Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The FAA is seeking out gamers to become air-traffic controllers. A video released by the federal Department of Transportation on Friday targeted the video-game enthusiasts as part of the government’s hiring surge aimed at adding close to 9,000 more air-traffic controllers by 2028. The video asks the gamers whether they’re “up for the challenge” of becoming an ATC but cautions that the job isn’t just a “game” — it’s a “career. “You’ll keep millions of people safe every day,” the video says, while touting average salaries of up to $155,000 by your third year on the job. The...

🚨 GREAT NEWS: Trump’s budget bill submitted to Congress today begins the process of PRIVATIZING TSA Airports taking part in a test program which TSA pays private screeners have ALREADY proven significant cost savings, per the White House PRIVATIZE IT! 🔥 WHITE HOUSE: “The Budget begins the privatization of TSA's airport screeners by requiring small airports to enroll in the Screening Partnership Program, under which TSA pays for private screeners at designated airports. The airports that already use this program have demonstrated savings compared to Federal screening operations. The move would yield cost savings compared to Federal screening and begin...

AIRLINES are heading into summer with a brutal fuel shock that is already forcing fare hikes, route cuts and fresh fears of travel chaos. A fast-moving supply squeeze has sent jet fuel prices soaring and rattled carriers on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, big airlines are already scrambling as costs surge, and executives warn the hit could last well beyond the busy travel season. The Argus US Jet Fuel Index, an industry benchmark tracking wholesale jet fuel prices, climbed to $4.57 a gallon on March 27. Meanwhile, the spot price for jet fuel in the US, the...

Wild footage shows three disgruntled women being hauled out of Miami International Airport in handcuffs after refusing to pay for extra luggage and storming onto a Philadelphia-bound flight. Nafisa Dockery, 30, Dionjana Cochran, 21, and Davana Cochran, 26 were all slapped with trespassing after a warning and resisting an officer charges over the Sunday night airport mayhem, according to arrest reports. The trio was waiting to board a Frontier Airlines flight when an employee noticed they didn’t pay for a second carry-on luggage item and asked that they step off the line and fork over the extra fee, authorities said,...

A Delta plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Brazil late Sunday after an apparent engine glitch sent flames and sparks shooting from the packed jet. Delta Flight DL104, which was bound for Atlanta with 272 passengers and 14 crew on board, suffered a mechanical issue with its left engine as it was taking off at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport. The airline blamed a “mechanical issue” for the wild mishap. “The Airbus A330-300 landed safely and was met by ARFF (Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting), then customers were taken by bus to the terminal,” a spokesperson said in...

TSA agents will start seeing paychecks drop in their bank accounts on Monday, a much-needed boost for stressed-out airport workers who have been caught up in a bitter political fight for more than 40 days. President Trump signed an order on Friday, using emergency powers to order the workers paid despite the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown. While Congress has failed to fund the rest of the department, TSA workers will get some relief, though other DHS workers are still unpaid. “Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately...

The US Senate has voted to end a partial 40-day government shutdown, approving funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - but with immigration enforcement excluded. The almost six-week funding lapse has had a knock-on effect on air travel in the US. Airport security workers' salaries are paid by the DHS, and hundreds have quit since the shutdown began. Democrats had refused to agree a funding deal without reforms to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, but the Senate reached unanimous agreement in the early hours of Friday morning after stripping ICE and parts of border protection...

With the Democrats' continued refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until their woke Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demands are met, President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening in a Truth Social post that he was signing an executive order directing DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA workers.Trump emphasized in his post that it was the Democrats' fault, led by Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), that Transportation Security Administration workers hadn't been paid, and that was because Democrats prioritize criminal illegal immigrants over American citizens:The Radical Left Democrats, and their “Leader,” Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, have made...

For weeks now, frustrated travelers trying to catch flights all over the United States have been caught in hours-long security-check lines as overwhelmed Transportation Security Administration agents were forced to work without pay. It’s not the first time that federal funding for TSA — a highly visible service that impacts millions of Americans daily — has been caught up in a political brawl in Congress, this time over immigration enforcement. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it never should have happened, not even once. That’s because taxpayers and travelers already pay for transportation security, not through their...

Breaking update: President Trump announced he has instructed the Department of Homeland Security to pay the TSA Agents. Trump said he will sign an order instructing DHS Chief Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents. “The Radical Left Democrats, and their “Leader,” Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, have made it very clear where they stand, and that is, ON THE SIDE OF CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, AND NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. They are refusing to fund Immigration Enforcement unless the Republicans agree to their Open Border Policies, which will never, ever happen again. They almost destroyed our Country, allowing 25 Million People to enter...

