We now officially have a new Transportation Secretary in the United States, and I imagine this will have some major implications for the airline industry…
In this post:
New Department of Transportation head confirmed
Sean Duffy has just been sworn in as Transportation Secretary, following a 77-22 vote during his Senate confirmation hearing, so he’ll now be leading the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Until recently, the 53-year-old was the co-host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business, as well as a Fox News contributor. Prior to that, he served as a Congressman from Wisconsin from 2011 until 2019, and before that, he served as District Attorney of Ashland County, Wisconsin. He first gained fame as a cast member of “The Real World.”
When President-Elect (at the time) Donald Trump nominated Duffy in mid-November 2024, the priority he put forward specifically for the airline industry is to eliminate DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers:
I am pleased to announce that former Congressman Sean Duffy, from the Great State of Wisconsin, is nominated to serve as the Secretary of Transportation. Sean has been a tremendous and well-liked public servant, starting his career as a District Attorney for Ashland, Wisconsin, and later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.
During his time in Congress, Sean was a respected voice and communicator in the Republican Conference, advocating for Fiscal Responsibility, Economic Growth, and Rural Development. Admired across the aisle, Sean worked with Democrats to clear extensive Legislative hurdles to build the largest road and bridge project in Minnesota History.
As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, Sean played a key role in shaping and strengthening Economic policies, and ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Government programs. Sean’s leadership extended to championing the needs of families, farmers, and small businesses, especially in rural communities.
He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports. He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers.
The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind.
Sean will use his experience and the relationships he has built over many years in Congress to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfill our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation. Importantly, he will greatly elevate the Travel Experience for all Americans!
Following his confirmation, Duffy has promised to focus on removing government overreach and lowering costs:
I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me by President Trump to lead this important Department and for the Senate in swiftly confirming my nomination. We are already hard at work executing the President’s vision to usher in a golden age of transportation by taking immediate action to remove government overreach and lower costs for hardworking Americans.
His first agenda item has been to reduce fuel standards that he claims have driven up the cost of cars.
What will happen at the DOT under Duffy?
Obviously the country is very divided. We all have our own beliefs, but let me try to share my take on this in a respectful and reasonably balanced way, and I’d ask others to do the same.
First of all, it’s important to acknowledge that the job of the Transportation Secretary goes way beyond just the airline and aviation industry, but of course that’s what I’m heavily focused on, given that it’s what the blog is about (so I won’t be talking about other vital infrastructure investments, which I think are also incredibly important).
Under the first Trump administration, we had Elaine Chao as Transportation Secretary. If you ask me, Chao more or less maintained the status quo, especially with airlines, and didn’t really rock the boat. I’d describe the DOT as being pretty hands off under her leadership. That’s not necessarily good or bad, but I doubt most people would disagree.
Then under the Biden administration, we had Pete Buttigieg as Transportation Secretary. Personally I’m a huge Buttigieg fan — not everyone agrees on his legacy at the DOT, though I think we can all agree that he most definitely didn’t take a hands off approach with airlines.
Whether we’re talking about airline partnerships, or mergers, or frequent flyer programs, or holding airlines accountable for meltdowns, the DOT took a much more active role under Buttigieg. Of course we also saw our aviation sector struggle with all kinds of staff shortages. Fortunately hiring of air traffic controllers has been ramped up considerably, but there’s not much instant gratification there, as the training process takes years.
So, what are my expectations with Duffy leading the DOT?
- As much as Trump is an airline guy (in the sense that he briefly had an airline, and has also chimed in a lot on the industry), I don’t think aviation is going to be one of his major priorities
- We still need a massive overhaul of our air traffic control system, so it doesn’t particularly instill confidence that Trump seemingly just focuses on DEI, rather than otherwise rebuilding our system
- I’d expect the Trump administration to generally intervene less when it comes to consolidation, frequent flyer programs, etc., for better or worse
Perhaps one interesting thing to consider is what airline executives have had to say. For example, Delta CEO Ed Bastian has commented on the “overreach [the] industry has experienced over the past four years,” referring to regulators. So yeah, if airline CEOs are happy about a certain person leading the DOT, I’ll leave it to everyone to decide for themselves whether that’s good or bad for consumers.
