President Trump went on the attack against the government’s air traffic controllers in a social media post, in response to understaffing issues that have plagued aviation over the past five weeks.
While air traffic controllers aren’t getting paid, many are doing gig work to generate an income though it’s expected that they’ll also get paid once the shutdown ends. Some are working extra jobs and showing up to work (perhaps fatigued).
One air traffic controller earns cash by hanging Christmas lights for his neighbors. Another stocks grocery store shelves for six hours before heading in for his shift. A third drives for DoorDash after clocking out.
Hundreds of air traffic controllers across the United States have taken on second jobs driving for Uber and Lyft, delivering food, or working in restaurants as the government shutdown stretches past five weeks, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union that represents nearly 20,000 aviation safety professionals.
…For a controller in the Midwest, most days this week have begun with a 4 a.m. shift stocking ice cream, frozen vegetables and pizza at a local supermarket. When his shift ends at 10 a.m., he heads straight to the airport, where he directs traffic from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In addition to some controllers not showing up for work during the government shutdown – they are considered ‘essential employees’ whose jobs continue, with pay deferred until the shutdown ends – his administration reports a spike in controllers retiring from their jobs.
Before the shutdown, an average of 4 controllers retired a day.
That number has now jumped to 15 to 20 a day.
It’s pretty simple — when Democrats vote 14 times against controllers getting paid, it’s hard to convince them to stay in the profession.
End the shutdown NOW. pic.twitter.com/7MpQhPnFIO
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 9, 2025
The President announced on ‘Truth Social’ that:
- any contrller who doesn’t go to work will have their pay docked.
- those who show up and take no time off during the shutdown will be recommended for $10,000 bonuses.
- those who took time off “will have a negative mark” on their record, in the view of the President, and those who leave in the near future will receive “no payment…of any kind.”
- those who leave will be quickly replaced.
- problems with air traffic control are Joe Biden’s fault, because they failed to fix the system.
All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially “docked.” For those Air Traffic Controllers who were GREAT PATRIOTS, and didn’t take ANY TIME OFF for the “Democrat Shutdown Hoax,” I will be recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country. For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country. You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind! You will be quickly replaced by true Patriots, who will do a better job on the Brand New State of the Art Equipment, the best in the World, that we are in the process of ordering. The last “Administration” wasted Billions of Dollars trying to fix antiquated “junk.” They had no idea what they were doing! Again, to our great American Patriots, GOD BLESS YOU – I won’t be able to send your money fast enough! To all others, REPORT TO WORK IMMEDIATELY. GOD BLESS AMERICA! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Some readers have complained that this blog’s perspective is “View From The Right Wing” while others have taken great exception when I criticize President Trump. It is not my intention to be political, but politics certainly involves itself in transportation (and airline heads go to the government for favors). And I do my best to shed light on events, regardless of who that makes look good or bad. Plus, I worked in D.C. for 18 years and have written under the signatures of more than one Majority Leader in Congress.
So with that out of the way, this statement is – in the most generous read possible – misinformed, misleading, and unhelpful.
- The President can’t unilaterally bonus air traffic controllers who don’t call out sick. Secretary Duffy recognizes that there’s no power to award bonuses, and he’ll have to “work with Congress to reward” them.
Cash awards come from agency appropriations and must follow federal rules and each agency’s policies and in this case collective bargaining agreement. A President can “recommend” but cannot obligate funds without appropriations, otherwise it’s in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
- The President can’t “dock” pay or disadvantage people who retire. Discipline for taking leave must be taken by the employing agency, conforming with the collective bargaining agreement. Retirement is a statutory entitlement that cannot be withheld by presidential fiat. Contra the President’s reference to “severance” that is for involuntary separations and generally doesn’t apply to retirements.
- The President can’t reward or publish “patriots” for their actions for or against the “Democrat Shutdown Hoax”. While the President is not covered by the Hatch Act, almost everyone else in the federal government is. Any agency action that rewards or punishes employees based on partisan politics would be a prohibited personnel practice – a legal landmine for anyone who tried to implement the President’s statement here.
- The President cannot ‘quickly replace’ departing controllers. The FAA has been short controllers for decades and hasn’t been able to solve this. Overtime costs are up over 300% since 2013. New controller applicants have wait to wait over a year to get into the FAA academy, although there are claims that some ‘top candidates’ are now moving at a pace of ‘only’ 8 months. On the whole it’s going to take 1-3 years of on-the-job training after the academy before becoming a fully certified controller.
- Antiquated air traffic control is not uniquely ‘Biden’s fault’. “NextGen” modernization efforts date to 2003, with major development funded from FY2007 forward. Little progress was made during the first Trump administration [the ADS-B Out requirement took effect during that time, but the rule predated his term]. He proposed privatizing air traffic control, and that failed to pass Congress.