Americans are now seeing ICE agents as they shuffle through these historically long airport lines, not arresting and kidnapping! people, but handing out water bottles and shaking hands with the citizens they work to protect. The flame is burning at both ends for the Left: they’re defending illegal criminals at the expense of Americans, while ICE gets a PR boost for dissolving an airport bottleneck that Democrats created. ICE deployed to Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston has drastically improved security wait times — and more importantly, Americans are meeting these officers in the flesh, share a laugh, and realize that maybe...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel are equipped to assist airport screeners after receiving two days of training, the head of the Transportation Security Administration told lawmakers on Wednesday, who said the agents and officers are checking travelers’ identification and managing crowd control. Ha Nguyen McNeill, the current TSA chief, repeatedly expressed her gratitude to ICE for easing the burden on her workforce during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. The agency is facing severe shortages as employees increasingly call out due to the ongoing Homeland Security Department shutdown, which has forced staff to work without immediate pay. ICE began deploying...

The TSA showdown reveals a brutal truth about our politics America’s newest political battlefield runs through one of the most miserable places in the country: the airport.Democrats have held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid their ongoing war over ICE, and after a month without pay, TSA employees have started refusing to come to work. The result has been crippling delays at major airports, with waits stretching four hours or more and turning an already degraded flying experience into something closer to a public humiliation ritual.The GOP theoretically holds the levers of power, but in practice...

WASHINGTON — Airline passengers are experiencing some of the highest security wait times in the 25-year-history of the Transportation Security Administration — with some taking more than four-and-a-half hours to make it through checkpoints, a top official told Congress Wednesday. TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified to the House Homeland Security Committee that her beleaguered agency is “being forced to consolidate” and “may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.” “It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation. We understand this is frustrating and disruptive,” she added. “This is unacceptable.” More than 480 Transportation...

Travelers are waiting in 270-minute-long queues at America's busiest airports after nearly half the Transportation Security Administration officers called off work. Wait times have reached nearly five hours at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas after 42 percent of TSA staff called out Tuesday. Security queues snaked around the Houston airport and through an underground tunnel as staff warned travelers whose flights were departing 'soon' that they 'may not clear security in time,' CNN reported.Nearly 50 percent of staff at Houston's Hobby Airport called off Monday, but chaos has since calmed at the Southwest hub with security wait times...

The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that more than 400 Transportation Security Administration workers have quit their jobs so far since the start of the partial government shutdown last month. Airports nationwide are experiencing a TSA staffing shortage because workers are not being paid amid the shutdown, which began Feb. 14. President Donald Trump has sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports to help with the shortage. Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told The Hill that thousands of TSA employees have also used sick days because they are missing payments on things outside the workforce. The shortage...

WASHINGTON — Delta Air Lines is punishing Congress for failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The airline company has temporarily yanked its special congressional desk service to lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill until Congress finally funds the DHS, which has been in a partial shutdown since Feb. 28. “Due to the impact on resources from the longstanding government shutdown, Delta will temporarily suspend specialty services to members of Congress flying Delta,” the company said in a statement first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Democrats have refused to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). That helped to cause chaos at the airports after the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had hundreds of its employees quit because they weren't being paid. Then, too, some are calling in sick. The wait times to get through security ballooned up to hours, with mammoth lines. Not only that, but it puts all of us in a more dangerous situation when the whole of the DHS isn't being funded and protecting our security. Democrats put their political agenda against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over their...

LaGuardia Airport has now experienced two deadly tragedies exactly 34 years apart. A passenger plane was involved in a deadly smash-up at the Queens airport Sunday — the same date in 1992 that a jet crashed, killing 27 souls, as it attempted to take off from travel hub in a snowstorm. On March 22, 1992, Cleveland-bound USAir Flt. 405 tumbled off the runway and spiraled into Flushing Bay, killing more than two dozen of the 51 people on board, including the pilot, the New York Times reported at the time. “Every night, I close my eyes, and I keep seeing...

Captain Steeeve breaks down the tragic runway collision at LaGuardia Airport involving an Air Canada Express CRJ-900 and an airport fire vehicle. Late Sunday night, an arriving regional jet collided with a fire truck that had been cleared to cross the runway — with ATC audio capturing last-second calls to stop just moments before impact. The result was catastrophic, claiming the lives of both pilots and injuring dozens more. In this episode, Captain Steeeve walks through what we know so far, including the sequence of events, how runway incursions happen, and the multiple layers of safety that are designed to...