The Mess at Airports Is Part of a Larger Pattern

On this much, there is bipartisan agreement: The Federal Aviation Administration is in a bad mess. “Someone should have seen this coming in the last administration,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy complained yesterday on CNBC. Regulators, pilots, controllers, airline executives, and outside observers all warned for years that the system was falling behind and running on outdated technology. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan broke a strike by air-traffic controllers demanding more favorable working conditions, firing some 11,000 controllers. The pattern of neglect observed at the FAA can be seen across the federal government.