In short, every piece of the President’s message was questionable. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg offers a far less nuanced take on the President’s social post:
The President wouldn't last five minutes as an air traffic controller, and after everything they've been through – and the way this administration has treated them from Day One – he has no business shitting on them now. https://t.co/JLi1J26dSC
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) November 10, 2025
“The President wouldn’t last five minutes as an air traffic controller” is not a good take. Neither would Secretary Buttigieg. Even fully trained, I have no expectation that I’d be signed off on at New York TRACON for that matter.
The President’s statement is problematic, but there’s little to suggest the President treated air traffic controllers poorly “from Day One” and complaining about what seems to have the effect of an illegal coordinated job action is not itself inappropriate for a President.
The president’s idea to award bonuses to ATCs with strong records is awesome. This is the way that smart business people operate.
Additionally, he didn’t claim to have the authority to award such bonuses, he said he would make recommendations. Nothing wrong with that. I hope the ATCs that busted their butts receive these bonuses. They are well deserved.
For those that have deficient performance records, it’s also appropriate for punishments to be administered.
does anyone expect a 34 count felon ,and worse, to do anything( or promise) anything legal?
This guy is a demagogue; the very thing the Founding Fathers warned about, and tried to implement ample checks and balances in our system of self-government. Those guardrails are nearly all gone. Appeasement never works.
Pay ATC. Pay the active service members. Pay the TSA. The CPB (the folks who ‘welcome’ you at immigration, when you return from a nice trip overseas. Pay them all.
We abolished slavery. No one should work for free in this country.
We need better worker and consumer protections. Healthcare is a human right. Time for Progressives to lead. Enough uni-party mercenaries-for-billionaires corporate shills. It’s not a culture war; that’s a distraction; it’s always been a class war. Wake up.
I think the primary issue for the sick-out ATC Controllers – in their unprofessional minds – is that they work, and eventually will get paid, whereas all the furloughed non-essential folks get six weeks off, but will also get paid.
Seems like faulty logic. They are fortunate that there is an ATC shortage so that they don’t get the Ronald Reagan treatment.
He is a complee worthless fool, and everyone who voted for him!
@David — That’s a nice idea you got there… except, for as much as #47 pretends to care about ‘merit,’ and the working man, it’s all about ‘loyalty’ to him. Look no further than his entire cabinet from the first administration (#45). He’ll reward those who are ‘loyal’ to him personally, and punish those he (even wrongly) believes aren’t ‘loyal enough.’ It’s the whole anti-woke/’DEI’-lie all over again. It’s classic malignant narcissism. Facts and reality don’t matter to folks like that.
The reality is that we desperately need to retain, hire, and train more ATC, not ‘punish’ them. Watch today’s National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) press conference; Nick Daniels rightly said, “No American should ever be forced to work without a paycheck.” He also said of the pre-existing, severe staffing shortage, 3,800 certified professional controllers short and 91 percent of facilities do not have the proper staffing.
@Mark — The ‘faulty logic’ is that ATC are pawns in these situations; they shouldn’t be. Period. Stop threatening these essential workers within our industry. We need immediate, robust legislation that protects them in the future; that should be the bi-partisan solution that comes out of this mess.
Throughout my 45 years in business there have been situations in which people came to work, often in jobs that had to be done during difficult times and got a nice stipend in the end for doing so. Those that came in during a snowstorm. Those that worked Christmas and New Years Eve. If a controller came to work during this period, they should be rewarded. At some point a government shutdown will occur again and you’d like to encourage those providing critical services to slog it out.
Working when you’re not getting paid is tough. Most people don’t do their jobs for grandiose ideas. They do it because they have bills to pay and living expenses to cover.
“‘The President wouldn’t last five minutes as an air traffic controller’ is not a good take. Neither would Secretary Buttigieg.”
God help me for jumping in to defend Buttigieg of all people, but he doesn’t say that he would! He is saying that its a hard job and that we should have respect for the people who do it.
@1990 – Oh, here we go again… the tired “class war, billionaires bad, healthcare is a human right” sermon. Let’s start with that one. Healthcare isn’t a “right” if it requires forcing someone else to work or provide services on your behalf. A right is something you possess inherently, not something that demands another person’s labor. Calling it a “right” doesn’t make it free, it just hides who’s footing the bill.
And yes, we tried your dream version of government-run healthcare already. It’s called Obamacare. It was fully funded, subsidized, and force-fed to the country. Premiums skyrocketed, deductibles exploded, and competition vanished because the math doesn’t work when government bureaucrats set prices and insurers can’t operate under real market conditions. It didn’t fail for lack of funding, it failed because it ignored basic economics.
As for your “class war,” the only thing being destroyed is the middle class by the very regulations and taxes you cheer for. Every time progressives promise “protection,” they strangle opportunity. You don’t lift workers by punishing productivity. You don’t create fairness by making success a sin. You get growth by freeing people to build, compete, and keep what they earn. It’s not by chanting slogans about billionaires in between your Starbucks lattes and Amazon deliveries.
Get a life.
Grandpa yells at cloud again. He pays ICE thugs attacking law-abiding immigrants in blue cities, sent $40B of taxpayer dollars to Argentina that we’ll never see again, but he refused to pay such essential workers like Air Traffic Controllers. Donny is fully responsible for this situation.