DOGE initiative in a previous interview with NBC news.

President Trump applauded the layoffs while speaking with NBC News reporters after the Daytona 500 over the weekend.

“This country has made more progress in the last three weeks than it’s made in the last four years,” Trump said.

The former FAA employee News for spoke with said, Trump wasn’t the only person they saw celebrating.

“I see family and friends that are sharing, you know, basically applauding what’s going on and they’re happy about this,” the former employee said.

For the former employee, that may be the hardest part—

“Many of us took these positions accepting lower salaries than we probably could have if we had gone into the private sector,” they said.

—The divisive rhetoric, the armchair quarterbacking.

“This narrative—that federal employees are just wasteful or crazy—it couldn’t be further from the truth,” they said. “My colleagues and I work very hard to serve our communities and uphold our agency’s missions.”

The feeling was hard to put into words.

“I never knew that there was this outlook on federal employees, that we’re these evil, you know, lazy people that don’t work hard or care about what we do,” they said.

That feeling—the former employee says—that comes when your own neighbors take glee in seeing you down.

“I would just ask that you would, you know, look at us as regular people,” the former employee said. “We’re not faceless bureaucrats. We’re your neighbors, friends and family members who—we chose public service because we believe in the mission.”

With President’s Day being a federal holiday, News 4 was unable to get in touch with the FAA for any comment on Monday.

However, NBC News has been attempting to reach out to the FAA for the past few days. They have also not heard back.