The good news is that for the most part, the DOT has historically made fairly bipartisan decisions, which is to say that I haven’t noticed any extreme differences toward airlines based on the political party. For example, going back many years, both the the Obama and Trump administrations weren’t onboard with the rhetoric of the “Open Skies.”
We’ve certainly seen airlines have proposals rejected under one administration, and then see them try their luck again with a new administration, so that’s certainly possible. But I can’t say I’ve noticed a huge systematic difference at the DOT depending on the party.
I could certainly see more airline consolidation activity under Trump than under Biden, but that goes beyond the Department of Transportation.
Bottom line
Sean Duffy has been confirmed as the new Transportation Secretary, replacing Pete Buttigieg. He’s a former Fox News star, Congressman, District Attorney, and reality TV star.
Historically the DOT hasn’t been swayed too much by politics, though I would expect that there will be some significant changes compared to the Biden administration, as the most recent DOT took one of the most active roles that we’ve ever seen.
What do you make of Sean Duffy being confirmed as Transportation Secretary?
Trump likes reality TV and its stars, hence another appointee without any relevant experience or qualifications. Isn't the goal to privatize FAA?
Well looks like the new DOT secretary is about to find out he might need to change his priorities from fuel economy standards to aviation safety.
Horrible news. Just watching the press conference.
The TDS is alive and well with many of these comments..Maybe the money saved from ditching the "DEI" nonsense will go towards new equipment for air traffic controllers....
Not at all. You have all branches of govt and you also have all billionaires, even the liberal ones bent the knee. Enjoy!
If the majority wants a squid-game style joy out of seeing many ppl lose their careers and livelihood, be it. If we r too blind to understand the ripple effect of their unemployment will have on the economy, then be it. When our supreme leader and oligarch mock-tweet those who are forced...
Not at all. You have all branches of govt and you also have all billionaires, even the liberal ones bent the knee. Enjoy!
If the majority wants a squid-game style joy out of seeing many ppl lose their careers and livelihood, be it. If we r too blind to understand the ripple effect of their unemployment will have on the economy, then be it. When our supreme leader and oligarch mock-tweet those who are forced to resign, and ppl don’t see anything wrong in that, it shows that we as a society are unethical, inhumane and morally bankrupt.
Let the new head of DOT roll back policies that guarantee refunds and compensation so that execs get bigger bonuses!
Dee your boy Agent Orange isn’t about to help lower income / lower education folks like yourself. But congrats, you voted for the con man Enjoy the “rewards”.
His first actions are not even vaguely reassuring - toeing the line for the industries that own Trump, and harming society in the process. If that's day 1, hard to hold out much hope for anything else he does. Never mind the absolute zero qualifications he brings to the job.
“I’m a huge Pete Buttigeg fan “ lmfao no $hit.
Is this the worst gay joke anyone has ever attempted? I hope you aren't laughing your ass off, it's pretty dumb.
I'd love Ben to explain his love affair with Pete. We should all be relieved that he is no longer head of transportation.
Tell us you’re a bigot without saying you’re a bigot
"he will make our skies safe again"
I'm sorry, are we currently in danger when we fly?
China only looks calmly and happily at the decline of a US that fights even with historical allies and is increasingly isolated from the world.
The US is on the edge of the precipice, with Trump they will take a step forward.
One step forward, off the precipice and into the chasm. Correct.
Lucky - a very well-written, balanced piece. Thank you for your objectivity.
Affirmative action for mediocre white guys
Correct Ben. As is regularly the case.
Pretty much. At least Duffy has experience as an elected official and served on some House committees though, which is more than anybody can say for freaking Hegseth. And Bondi's just a yes girl that hitched herself to Trump to further her own career. Every Senator who voted to nominate those fools needs to be voted out of office, and we haven't even gotten to Tulsi "Russian Asset" Gabbard or Kash "What's Foreign Airspace?" Patel.
THANK YOU !
The big 4 want the DOT to quit trying to create their own service regulations which are counter to the Airline Deregulation Act. It is certain that a whole lot of the interpretations and regulations of airline service culture, whether you like them or not, will be rolled back and the DOT, at least from an airline standpoint, will return to dealing with safety.
