During an interview with Hearst Television White House Correspondent Kalyn Norwood released on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that the cause of the recent series of close calls between airplanes “doesn’t seem to be any one individual piece of the system” and is “a combination” of issues, which “makes me think that there are issues with the entire system,” that might be due to the post-COVID travel surge.
Buttigieg said, “Well, the reason I’m most concerned is that it doesn’t seem to be any one individual piece of the system. If it was just controllers or just pilots or just ground crews having issues, then it would be more isolated. But actually, we’re seeing a combination of that. That makes me think that there are issues with the entire system, possibly related to the system quickly rebounding from having very little traffic during COVID, to having, in some cases, more demand than before right now.”
He also stated, “We know that maintaining a high safety record requires constantly revisiting every system that we have, going back to basics, and preparing for the future, which is going to bring a lot of change, making sure those changes lead to more and not less safety.”
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