Delta’s CEO Pushes Back On Claims That Cuts To FAA Will Impact Safety Of Air Travel

Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian pushed back this week on claims from the political Left that President Donald Trump’s cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will impact air travel safety.

The comments from Bastian come after one of Delta’s planes was involved in an accident in Toronto this week during landing. The plane’s rear landing gear snapped upon impact, causing the plane’s wing to clip the ground and the jetliner to flip over.

Bastian appeared on “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday to address the recent plane crash at Toronto-Pearson International Airport, where a Delta flight from Minneapolis overturned while landing at the Canadian airport.

“Do those cuts worry you and do you think that impacts safety?” CBS News host Gayle King asked Bastian on “CBS Mornings.” “Do these cuts affect you?”

“The cuts do not affect us, Gayle,” Bastian responded. “I’ve been in close communication with the Secretary of Transportation. I understand that the cuts at this time are something that are raising questions, but the reality is there’s over 50,000 people that work at the FAA. And the cuts, I understand, were 300 people, and they were in non-critical safety functions.”

“The Trump administration has committed to investing deeply in terms of improving the overall technologies that are used in the air traffic control systems and modernizing the skies,” he continued. “They’ve committed to hiring additional controllers and investigators, and safety investigators. So no, I’m not concerned with that at all.”

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CBS’s Gayle King tries to blame Trump for the plane crashes, is debunked by Delta’s CEO pic.twitter.com/P9m5SxYKOQ

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Bastian said that the crew responded appropriately to the accident, which pilots continuously train to be prepared for.

“This is what we train for,” Bastian insisted. “We train for this continuously.”

He added that despite the accident last month in Washington, D.C., and some smaller crashes since then, flying remains “the safest form of transportation, period.”