White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre conveyed President Joe Biden‘s confidence in Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg after a federal agency-administered system outage grounded planes across the country for 90 minutes.
“Yes,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday after she was asked whether Biden remained confident in the former mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “He respects the secretary and the work he has been doing.”
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Jean-Pierre repeated that the Transportation Department has been “doing everything they can to make sure the experience Americans have is a good one” despite a number of problems notched under Buttigieg’s leadership. Buttigieg, for example, has been criticized for his response to Southwest Airlines‘s employee scheduling system meltdown last month, though that was not within his direct control.
Problems with the Federal Aviation Administration‘s Notice to Air Missions system were first noticed Tuesday before the federal agency grounded all planes from roughly 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Biden was advised of the order before it was rolled out.
“What you saw happen today was out of an abundance of caution, the action that was taken,” Jean-Pierre said.
Earlier in the briefing, the press secretary ensured reporters that the FAA and Transportation Department would “be transparent here about the causes” so that “a system failure of this magnitude does not happen again.” The FAA’s five-year congressional authorization is due for review in 2023.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), the new head of the panel, has implored Biden to reconsider his nominee to lead the FAA. He described Phil Washington, the CEO of Denver International Airport, as having a “troubling resume.”
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“While it appears at this time that the Notice to Air Missions — or NOTAM — system malfunction was not the result of a cybersecurity breach, it highlights a huge vulnerability in our air transportation system,” he wrote in a statement. “Just as Southwest’s widespread disruption just a few weeks ago was inexcusable, so too is the DOT’s and FAA’s failure to properly maintain and operate the air traffic control system.”