If Duffy and the DOT can fix the ATC errors and...
The big 4 want the DOT to quit trying to create their own service regulations which are counter to the Airline Deregulation Act. It is certain that a whole lot of the interpretations and regulations of airline service culture, whether you like them or not, will be rolled back and the DOT, at least from an airline standpoint, will return to dealing with safety.
If Duffy and the DOT can fix the ATC errors and properly staff the place to allow airlines to use all of the runway and airport capacity rather than for ATC capacity to be the limiting factor, they will have succeeded.
and it is highly unlikely that there will be mergers beyond NK and F9 because none other make sense for the public.
Even B6, which is the most likely to need a merger, says they will explore partnerships that are allowable under the DOJ's win against the NEA.
B6 would be happy if they could get an AA/AS style partnership with AA and or AS - but they cannot take the time to fight for an NEA-style partnership that is and will still be counter to US antitrust principles which, as noted, have not dramatically changed regardless of political party
Tim: "If Duffy and the DOT can fix the ATC errors and properly staff the place to allow airlines to use all of the runway and airport capacity rather than for ATC capacity to be the limiting factor, they will have succeeded."
We'd all like Duffy to succeed in this area, however if he's trying to increase staffing he'll come up against another guy called Musk who's responsible for reducing costs across government.
ronnie,
nowhere has Trump or Musk said they are opposed to funding essential government services. They want to eliminate waste and it should be clear what they consider waste... ATC is not it.
The FAA has been funded for 5 years -beyond the time Trump is in office anyway. ATC staffing is in that funding. The FAA has just not been able for one reason or another to staff its facilities and to get controller proficiency where it needs to be.
No, they want to give the appearance of caring about eliminating waste. There is a big difference.
@Timm Dunn How optimistic of you to think Melon Husk or the Felon can differentiate one FAA employee from another. I saw first-hand how Twitter turned into a dumpster fire under Melon's management. I doubt he's gotten better since then in figuring out what "essential" looks like. Also, they just announced a hiring freeze for all executive branch positions, which includes ATC controllers. They're under the FAA, which is part of the executive branch.
So we let private companies walk all over ppl - no regulations, no consumer protection. All for the sake of pleasing the board and shareholders. Meanwhile let’s fire half of the government out of spite and not worry about how many homes will be destroyed and the ripple effect to the economy.
What over reach did he DOT do under Secretary Pete? Making airlines take responsibility for their negligence? Be very careful whenever management of a multibillion $$ outfit tells you the government is over reaching. Rest assured these entities do not have consumer best interests at heart.
Bastian didn't take responsibility for his airline's meltdown until the DOT forced him to start refunding airfares for stranded passengers. So yes, in the perspective of at least Delta's CEO, making airlines take responsibility for their negligence was considered "overreach."
LOL
what will happen to the fee disclosure law for airlines?
When Trump called several countries "shit countries" in his first term, he was clearly referring to the US. What an embarrassment and joke America is. It is led by a cabal of criminality, greed, and a degree of provinciality never before seen. Years ago, I left the US for good and I am glad I did.
I have to add, it’s very sad since there are millions of great hard working cultured Americans. Great theatre, music, art and literature - none of which Trump has any interest in. There are stupid people everywhere, however the US has the stupidest in addition to their racist Christian taliban.
America's culture is based on the worship of money.
Yes Lady, that is correct. But here's the thing, the rest of the world envies us and is quickly heading towards adopting most everything negative in my country including the worship of $$
Definitely don't disagree with what you said. But let's not forget the US was founded hundreds of years ago through slavery, rape, murder and theft.
We have hardly ever had a clean bill of health and conscience.
And as such, America has no business telling the rest of the world how to run their affairs, or proclaim itself the beacon of democracy or heaven forbid,
the greatest nation the world has ever seen. America First is nonsense and a pack of jingoistic lies. Get over yourselves.
Well, we can tell the rest of the world as we have been footing the bill. When we stop footing the bill, then you would be right to tell us stop telling the world what to do.
While a functionally illiterate, convicted felon, a sheer buffoon is now the POTUS, not all of us vote for this clown.
Footing the bill? A powerful and supremely false statement. But The Leader loves you for your support of his oft-repeated slogans.
