Sean Duffy Hiring Gamers As Air Traffic Controllers, Promises Them Sick Maps And Unlimited Health Points

Sick, bro.

Duffy with his son-in-law, who apparently just graduated high school.

Sean Duffy is many things: husband, father, former reality TV star, and the answer to the trivia question “Which Secretary of Transportation in our fair nation’s history most closely resembled a toilet scrub brush?”

However, he is not trustworthy, honest, or in possession of good judgment. So when he gets very excited about the hiring push he claims he’s making to get some new air traffic controllers into airport towers, everyone should still think twice before booking their next plane ticket. In fact, it’s Duffy, so maybe think five or six hundred times about it.

Duffy made this announcement on the Nazi hangout/CSAM site formerly known as Twitter. Because all his numbers come from the Trump administration, you should not trust them. In fact, you should actively sneer at Duffy for thinking anyone can trust him:

We don’t see why going fast here is supposed to impress us, even if air traffic control towers are badly understaffed. If there was ever a job for which we’d want someone to get thoroughly vetted even if it takes a little longer, it would be air traffic controller.

Second, people are going to make lots of jokes about recruiting gamers: Oh, finally getting them out of their parents’ basements, are we? Is everyone okay with all our air traffic controllers being virgins? You mean there’s a few of these guys who haven’t gone to prison for shooting up their high schools yet?

Personally, we are fine with gamers becoming ATCs. Gaming can require quick thinking and reflexes in a complex and fast-paced environment. Just so long as they understand they can’t play games while working like these two schmucks. It was just lucky for Flight 209 that there was a pilot on board.

So yes, gamers are fine, so long as they understand that if the plane crashes, it won’t respawn.

But The New Republic threw some cold water on Duffy’s announcement. For starters, prospective controllers need up to two years to be fully trained up, and one-third of them wash out. So even if DOT really has brought in over 2,000 trainees, you can assume that somewhere around 650 of them will be gone soon enough. The remaining 1,400 won’t be fully integrated into the system until 2028.

Second, the FAA announced in May that it wants to cut its “air traffic controller” staffing target by 2,000 bodies. This is despite the fact that there was already a nationwide ATC shortage. The FAA says “modernized staffing models” mean they can do with fewer controllers, but it seems as if they maybe they can’t. Even with the cuts, they’ll still be short around 1,800 controllers for nationwide staffing.

---

OH, SO NOW IT'S ILLEGAL TO GO ON FAMILY ROAD TRIPS?

Sean Duffy's Grifty, Corporate-Sponsored Road Trip Show Simply Proves Devotion To 'Transportation'

---

Finally, the “Academy” Duffy mentions? That would be the FAA’s training center in Oklahoma City. The center is already supposedly running at almost full capacity and still can’t turn out enough ATCs to keep up with the need. Also, fewer than 10 percent of people who apply to become ATCs meet the requirements and get sent to the training center.

So when Duffy says that applicants are making it to the training center faster than people before them, one has to ask if standards have been relaxed in the name of throwing some impressive-sounding numbers around. We wouldn’t put it past Duffy, who like all of Trump’s lickspittles, lives for Daddy’s approval.

We don’t know how Duffy has time to hire all these air traffic controllers in between taking his family on taxpayer-funded road trips and helping his dorky son-in-law campaign for his old House seat, as he was doing on Monday.

Typical young person today, needing a parent to accompany him to a job interview.

On second thought, maybe Duffy could take his family on a road trip for the next two years and leave someone who isn’t kind of an asshole in charge. Shoot, bring on one of those gamers he’s so proud of hiring. It couldn’t get any dumber.

OPEN THREAD.

[TNR / Simple Flying]

Support independent media by supporting Wonkette.