@Chuck Yes, the modern world owes its rising standards of living and relative peace to post-WWII institutions and rules founded and enforced primarily by the US, UK, and France. Without those navies, and now pretty much just the US Navy, keeping sea lanes open and pushing back when other countries *cough* People's Republic of China *cough* try to claim international waters as their national territory or when groups like Iran or the Houthis try to...
@Chuck Yes, the modern world owes its rising standards of living and relative peace to post-WWII institutions and rules founded and enforced primarily by the US, UK, and France. Without those navies, and now pretty much just the US Navy, keeping sea lanes open and pushing back when other countries *cough* People's Republic of China *cough* try to claim international waters as their national territory or when groups like Iran or the Houthis try to block shipping from transiting major sea lanes, it's the US Navy first and foremost that's protecting that shipping. We spend a lot of money on that capability, far and above our next several allies combined. Most people don't understand how globalized trade has become thanks to that security, and thus how rapidly everything will fall apart if China, Iran, the Houthis, or Russia can close vital sea lanes at random as part of their political games. Hell, the Ukraine war nearly did cause a massive food shortage for African and middle Eastern countries in 2022-23. While Ukraine still has most of its arable land, the Russian military severely cut Ukraine's grain exports because the Black Sea turned into a combat zone.
You mean the rules that caused US, UK, France to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators who oppressed, starved, tortured, and killed their own population? Here's your first lesson in Real American History - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c.
US' ill-informed and misguided foreign policy is min 70% responsible for the threats US faces today. Go and watch Charlie Wilson's War. Even though dramatized it provides lot of truth on why Al Qaeda got founded.
Just...
You mean the rules that caused US, UK, France to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators who oppressed, starved, tortured, and killed their own population? Here's your first lesson in Real American History - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c.
US' ill-informed and misguided foreign policy is min 70% responsible for the threats US faces today. Go and watch Charlie Wilson's War. Even though dramatized it provides lot of truth on why Al Qaeda got founded.
Just like British schools don't teach horrors of the Raj's brutal colonial history, US schools don't teach the truth of US' history post WW2.
@Ole I agree with you that the US did a lot of shitty things during the Cold War in a misguided attempt to prevent the spread of communism. You also know as well as I do that the rules-based order ensuring freedom of navigation and free trade that I'm talking about is not the same as the containment policy against communism.
I will push back on your comment about foreign policy though. It is partially...
@Ole I agree with you that the US did a lot of shitty things during the Cold War in a misguided attempt to prevent the spread of communism. You also know as well as I do that the rules-based order ensuring freedom of navigation and free trade that I'm talking about is not the same as the containment policy against communism.
I will push back on your comment about foreign policy though. It is partially why South America and other places are a mess today, sure, but you're forgetting that those were countries with their own governments, militaries, and intelligence services. All of those were staffed by people, and people have agency. While the US did influence things, a lot of South American countries were nearly as polarized as the US during the Cold War and members in those militaries and intelligence services didn't need US funding or approval to act against what they deemed subversives. Many South American countries for example already cooperated with each other to combat "Marxist elements" for years prior to Operation Condor for example.
Also, I love that that video includes Chad, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya as examples of supposed US oppression and overthrowing democratically elected governments. Nevermind that Chad had been in the middle of a violent civil war for years and Gaddafi was drooling to annex it (remember, a big part of the post-WWII rules-based order was NOT annexing your neighbors, because that's how we got the LAST world war). Nevermind that Afghanistan had undergone two coups and a Soviet invasion prior to US involvement, nevermind that Saddam was Iraq's dictator for 23 years and done plenty of horrible things to his own people and his neighbors, nevermind that Gaddafi had been a sponsor of terrorism against the western countries for decades and also done his share of repression and persecution.
And no, just because you didn't read it doesn't mean it wasn't in your textbook. My school history textbooks and memoirs available in my school libraries had plenty of information about the awful things the US did in Central and South America. If you didn't read it because it wasn't on the test, or forgot it right afterwards, that's on you. And I'd far rather the US be the global hegemon than say, the PRC, because at least in the US (for now) we can read and talk about shitty things our government does in the open and criticize them for it. Try criticizing the PRC in China for June 4th 1989 and see how it goes for you.
@Dusty, your arguments will be valid if US had gotten involved in those countries purely from humanitarian point of view. But it didn’t. US went in with commercial interests under the veil of national security. Put simply, it had no freaking business throwing Gaddafi or Saddam out. It is up to the people of those countries.
With the country’s blatant right wing shift pushed by minority, what if a foreign government instigates “regime” change in...
@Dusty, your arguments will be valid if US had gotten involved in those countries purely from humanitarian point of view. But it didn’t. US went in with commercial interests under the veil of national security. Put simply, it had no freaking business throwing Gaddafi or Saddam out. It is up to the people of those countries.
With the country’s blatant right wing shift pushed by minority, what if a foreign government instigates “regime” change in US. Will that be acceptable to you or any American?
That’s my point. I can’t screw up the life and then complain/whine my life is screwed. 2 wrongs don’t make it right. US is probably as big a human rights abuser as any out there, only difference is it abuses rights of citizens of other countries and not its own.
@Ole You've lost your mind if you think we went regime-changed Libya or Iraq for the oil, good lord. We have more oil in the US than we know what to do with, and we've been one of if not the top producer globally since WWII. We went into Iraq in '90 because Iraq invaded Kuwait, violating as I said one of the highest principles of the post-WWII order: No border changes. We went in...
@Ole You've lost your mind if you think we went regime-changed Libya or Iraq for the oil, good lord. We have more oil in the US than we know what to do with, and we've been one of if not the top producer globally since WWII. We went into Iraq in '90 because Iraq invaded Kuwait, violating as I said one of the highest principles of the post-WWII order: No border changes. We went in a second time in '03 because we were already in Afghanistan following 9/11 and the Bush admin thought that flipping middle Eastern dictatorships and turning them into democracies would curtail middle-Eastern terrorism, and Iraq would be a good starting point because it was a shell of it's 1990 strength. The invasion and nation-building project was horrendously botched yes, but amazingly Iraq actually is a relatively stable democracy at this point. Libya was honestly more justified given the pro-democracy anti-Gaddafi protests that Gaddafi was violently cracking down on to hold on to power. No western country, not just the US, was sad to see Gaddafi go, but these were the citizens wanting and initiating the change, risking their lives to do so, so who are you to blame the US for helping them overthrow a violent and repressive dictator?
This also goes back to the other thing I mentioned. People in these countries have agency. They don't need the CIA to instigate revolutions, the Arab Spring for example happened because of widespread discontent with the authoritarian governments by those they ruled. If NATO doesn't put a no-fly zone over Libya, Gaddafi just bombs the dissidents with his air force until somebody assassinates him. Without the benefit of hindsight, is that better than NATO hamstringing the dictator in hopes that removing him will put someone better in charge? Just look at Syria and all the shit we know Assad was doing between the Arab Spring uprising and finally getting deposed last year. Maybe if Obama had taken harder actions against Assad much of that suffering would have been averted. Or maybe not, maybe it had to drag out this long for the current leaders to have discovered this novel way of getting more popular support, "being nice to people". Point is, governments, populations, and organizations are not all puppets with the US pulling the strings. We can influence them to one degree or another, but their decisions are their own.
The world is laughing.
Trump is fascist who wants to take over Greenland which has been a Danish territory for hundreds of years whilst stating he knows nothing about its history, and mentioned his intent on invading Panama. Health is run by a Covid conspiracy theorist and AIDS HIV denier. He wants all his cronies in charge, suspending aid from the likes of wheels on meals to cancer research. Immigration officials raiding schools.
...The world is laughing.
Trump is fascist who wants to take over Greenland which has been a Danish territory for hundreds of years whilst stating he knows nothing about its history, and mentioned his intent on invading Panama. Health is run by a Covid conspiracy theorist and AIDS HIV denier. He wants all his cronies in charge, suspending aid from the likes of wheels on meals to cancer research. Immigration officials raiding schools.
His entire policy is based on xenophobia.
Imagine what’s going to happen to transport, run by a reality tv personality.
Well put and so sadly true. He and his minions are destroying a once great nation.
9 kids. Bonkers.
Because apparently using contraceptives is against god's will but popping the blue pills isn't.